A leading scientist has spoken out to condemn NASA’s plan to develop a fractional lightspeed probe to explore planets orbiting Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun. Instead, he claims, the money that will be spent on the 50-year mission would be better invested in developing a tool to dice mangoes.
Speaking at the Annual Tropical Fruit Canning and Distribution Forum in Banstead, Dr Rodney Tomkins hit out at what he called ‘the cult of speculative high-risk low-reward science’, when there are more pressing needs here on Earth, such as the mango, which Tomkins believes the space research agency could solve with just a fraction of the cash that the near-star fly-by project would consume.
It’s widely known that Dr Tomkins has been wrestling with the mango dicing conundrum for years. His Ph.D in Tropical Fruit Dissection has become the industry bible. But few were prepared for what happened next. To gasps from the audience of leading fruit processing experts from Surrey and neighbouring counties, Dr Tomkins revealed his (non-functioning) life-size model for a hand-held mango dicing machine. According to Tomkins, a working prototype could be built ‘within a couple of years’ capable of dicing up to three single ripe mangoes per minute, while keeping the operator’s hands clean for other tasks. But that – the doctor claims - would just be the start. Dr Tomkins is confident that within five years, with sufficient funding, a more sophisticated machine could be built that would be capable of the holy grail – ‘Skin, dice and de-core’ all in one operation.
Wrapping up his talk, Dr Tomkins gave attendees a vision of hope for the future. "Before the probe reaches the outer limits of Alpha Centauri, perhaps even before it is halfway to its destination, we could have the mango dicing problem well and truly beaten. If we act now. Let's fund this thing. Envelopes are by the door."