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Bush's Space Panel Seeks Public Input
brandido writes "Space.com is reporting that Bush's space panel is seeking public input on the effort to return to the Moon and then reach Mars. From the article: "President Bush's new space advisory commission for getting humans to the Moon and Mars has launched a web site seeking public input with the promise of reading all comments." The article provides a link to the website for Bush's Space Panel, but it does not provide a direct link to the site for sending comments. I personally think we should use a Martian Space Elevator to further our exploration of Mars."
Sounds to me like bush is trying to bring back the pride we had back in the 60's during the race to the moon agains the USSR. We don't have a major competitor anymore, so now they're trying to get people on the bandwagon again.
My ghEtt0 webpage.
...they aren't really sure if it is worth doing and will only move ahead if they get permission.
Talk to the public that's already shown animosity to the plan! Great idea, guys!
Goo goo g'joob.
I personally think we should use a Martian Space Elevator to further our exploration of Mars.
Or how about a direct cable elevator from earth to mars - yeh, that would work
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
The thing is the cost of atmospheric launches against the cost of pushing up in a vaccuum. Instead of costing $10k per kilo, it's $1k per kilo.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
I mean, we can barely keep the ISS running, and our current space program is hurting significantly. So when my back is against a wall like that, i think i too would come out with crazy plans like this.
Not to mention the costs that it would have, NASA budget doubled for like 5 years when the appolo missions were going on.
Dont get me wrong I am not anti-NASA, I am just anti-mars right now. We could use that money for more important things.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
But what if the public tell them that science would be better served by robotic exploration, and that he should prioritise the economy and public services here on earth? Would that make a difference?
We know they have WMDs. (hello! all that Radiation doesn't just fall out of the sky! they are hiding something)
Soon all martians and moonmen will know what it is to live in a democracy (whether they like it or not!)
~note all in jest.
I cheer Bush's decision to advance our space program. However, hasn't the current Mars program been pretty successful?
Let's use the money to build a shuttle replacement. Right now we are talking to Russia about transporting our guys up and down?
Pour the money into a more efficent, safer transport system... Considering the huge amount of debt we are in now, methinks that is a better use of our money.
We are kicking Mars's ass right now.
AC
George, why don't you go yourself? You'll get the chance to explore Mars yourself - what greater mark can a man make on the human species than to be the first to set foot on anotehr planet? Right after Neil Armstrong in the history books, kids will find George Dubya.
Now, as for your first travelling companion. Look, we know you two guys haven't gotten on well in the past, but we think Saddam and you've got a lot of common attributes. In the right setting, we think you could achieve wonders together.
We reckon there's gonna be oil on Mars. Now, to make things easier for you, here's a map of where to start looking. Saddam's gonna start on one side of Mars, and you can start on the other. Whoever gets the most oil, wins. Yep, just like here on Earth.
All those other guys? Oh, they're the management consultants and hairdressers. We know you're gonna need a lot of them around.
Bye now. Y'all have a nice trip
What's that? Oh sure, we've packed enough fuel so you can get back, don't worry about that...
The only way this is going to work is if Bush can demonstrate that Al Quaeda is building an Islamic rocket that will take the word of the Prophet to Mars. The space race of the 60's was about nationalistic pride, but these days, who are we trying to beat? The French? The Indians? The Martians?
The current enthusiasm for space is nice, and gratifying to us geeks, but it's based on not a lot more than thin air. One serious budget crisis, one change of president, and it'll be cancelled.
Just my 2c.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Kill the mars program and fix the Hubble.
We will go more places this way.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Marvellous.
A real attempt to try and include people in the decision making by allowing them a way to comment.
Then it gets posted to Slashdot.
Then the trolls flood the comments mailbox with irrelevant drivel.
Then they stop reading the comments because the signal to noise ratio is too poor.
This is a real opportunity. Don't screw it up.
Why not just cut military expenditure and fund the whole Bush 'Here, look at the left hand, ignore the right hand, yes, just the left hand.'?
Seriously, US military expenditure could be cut massively and while I don't agree with why Bush is doing the Mars program I do agree it should go ahead.
No clue why I had to Thndercat up the title, go figure.
I know someone from the space programme in the 1960s - a man named Gene Kranz, who was (maybe still is) a member of the flying club I was a member of when I lived in Houston. Gene Kranz, if you don't remember, is the "Failure is not an option" man from the Apollo 13 mission when it all went pear-shaped.
