The Wrong Stuff

b00le writes "The New York Review of Books has a trenchant piece, The Wrong Stuff by the great Steven Weinberg, arguing against the utility of manned spaceflight, which he feels has a largely political or sentimental function. He adds: '...I have taken the President's space initiative seriously. That may be a mistake.' Even so, his argument is detailed and rich in facts, particularly the nasty economic kind."

Comments

Robert L. Park

[paugq]

Weinberg's opinion is no news. Bob Park already said it in his book Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud and in his testimony before the Commitee on Sicence, Subcommitee on Space and Aeronautics (April 9th, 1997)

1 Trillion Dollars

[Omeganon]

Ah, yes, once again we see that famous 1 Trillion Dollars figure. That's 1 Trillion Dollars using technologies and methodologies that are 15 years out of date to be spent over 30+ years and including missions that have already been accomplished and other missions not directly related to the Moon or Mars. This is becoming the stuff of Urban Legend. If you haven't read http://www.thespacereview.com/article/119/1, I highly encourage it. It appears to be a very thorough debunking of that whole misinformation campaign and clearly points the finger for bad numbers at media outlets as opposed to real accountants who are directly involved.

Re:I'll say it first

[duffbeer703]

I certainly hope that his Physics research isn't as sloppy as the google news search that he ran as the basis of this article.

For one thing, the $1 trillion figure cited is an widely acknowledged misquote made (and retracted) by an AP reporter. Ten minutes of fact-checking would have revealed that.