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Florida Group Wants To Make Space a 2016 Presidential Campaign Issue (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: According to a story on News 13, an Orlando TV station, Space Florida is working to make space a political issue in the 2016 presidential election. Thus far the campaign for the presidency has been dominated by more mundane issues such as the economy, illegal immigration, and the threat of terrorism. Space Florida, which is "the State of Florida's aerospace economic development agency," is said to be "working with three other battleground states to make sure America's space program is a part of the campaign for president." Presumably one of those states is Texas, which has lots of electoral votes
They won't have to work hard, considering "space" has been an issue for every election as long as I've been able to pay attention to elections.
Like four years ago......as soon as it was time for the Florida primaries, every candidate started talking about their space plan. After the Florida primary was over? Never mentioned again.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As it should be. Space travel and exploration are the future of the human species. Politicians not giving it priority are either in denial or ignorant of this fact, in which case they are foolish, or simply don't care, in which case they are psychotic. Humanity's long term plan should always be a focus.
I dont understand the authors snarky tone when writing this. Space travel and exploration is important on so many levels, one of which is the economy! It baffles methat someone would try to negatively spin space exploration as a important issue on slashdot, especially with their already tiny an evershrinking budget.
But the GOP is in control of the purse strings and they want to de-fund even essential services. No way will they invest in the future without another space race. Our current enemies are terrorists who can't come close to racing against us.
No competition = no race = no funding for space.
The only way I could it happening is if we had first contact of some kind. So I put the odds at about a 100 million to one, against.
I'm more likely to win every single lottery and put all the funds toward a trips to mars.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
this post is a cartoon.
Looking at the issues mentioned in the summary:
- economy: the government does not have direct control over the economy. At best, they can hope to attempt to influence economic development. Yet they cannot make promises.
- illegal immigration: the government does not have direct control over illegal immigration. At best, they can hope to attempt to deter illegal immigration through expensive or draconian policies. Again, they cannot make promises.
- terrorism: the government does not have direct control over terrorism. At best, they can make the life of terrorists harder but they cannot hope to stop terrorist activity and detecting it is extraordinarily difficult. Once again, they cannot make promises.
- space: the government does have direct control over federal agencies (e.g. NASA) and its contractors. While they cannot violate the laws of physics, they can certainly have fairly reliable results if they consult with scientists, engineers, and administrators to ascertain what is realistic. In other words, they can make promises.
Incidentally, none of this is specific to space exploration. Figuring out what you have some degree of control over should be one of the things that anyone considers when evaluating campaign promises.
Florida wants to remake "Meat in Space."
Both programs have roughly equivalent scientific value. Unmanned stuff, on the other hand makes a lot of sense.
Space is really low in the priority list, when the other things on the agenda are the economy/jobs, the national debt, national security, healthcare and so on. Which is why I suggested taking it out of government completely, so that interested people can focus on it, w/o taxpayers getting involved.
And that is why Repukians are so pro-NASA.
So which Republicans do you see actively promoting a Space Program? Not Ryan or McConnell. Not Trump. Not Carson. Not Cruz. Not Rubio. Not Carly. Not Jeb. Not Christie. So who do you see suggesting it?
Unless humanity leaves the prison planet we will all die.
I have news for you, even if humanity leaves this planet, we will all die.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Which is tantamount to saying that it's important that the government just spends money, regardless of the end purpose, no?
It's pointless to try to get the politicians to care until after you've got the voters to care.
"Care" of course means more than agreeing in principle that having a space exploration plan would be a good thing; it means when progress doesn't happen you get upset. Most people think some kind of space exploration plan would be a good thing, but very few care when it doesn't happen.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Do you think the people who favor "green energy" care? To them, anybody who talks of space exploration is a "space nutter".
they wouldn't need more space.
1) Launching spy satellites.
2) Launching communication/GPS satellites.
The first is entirely government based, the second is something the governments wants to keep a very close eye/ear on/in.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The first one can be a part of the CIA budget - NASA doesn't have to be the one involved. The second should belong to the Verizons and AT&Ts, and they could work partnership deals w/ SpaceX to launch their satellites. Get that out of government and politicians need no longer agonize over whether to spend money on space vs food stamps