He did a talk for the whole club about the Apollo programme, and why what's happening in today's NASA is happening. The talk was in 2000, so this was before the Columbia break-up. His analysis was basically society as a whole and by consequence NASA was now too risk averse to do anything exciting in space. The irony is that the risk aversion in NASA is actually a risk in itself, and contributed to the Challenger accident (and now the Columbia one as we've seen in the reports).
Bush's speech is all well and good, but I'm highly skeptical that anything will come of it. Going to Mars will be a very dangerous mission. Going to the Moon was very dangerous, and it's surprising that there were so few casualties in the Apollo programme. I don't think NASA has the guts to stomach these risks without a very serious shake-up in culture.
I hope I'm proven wrong, but I'm not particularly confident.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Majority Of Americans Thought We Already Had A Moon Base WASHINGTON, DC--A
NASA poll conducted to gauge support for President Bush's space-exploration initiative revealed that a depressing 57 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. already has a research base on the moon. "We put that international space-station thing up there in the '60s," phone-poll respondent Randy Snow said. "It might be on Mars, but I think it's the moon--wherever they have the golf course that President Kennedy played on. Remember, the Cubans tried to take it over?" NASA officials said they hope someday to make Americans' perception a reality.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
We are in the middle of a jobless recovery, nearly 50 million don't have health insurance, and people are starting to roll off of unemployemnt benefits. Not to mention, college grads are having a really tough time finding jobs.
Gee....... why don't we go to mars? Maybe someone on Mars has the answer to our economic problems. Are these people in the same reality?
but I think that someone is trying to block voter's brains with nice images of american flags on martian soil, so they can' think of other wonderfull things that the US made last years:
:P
- Boicot Kioto pact.
- Attack countries like it was done in the middle age.
- Pretend to be the protectors of the world, with power to do everything they want without being questioned.
- Disband space technology/health studies in favor of military studies.
When I was young, I though about America as presented by Hollywood: land of opportunity, freedom and "the good ones". Now, every day, week, month that passes I just realize that you're becoming a really strange country where words like privacy and liberty mean nothing, and I find really hard to figure out if the US are still on the "good" side.
I know it's a us centric site, and I'll be modded down, but someone had to say it
I wouldn't discount the "major competitor" side of things! The ESA is likely to mount some sort of manned mission series. Europe may be behind in terms of volume of missions mounted to date (they've by and large been quite successful though), but it's sure doing things a lot more cheaply than the U.S. What's more, we have a launch base nearer the Equator, in French Guiana. (As we are reminded each time we look at our banknotes). Hopefully the new Soyuz launcher facility will be up and running there soon - launching stuff from Kazachstan is surely far from ideal! The ESA of course has the benefit of Russian co-operation and the legacy of their space program.
It all looks like being quite some fun! (Not to mention pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, etc, etc)
Last one to land people on Mars is a rotten egg!
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
There's already a serious deficit blow-out, government spending is increasing at an unsustainable rate, the US is still officially at war with someone - we're not quite sure who, but there's quite a few suspicious looking goatherds in north-western Pakistan - and to top it all off, no one is really sure if the economy is picking up or relocating to a happier country.
Who's gonna foot the bill?
In a surprise show of support even Democrats and partizan groups from all over the United States admit that they
- Want Bush To Go To Mars
but they admit anywhere out of the way would do.This is all window dressing from a failed President eager for votes. If there wasn't land they thought they could command, and new technology money for Haliburton involved in this the current administration would'nt be involved.
- The administrationt that scraps the Hubble is not interested in space exploration for science
.We just have to get there before the Taliban does. I'll go ahead and call this an open schedule.
This is not my sandwich.
Maybe something more modest, like a permanent moon base? Or more modest than that, wait a few years so we can fund this project with cash instead of Easy Credit Terms?
This is not my sandwich.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
I'd love to have had NASA & the rest of the space programs working towards these ends since the moon landings. We might well be better off. The technology we use to discuss this today, along with the telemetry systems and materials science (to name a few) owe a debt to the Kennedy space program.
The support for the proposition that the current administration has ANY reason other than political gain for this proposal is lacking.
