Sounds about right... tax payer dollars hard at work there.
JSmith
A little more information (shouldn't be necessary but based on the comment):
So, you don't think that was funded by those of us that were there? (10,000 men & 4000 women): The Australian jet was leased.
There was ZERO civilian communications other than local cell phones (no communications off the island due to the severe expense of bandwidth).
AT&T was the communications monopoly. (You could, if you had money way above what you were getting for being there. And could for very short periods of time like in one minute blocks, if you were willing to pay for it [investing in leasing a round trip for beer on a jet was cheaper])
I'm guessing that you have never been in a place that basically had NO communication with the outside world.
It could be done but at great expense.
Teletype, remember that?
There were 3 LOCAL TV channels. All run by the same people. There seemed to be a Star Trek Channel, a sports Channel & on that seemed to have some children's dinosaur ("Barney"?) on it any time it was switched on.
If there was a death, extreme illness or a horrific accident in your family somewhere off Island, the Red Cross would get notification to one of the ships captains who would then relay that information to someone on shore, who would then get it to you.
Been Eclipsed lately?
For those that do not know (and care to): the Location
Algol Perseus is:
Perseus and Medusa from
Uranographia by
Johannes Hevelius.
Image via
Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
Bottom line: Algol has the nickname the Demon Star because it represents the head of Medusa.
This variable star probably intrigued the ancients with its fluctuating behavior. (Are you an Ancient, too? [Intriguing, I think])
The Demon Star brightens and dims with clockwork regularity.
SCIENCE (like it or not, it's a large part of ASR) tells us this:
It’s an
eclipsing binary star. This kind of
binary star is composed of two stars, with each star revolving around the other.
From Earth, we see the orbital plane of this binary star almost exactly edge-on. Therefore, when the dimmer of the
two stars swings in front of the brighter star, we see Algol at minimum brightness.
It completes one cycle in 2 days, 20 hours and 49 minutes.
I sense a dichotomy here.