I find it so disappointing hot short sighted logic and well meaning
people can be.
DB, I'm going to pull a Star Trek reverence on you, but you're a
Vulcan. It's going to take you thousands of years to figure out you
need or even how to wipe your butt. To dangerous and doesn't figure
in with the science.
Doing great things requires great risk. I'm guessing you didn't
really pay much attention in history class.
I guess it really comes to where you want your kids an future
relatives to be. Should they stay on a slow but basic stagnic course
to future extingsion? I'm ignoring spelling. Or should they strive
for more? Damn the logic and get human and go for it. If you're
human, it makes you who you are.
Now to the question of who pays for it. We all pay for it in the
end. And we all benefit in the end. Of course this depends on you
definition of benefiting. Would you rather be chipping spear heads?
Growing up means realizing everything comes with a cost.
Should we outlaw the internet today? It has cost so may people so much.
On Sep 14, 2009, at 6:11 PM, db wrote:
Yeh ... let private industry develop this new manned space flight.
And why won't they just do that on their own if it is such a great
deal?
Because these private corps and their stockholders want the rest of
us ... the taxpayers without bankruptcy protection who are just
trying to hang on to our mortgages/ pay for medical care etc ... to
pay all the setup costs so then they can't make a profit.
Such a deal! Just like the ones military industrial complex and
medical insurance industry rams down our throats.
Come back from outer space. We've got to get back to basics in
this country and postpone some of the things we want to do ... have
been used to doing ... until we have our "house in order."
This country has itself mortgaged to the hilt ... is totally
dependent on foreign competing nations for the security of it's
economy and it still has an ANOTHER unseen "mortgage" of
international trade being conducted in US dollars that is likely to
come due if we don't get real and start living by our means.
It's to our advantage that trade is in dollars and increasingly
with our economic slide to other nations disadvantage.
If we don't get our finances on solid footing again, the money
making countries will be adopting a different currency of exchange
and our system will take another HUGE dive once no one wants
dollars anymore.
We in the US need to turn our attention from outer space to "inner
space" for a while or suffer the consequences me thinks...
Go to Mars when we've got affairs on Earth on solid footing again...
db
This BS system of corps using us
b_s-wilk wrote:
Energy is only as free as the technology to capture and distribute
it.
The advantages in manufacturing are cancelled out by the costs.
Are the corporations that want to use microgravity for production
going to absorb all the risks? Or is this yet another example of
socializing risk with federal investment in R&D and privatizing
the profits? Uh oh. That gets us back to what's wrong with health
insurance legislation.
Robots are as smart as the scientists who design them. Robots have
done well for us so far. Patience with the slow rate of advances
for human space travel will make travel safer and more productive
in the long run. Research now--travel later.
I have a ticket for travel to Mars that I got years ago at Cape
Canaveral. I'll send it to you if I can find it. Ready for a trip
to Mars? Imagine riding a bicycle on Mars! [The ticket for a
flight to the moon expired 10 years ago.]
Microgravity offers real advanages in alloy and semiconductor
maufacturing, also pharmaceuticals. We now know how to construct
large structures in orbit and maintain a long term presence in
space.
Energy is unlimited and free. Four nations/national consortia
can boost
cargo into orbit and to the station assuming JAXA's HTV is
successful.
I see the potential as enormous. But we have to be there to
realize it.
The ISS is a good start. If we look at it as a platform for the
assembly
of space-only ships, and as a fuel transfer point, we could
explore the
L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. The moon is probably not a good idea
if we can't prove the presence of water.
Robots aren't smart enough to do it all, and if we look at this new
frontier as a government monopoly we are shortchanging ourselves.
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