If we had 40 years of consistent manned spaceflight behind us, I'd expect that we would be able to assess the risks and costs of this "mandate". What we have is a group of really poor administrators at NASA who have killed two shuttle crews and the shuttle program through their gross errors in judgment.
We need an entirely new NASA-with an international mandate to cooperate and jointly budget new programs long before we start back to the moon.
It's not possible with the current NASA - all we will have will be bloated costs for proposals and a few happy contractors.
According to the Original speech announcing the plan, what you propose is already viewed as the first necessary step.
(Celui que tient la peur de devinir nuage)
Fist keep it simple and use existing technology.
I think the best approach is to assemble 2 ships in low earth orbit, or one large modular ship. These ships would be assembled by robotically docking "russian" style space station modules.
Pre build all the required modules before lanch.
Some of the modules required for each ship.
- habitation modules, either one can be used for planet habitation.
- power modules, "probably nuclear is required for enough power" either one can be used for planet
- sealed cargo modules, which can hold supplies and tools for crew, can be used for planet if mission requires
- cargo racks, and robot arms to assist module assembly,
- crew excape modules, aka chinese or russian style capsules,
- propulsion modules
- fuel modules
- numerious landers to attach modules for planet landing
This is just a draft
Here are some humble suggestions:
1. NASA should be required to make any purchase of over $50M in a competitive bidding process. This can be open auction if need be, or sealed bid, but bids must be published afterwards.
2. No Cost-Plus contracts should be awarded unless a congressional waiver is granted.
3. PRIZES: NASA should award at least $100M per year of all-or-nothing prizes for technology demonstration projects. Requirements should include disclosure of all technology used, so the experience curve (a.k.a. learning curve) of other companies benefits from this tech. Patents are always possible.
Prize 1: first private launch into space (100 km) using air-breathing engines for > 50% of time of flight.
Prize 2: First two-stage to orbit flight using wholly reusable components (>90% by mass re-used) for 2 subsequent flights. Similar to X-Prize, only going to orbit.
4. NASA should auction delivery of consumables (Air, Water, fuel) to within 200 meters the ISS (not necessary to dock). PAYMENT SHOULD BE C.O.D. FOR CONSUMABLES AT THE ISS. No payment should be made if nothing is delivered. Contractors should arrange for their own insurance, everything.
5. Likewise, NASA should offer payment of 0.1 cents per pixel (or something close to that) for delivery of all photographs of any planetary body taken from orbit around that body. Maximum award per body should be set by committee.
6. The space shuttle, conceived in 1968 and an albatross around the neck of NASA, should be RETIRED immediately and bids taken on its separate primary functions (delivery to ISS and higher orbits of personnel).
7. NASA administrators should be given real power to reform their agency, without irrelelevent Line-Item appropriations from congress. Facilities should be able to be closed. Existing power structures (political ones) should be phased out or replaced with different ones somehow. NASA KILLS TOO MANY PROJECTS DONE BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR, DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN!
Just some humble suggestions I like to call the K. Rice Plan.
Cordially yours,
-- Kevin Rice
-- Kevin J. Rice
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I realize that NASA's mission has become heavily weighted in symbolism and emotion and that this is the reality of 21st century politics.
But, as a member of the public, as a taxpayer, I would much rather that they pay for 50 select astronomers, geologists, physicists, engineers, chemists and biologists to come to a conference and ask them what kinds of space missions would be valuable from their perspective. Put the ideas in a ranked order, with costs and risks, and then let the administrators decide what they'd like to do.
As it stands now, there are some interesting projects that have made it through the cracks, but all the big money goes towards various make-work manned missions meant to whip up patriotic fervor, demonstrate international cooperation, or keep the inertia going with some large project that everyone is afraid to let die because of its size.
There's nothing wrong with pride in one's country (except that the emotion is often used as a tool by less honourable men), or with international cooperation. But please let those things be incidental to defining NASA's mission and not central.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Put a series of telescopes on the moon.
