Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport

thrasymachus writes "Buzz Aldrin has an editorial in the New York Times (free reg req) advocating a spaceport at a Lagrange point between the Earth and the moon over simply more moon missions. He emphasizes the cost and practicality of such a station, as well its potential as a 'bridge to the heavens.'"

Comments

A bridge to the heavens is inaccurate

[Adam Rightmann]

While I'm certainly in favor of a large scale rampup of the American manned space program, including colonies on the Moon, and on Mars for a variety of reasons (getting humanity off the Earth, spreading American ideals of human rights, equality and economic freedom, and gaining the military high ground to secure American freedoms against Oriental expansion), calling L5 a bridge to heavens is inaccurate, it may be a poetic metaphor, but I expect better of our level headed engineer trained astronauts.

There is only one Heaven, and you get there by following the True Church. So, let's just call L5 a bridge to the continued Pax Americana (which, to be true, is close to a heaven on Earth, for those who like freedom, equality, liberty and guns).

Re:I pay my taxes knowingly and willingly

[bfree]

You better watch out, you just posted on /. that you have a hideous record on the front of performing your civic duty of paying taxes, the taxman is coming!

Seriously, this indicates the role society plays in interpreting language. Only someone who understands that the most Americans view politics as a straightforward battle between 2 parties could ever interpret the parent post as intended. It also illustrates the sort of nightmares any attempts at computerised natural language processing will have.