I Don’t Want to Get My Hopes Up, but…
by Chris on Jan.14, 2004, under Events and General Thoughts
President Bush Announces New Vision for Space Exploration Program
Choice Quote:
_Now is a bad time to do it_Now is always a bad time to do it.
Do it anyway.
I can only sit by and hope…
5 comments for this entry:
January 15th, 2004 on 8:46 am
Of course it’s always a bad time to do it. It costs a lot of money and there are a lot of problems to deal with right here on Earth to which that money could be put to good use. However, reading over some of the figure they quotes (like $12 billion dollars this year to NASA) made me think that wow, that’s significantly less than the $300 billion dollars the US government spent for 2003 alone on the military to fight wars to protect themselves from invisible enemies and small, poor, defenseless third world countries. So it seems like now would be a good time because it might be better if the US government focused more on progressive things, like space exploration and development, then regressive things, like useless wars (note that I am not denying the existence of useful wars; there have been some, but I don’t think the present ones are). I think that is definitely a step in the right direction, toward knowledge and away from violence. Although I must admit, I’m not in favor missions that explore whether or not ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space. Any Simpsons fans out there? (Please also note that I refered to the US government and not the US people.)
January 17th, 2004 on 1:07 am
In all energy allocation, you’ll always have to balance the future payoff with the current social bootstrap requirements, and this holds especially for a space program. Immediate whiz-bang payoff is a most uncertain thing in the dangerous political and physical world of climbing to the stars. I must admit this can be seen as an excellent PR move by Bush and Co., but hopefully enough comes out of it to at least give NASA a glimmer of hope and credibility again.
As a slight aside, from a purely economic viewpoint, commercial space ventures (think Neuromancer), once feasible, should allow us to leapfrog in both the technological and humanistic fronts for some time.
Vive la Resistance!
January 17th, 2004 on 8:05 am
I agree on both points—in fact, if properly subdivided. all three of them. Future payoff is the most significant one imaginable: If you look at the truly long term, the planet on which we live is not a permanent thing, and will inevitably become uninhabitable over the course of its existence.
Politically and PR-wise, yes, it is. And it’s encouraging to me, too, for all that i don’t vote in that country. On my side of the border, we tend to get pulled along, and if that means we’re pulled into space, too, well then sign me up!
Commercially, well, two words: Space Elevator.
That’s what we need.
January 17th, 2004 on 2:55 pm
The space elevator is the one thing that makes me itch to switch into Eng Phys.
January 23rd, 2004 on 3:37 pm
Who’s flowchart?