Replace the Hubble and large quanities of the terristial radio telescopes with moon based ones. Get the benefits of the location for more science. When the Hubble goes it will be an extreme loss, replace it with something more grand as soon as possible.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
Grab yourselves a copy of Arthur C Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise". Most often reviewed as as novel about a "space elevator" from Earth to a geosynch orbit, it also includes passages about the development of the same concept on Mars. Clarke's address "The Space Elevator: 'Thought Experiment', or Key to the Universe? (Part 1)" (which also acknowledges that the concept isn't his, nor new) can be found here: http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/acclarke.092079. se.1.html
My first choice would be for a space elevator, but if we want to get to Mars without it we should go nuclear
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
observation: humans have evolved in a atmospheric environment. they are not designed for vacuum environment. they are fragile and need extensive life support systems.
proposal: send ONLY beings designed for space travel.
Robots are cheaper, we could be doing 10 times as much science for the same cost. I know that some experiments can only be done by humans today. the right decision is to improve robotics. A.I. , visual object recognition, self-repair ability, robotic hand. this research would have a positive impact on civilian aplications, too (working in hazardous environment, like nuclear reactors and dumps).
The ISS is an expensive political project. It is hard to kill it, because of international involvment. but it should be killed, because it is using up resources, which could be spent much better.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
But until it's proved possible, we shouldn't base our entire space program around a pipe dream.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Listening to the public is the essence of democracy. They didn't say they would blindly follow the suggestions, just listen.
The best thing you can hope for in a government is a smart guy who will listen to advice and then make his own decision.
(I thought this was posted once already, but now I can't see it in the thread. Sorry if this is a dupe.)
Not that any of you should care, but here's what I posted to their comment site:
Going to the moon only makes sense in the context of getting raw materials. Building ships or habitats or almost any other activity would be a lot easier off the moon, probably at one of the libration points.
People going to Mars doesn't make any sense unless they intend to stay for good. If getting people back is part of the plan, then send them to the asteroids instead. Much easier to get there, easier to get back from, and probably easier to exploit for raw materials than the moon, frankly.
In fact, if you're going to the moon for raw materials to build with in high Earth orbit, it might be easier to swipe a few asteroids and bring them back to a libration point manufacturing facility than to bring the equivalent material up from the moon.
But Mars is not a stepping stone to anywhere; it's a destination. Only, there's nothing to do on Mars that couldn't be better done in Arizona.
The same could be said for the moon, except it's easier to lift raw materials from the moon than from Mars or Earth. But that assumes you figure out what to do with raw materials in space.
If you aren't going to figure out how to process raw materials in bulk in space, then quit sending people. At a billion bucks a pop, Man in Space only makes makes sense if he's building something there.
In no case should you drop stuff down a gravity well (moon, Mars, or Earth for that matter) unless it's going to help you get materials back up.
Man's future in space is basically about moving materials; down is an expense, up is an investment, construction is accrued value. The net worth of the whole endeavor then becomes a pretty simple equation.
(ps: I had to promise my mother I wouldn't go to the moon as long as she was alive. She's doing okay at 72, so I can wait a little longer.)
Very true. This is exactly why a change is in order. ISS/Shuttle is a white elephant. For the same money we can be doing far more real exploration.
So when my back is against a wall like that, i think i too would come out with crazy plans like this.
Bush's back isn't against a wall. These changes have been in the works for a long time. The Columbia disaster just forced a decision. Unlike other administrations of the last 10 years, GDubya has the guts to make the decision.
Not to mention the costs that it would have, NASA budget doubled for like 5 years when the appolo missions were going on.Clearly, such budget increases are not going to happen. However, the US does have new powerful and economical launchers (Atlas V, Delta IV) and the potential for rapidly developing Shuttle derived launchers. This is not a cold start like Apollo.
Dont get me wrong I am not anti-NASA, I am just anti-mars right now. We could use that money for more important things.Like what? Social spending?
an ill wind that blows no good
Personally, I don't think the government should be funding space exploration (or health care, for that matter), so I'm not arguing in defense of NASA, just in defense of actually considering the numbers.
Also, I have enormous pride in my country. I feel very lucky to have been born in the US.
It's not quite a space elevator, but it looks like the next Mars rover planned is going to be lowered down to the surface by a tether attached to a "Skycrane" craft hovering 5 meters in the air. This is to prevent the potential problem of a rover getting stuck in a landing platform. After lowering the rover the Skycrane will fly off to another area.
and the humans won.
Energy: time to change the picture.
OK, Mr Republican Propaganda Machine, I'll bite.
