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Re: [ARSCLIST] NASA (and beyond, far beyond!)
Oh, you ain't so cranky... ;-)
But I spend a lot of my life reading, and a lot of that very
intelligent science fiction. I live in the dream of humanity exploring
planets and star systems far far away - I know, nothing any of us will
see in a lifetime, but the future is totally open ended. I'd rather see
money well spent on paving the road, so to speak, to the stars, even if
it is thousands of years away. Better than spending money and lives
murdering humans for the oil they stand on which will run out IN our
lifetimes! I never bought the argument that space research money would
be better spent on education and human welfare - because the space
budget has always been less than one percent, and with warfare taking
about 30% the argument is specious.
I agree, we should not take moneyo ut of automatic probes, but we ought
to take half the war department budget and spend that on advancing
humaity to the stars...
Okay, this is off topic, but if they can't even keep track of moon
videos, what will they be doing with that NASA budget? Building Buicks
to go to the moon??? (the space shuttle is so primitive it is
embarrassing - I mean, foam blocks? Give me a break, they need
titanium, insulated with vacuum like thermos bottles! I knew THAT as a
teenager.) I set my sights much, much higher. But then I am an idealist
from the start... and humans must get over their petty territiorial
squabbles and killings and start looking to the universe. The payoff
will be much better - scientific developments as offshoots from space
projects is a huge benefit, even if Radar was devwloped to kill
people... Teflon was invented to make their lives easier, in the space
age.
and imagine space telescopes traveling lightyears and sending pictures
back from otherwise unkowable perspectives - Hubble is a baby step! And
I love the Hubble images, with the Atsronomy Picture of the day my home
page...
Ah well, even intelligent people think I'm a bit wierd. Rant mode off/
<L>
Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689
On Aug 15, 2006, at 3:52 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
No, sometimes I probably just sound like a cranky old man!
Hey, if the president has his way with the national treasure, we will
be blowing large clumps of money in the near future to go back for ...
what??? Let's be honest here. The moon shot was an amazing
technological feat, but its true aim was politics -- to get there
before the USSR, and to get them to blow a large chunk of their more
limited resources (and they took the bait, just like they did with the
Reagan military build-up). Sure, we made some discoveries and took
some great photos, and proved human enginuity is amazing, but do we
really have the national will or treasure to repeat the same steps
again, in these times? I'd argue, no. And I really can't see any
reason to send people to Mars. Every probe sent there says the same
thing -- there ain't a lot of there there as far as anything
beneficial or economically useful. That's a lot of money to spend for
a geology lesson. Meanwhile, NASA really has gotten better at unmanned
probes and they are best equipped of all government agencies to get
some better science on the atmosphere and climate change. That's where
the national treasure should be spent. I say, pull out of the space
station, retire the shuttles after one more big mission -- repairing
Hubble again so it'll go another decade or two -- and then get out of
the manned space flight business.