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What If the Apollo Program Had Continued?
proslack writes "The die had been cast years before Apollo 11 had even reached the moon. In the late 1960s, the Vietnam war was straining US finances. A fatal fire on the Apollo launch pad in January 1967 had blotted NASA's copybook. The Soviet moon effort seemed to be going nowhere. In the budget debates during the summer of 1967, Congress refused NASA's request to fund an extended moon programme.
What if things had been different that summer? Suppose Congress had granted NASA's wish, then fast-forward 40-odd years..." A nice little what-if sort of story that makes sorta nostalgic for a non-existent present.
And similarly, the cold war would have already ended itself. Soviet Russia while an interesting "experiment" ended up failing due to the fact that human nature plus the Soviet version of communism ended up with a government who could not financially sustain itself.
And now the US looks like it will be emulating the USSR in decline.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
No, actually the parallels are stunning, it just took the average person longer to see through capitalism than it took them to see through communism.
I'm talking here about the really existing models, not the ideals. The ideals are in both systems quite nice. The real models are, basically, the same. The difference is not how, but who.
In both (real) systems you have a ruling class which offers a dangling carrot for those not inside the system, claiming to give them a chance to become one of the ruling elements in the system as well, while in reality being a tightly knit society. Those inside have power and wealth, those outside are supposed to produce it. It's actually not even much different from older systems with a ruling class (nobility) and a serving class (peasants). Just harder to see through it.
In both systems economy and rulership are interwoven. The difference is in my sig.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Look, we voted out the Republicans who turned a surplus into a deficit and left the economy a wreck.
The deficit will not continue to grow.
Taxes on the wealthiest will go up. Republicans will cry that these new taxes are ruining the economy, and they will have an impact similar to the Emergency Deficit Reduction act of 1993 (I think I got the title right...) 8 years of increasing prosperity and decreasing deficits (and eventually, expanding surpluses).
As long as the Republicans don't steal another Presidential Election...