I lived in the UK up until 1997, and had the pleasure of experiencing UK National Health Service care in 1996, and the same treatment supplied by the USA's #1-rated HMO (Harvard Pilgrim) in 1997.
My medical needs included diagnosis and treatment of a kidney stone (i.e. typical non-surgical stuff) plus treatment for common chronic conditions like allergies.
Guess what? In my personal informed experience, the best US HMO healthcare is about as good as the UK's state-funded National Health Service. Wait times are about the same, quality of care is about the same. Yes, I had to wait weeks or even months for treatment in the US.
And remember, that was the #1 rated HMO in the country that year. I hate to think what kind of medical care you get if you live in rural Alabama.
Of course, the medical industry loves the fat profits it soaks out of the US consumer, and has lots of money to pay for the dissemination of propaganda to try and convince US consumers that those poor European countries with their universal healthcare systems are much worse off than the lucky USA. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they paid people to post propaganda to the Internet.
Here's your free clue for the day: Try talking to people who actually have experience of both US healthcare and state-funded European healthcare. Don't just believe what you read in the corporate media or hear on FOX News.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The Moon seems like a very dead and uninteresting place unless it can be confirmed that there are ice deposits in some of the deeper craters. There seems little point in going back there - other than to explore the geology - and we know how to do that with robots like the ones that are doing such great work on Mars right now.
The Mars mission would probably be better served by assembling the craft at a Legrange point - but to do so, we need a better lift capability.
However, I concede the President's desire to get the public excited about space again - and setting up an assembly facility at L5 isn't going to do that...it sounds like just another space station like the hideously expensive waste of vacuum that we are probably about to abandon.
I'd have preferred to see the President putting his weight behind the construction of a space elevator to earth orbit. That is a worthy goal, it's certainly at least as do-able as a manned Mars mission and would have immense benefits for mankind beyond the Mars mission. The likely need for novel materials to build it would also have great spin-off potential for American business - and hence go a long way toward justifying the expense.
Setting up a facility at a Legrange point would also fit nicely with the plans for the Hubble replacement - so there would be synergy in that effort.
www.sjbaker.org
I'm glad to see someone standing up for the public education system around here. If you made your judgement by Slashdot comments alone, you'd think the public education system was a complete and utter failure. It's not.
While my public education was not flawless (I was bored to tears in some classes.), by the end I had a good understanding of history; basic physics, chemistry, and biology; math through Calc I; and writing. I consider that a success. I also consider it to be the result of some very good teachers that I had in high school. They're not all great, but there are a lot that are and try very hard.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
I'm pretty sure in cost studies that the Russian heavy lifters are cheaper to operate than our antiquated shuttles. I'm sure its a temporary solution to use Russian Technology, but like the book says, if it aint broke, why fix it?
The problem is choice..
Absolutly. I am now a Junior in college (Math and Physics double major with a CS minor),(having graduated from a middle of the road rural public school), and although my eyes were opened listening to horror stories of some of the extremely poor districts in my state (Illinois), on average, everyone I know coming out of public schools (huge and tiny) recieved all the tools they needed to move on in life. Slashdoters too often concentrate on things like, "do they have a programming class and the latest version of GCC?", when in reality, this isn't and shouldn't be of any serious concern to a well rounded education. Things like word processing and spreadsheet skills are much more important, and they can easily be learned on any old powermac or 486 with free os's and free office packages. Anyway, I'm basically ranting.
Politically speaking, the government will do what they think will best benefit their supporters. Their supporters are the guys who pay to get them re-elected. This isn't about finding out what the public thinks, but it does help them in a few ways.
First, it builds public interest. When they come out and say "we've decided to do it this way," then the majority of people feel that they've had their say, and the government has listened to them, and what the government thinks is probably the best decision for some reason that completely escapes everyone's grasp, so they just go along with what the government decides. As if they had any say in it in the first place.
Second, it tells them how to spin what they're doing. What they're really doing is spending the public's money on something that isn't particularly accomplishable with our current technology. If they get our say-so, then they can hand billions over to our nation's "defense contractors" to try to figure it all out. Don't doubt for a minute that it'll be a long and expensive process.
Looking for public comment? Mr. Bush, I am unimpressed. How's that comment for you?
