Gotta really appreciate everyone that put in the effort to make this particular project not a horrific, graphic failure. Of course the science returns haven't come in yet and there's still plenty to go wrong but at least it got off the ground and unfolded.
This was a lot of money for some very pure science. If it had blown up on the launch pad (a French launch pad, where government employees were presumably paid to be on a tropical island in December) it would have been Exhibit A in the case against government funding of science for the next 50 years.
the French launch pad isn't on an island, but rather in the continental South America, at the start of the rain season, so it's not exactly my type of dream posting
This was a lot of money for some very pure science. If it had blown up on the launch pad (a French launch pad, where government employees were presumably paid to be on a tropical island in December) it would have been Exhibit A in the case against government funding of science for the next 50 years.