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Largely, most of the early replies were completely off-topic and irrelevant. The cost of healthcare has absolutely NOTHING to do with the price of tea on Mars. Rather than concern myself with a meaningless and over-debated off-topic thread, I just wanted to address the issue at hand. I'll get into the whole "The US is a bunch evil, sucky, arrogant bastards who are in bed with the Jews to own all the worlds money while they kick the Palestinians around" arguement elsewhere, should I find I've got nothing better to do than waste time, that is (FYI, I'm a dual citizen of the US and Germany, and am German-Jewish by birth... Most of you don't know what you are talking about and just need to STFU unless you are talking about the space-program... Take your ideological [or idiotillogical] beliefs and rants somewhere devoted to those topics). That said, I know it is highly unlikely anybody will ever read this post, it being so far down in the thread, but I'm gonna post it anyway... The following is copied from the comment I sent to the MMB (Moon, Mars & Beyond) website:
;)
"This is an idea whose time is long overdue. This great nation should have had a permanent outpost on the moon shortly after SkyLab was completed, a dream whose time never came due to lack of public interest (mostly lack of education on their part) and the unwillinginess of previous administrations to set the goals and make the budgets necessary to completion of mankinds ultimate goal: the shedding of our earthbound chrysalis so we may stretch our wings, and fly beyond our home,so we might see what lies beyond our own isolated world. Humankind is doomed insignificance at the least and extinction at the worst if we are never able to slip the surly bonds of this world, much in the way of the 30 year-old son who never manages to separate himself from mother and leave home. This is an idea whose time has come. Werner Von Braun did all the math necessary ages ago, and materials science was up to par in the 80's... Now it is up to our policymakers alone to make the decision to make the investments necessary to push our species forward to it's next evolutionary step. DO THIS, and countless generations in the future will remember you. Not for your policies and beliefs... Those memories are short and will last perhaps 50 years, maybe a century at most, to be remembered simply as a name of a guy who did a thing... No, make this decision, make this happen, and humankind will always remember the people who freed them from their shackles and set them loose upon the universe, much in the way the American people still remember and honor Columbus and the Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella) who financed his great mission of exploration. Moon, Mars and Beyond... What a wonderful sentiment... I can but hope I will live to see "Beyond" in my lifetime."
Not only did the race to the moon do great things for our national pride, way back in the day, but it fueled out economy and industry as a result... It also encouraged invention and research, and the public actually backed the dream of getting off of this beautiful (but god-forsaken) rock of ours... This might be exactly what this nation needs. With a drive to complete such a project, more infrastructure of all kinds would need to be established (always good for the economy), research encouraged (also good) and investment in our future. As well, we do have a competitor equal to Cold War Russia, and it's name is China. Somebody has to figure out what to do with China's excess population (shipping them to Australia is prolly not the answer) and if we don't figure it out, China will... An idea I am loathe to consider. Their population figures are frightening enough, much less the thought that they may one day be more technologically and economically advanced than us. *shivers* Anyway... It's about time, and I hope this and the following administrations have the guts to make this happen. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do before I start my Enterprise/Babylon5/Stargate marathon tonight
S13G3
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Like parenthood, there's never a good time to do it - there'll always be pressing needs elsewhere. My take is if we can't build a colony on the moon, we may as well forget about manned space flight. If we do elect to abandon manned space flight, we'll be like old ladies in retirement homes waiting to die. Except our death will be delivered by our own hand or possibly a Permian level event. Either way, we're dead if we elect to stay here.
If we elect to build the colony, it has to be designed from the outset to be self-sustaining. By self-sustaining, I mean the whole shebang - kids (or at least the means for making them), farms, lots of people, machine tools, everything. The colony has to be able to weather failures on earth, be they political and/or economic failures, cutting them off.
I'm old enough to remember the first Star Trek broadcast and have that meme deeply imprinted - we need to explore and go out beyond earth. The moon's but the first step.
Here's what I wrote:
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Sorry, but individual to individual, an affluent resident of a first world country owes no more to a poor countryman than to a poor person from another country. Why should such a person, even a charitable one, wish to pay to provide very high quality cancer treatment costing $50000.00 to a homeless countryman when that same $50000.00 could save 500 lives in a third world counrty?
The answer is that choice has nothing to do with it. The aid is taken with force by a government that is elected by rich and poor alike, where the poor are more numerous though less likely to vote. If money is power then power is also money.
Eat at Joe's.