The Space Program

[talula]

I rarely start a thread, but in the light of the recent destruction of the space shuttle Columbia I thought that it would be time to begin a discussion of this.

It is my opinion (and only mine) that despite Columbia we must maintain a active space program and do so internationally. Yes, the program has it's dangers and some may think it is costly, but I believe that without it, we as a people would be in far worse shape.

Just as an example. Without the space program, international communications would consist of the trans-atlantic cable. There would be no Global Positioning System to rescue unfortunates in need of help. No satellite television or televison/radio relays. More....

What are your opinions? Let us hear your thoughts. Should we continue the space program? Why? Should we not continue the space program? Why?

talula

[JesusA (imported)]

A VERY quick response - I’ll compose something more considered and more logical later:

Mile per mile, you’re far safer in the space shuttle than driving to your nearby supermarket. The dangers have been exaggerated. The payback has been great.

[Paolo]

My own personal opinion,

When there are no hungry children left in the world ANYWHERE (Much less this country), and virulent plagues that claim countless lives have been cured, THEN we can spend money on space exploration.

Our schools (in the USA) are a perverse joke. There is no real medical care. People work themselves into physical and mental ruin trying to get by. Criminals go unpunished and crime runs rampant while everyone claims "there's not enough money for schools, law enforcement, we can't afford this, we can't afford that..."

And all the while, every time that space shuttle lifts off, it uses up more fuel $$$-wise in 3 seconds than most people will ever EARN in their entire lifetimes.

I'm sorry, but I think we need to get our priorities straight here.

I could not possibly care less about the zero-G effects on the human body, or how a sweet potato vine grows with no gravity when I know that there are kids on this very street in ratty clothing who have not had enough to eat today.

Plant the damn potato on Earth and feed the crop to the kid.

I'd love to see the "gas bill" for that shuttle applied to the local grocery store. I bet it would buy a LOT of food and clothing.

We need to get our priorites straight.

Not that I don't feel anything for the families of these 7 people, or for the families affected by the Challenger disaster in the 80's. I do, and it's a terrible loss.

However, lives are lost each night, the world over, that needn't have been lost if the efforts of the "Powers that be" had been channeled properly. Somewhere, in this - the most advanced and wealthiest nation on Earth - a child will freeze to death. Another will starve. Another will die of medical neglect.

But by God, I have pretty pictures of celestial bodies from that telescope they put up there in oribt .....

[_g (imported)]

I'm sorry to disagree with you Paolo, but the money that is put in to the space program comes back ten fold even with all the crap they speed it on. Its the reseach for the space program that is the pay back with all the stuff coming out being comerialized.

Now if we only can get congress to cut out the give a ways ( willfare ) and let the persons that do not wish to work just strave and just kill the crimals that do not wish to go stright then the goverment will have too much money.

_g

[BossTamsin (imported)]

I hate to say it, Paolo, but I disagree with you as well. (Although I don't necessarily agree with _g either)

We need to get into space. We need the advances that can be gained through space exploration. If we don't start out now, we never will. Instead, we will all choke and die on this miserable little rock.

I agree, some of the experiments are a complete waste of time. With the amount of cutbacks NASA has gone through though, it's surprising they can do even that much research.

If you want money to feed the children, don't cut it out of NASA. Relatively speaking, they don't get that much of the pie. Why not instead target the biggest beneficiary of funding? I would think it'd be MUCH easier to reclaim an amount equal to NASA's entire budget from the US military as a whole, and would do a lot less damage. (Hell, I'm not sure it would really be noticed.)

Most of you know about my low income. I have gone without food before, and I have voluntarily not eaten so that my stepson can have something to eat. I still feel NASA is important though.

Besides, if you gutted NASA, the money wouldn't go to feeding children anyways. Not with Bush in charge. It would go to more military spending. And that's the last thing the US needs.

IEunuch.

( _g: What about those who are disabled? Should they just be left to starve too? Ever been unemployed and UNABLE TO FIND work? Are you disabled? No, I bet by your age you are comfortably retired, after a lifetime of dilligent working, never once having been in their shoes or having seen the world through their eyes. It's amazing how small the gap is between 'kill the poor' and 'kill the jews'. I thought the world was finally done with that BS. :realpisse :realpisse :realpisse )

[Paolo]

When NASA starts holding bake sales and selling Tom Watt or cookies and popcorn for funding, then I'll get off of their case. How many astronauts do you see going door to door trying to sell stuff to raise money for the next shuttle flight?

If they can support themselves like any other business that stays in operation, fine. The business that I work for would be much better off if we had a few zillion dollars of government tax money being given to us as well, I'm sure. But what do we get? Increased property taxes and elevated payroll taxes on employees to fund fiascos like this.

And for the record, I didn't vote for Bush because I KNEW this was coming when he was "elected". That nut has no business in that office, although no one who voted for him (willingly or not) is going to admit that now.

But I do have to agree that any funding that came along somehow would probably just go to a NEW War effort, or into some politicians' pockets.

[Riverwind (imported)]

OK, I will add my 2 cents worth. We must keep NASA going. Cut other programs, like foreign aid of which we send to every country in the world. With all the cuts that corporate America are making I don’t see the government cutting any jobs and they are the biggest employer in the country. It doesn’t matter who is in office on that account. Back to NASA, I really think they need more funding not less. The technology that has been directly or indirectly invented in the last 40 years. We would not have some of the items we take for granted today. The Internet for one. PC's yes PC's; in 1970 we had put a man on the moon and with computers that were in today’s world dinosaurs. It forced indirectly to make it faster, smaller and hold more information and that is still happening. I don’t think we would have been this far along with NASA. Plus the other things that have become part of our daily life, tang, Velcro, microchips, pens that you can write on in any environment, GPS, communications, the list it endless. No I am with Paolo that cuts need to be made but not in NASA. NASA may be our only hope for a better future.

River

[MacWolfie (imported)]

It's possibly because I am one of those weird viewers of Science Fiction, but I say keep the space program going. I know there has to be life out there more intelligent than us.

As far as the high costs of the program. Cut the military budget by 75% and with what is saved, we could explore space, solve crime, clean up our ghettoes, better educate our children and care for our senior citizens better.

I am for sending President Bush, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell on the next space mission alone. However, the fuel tank should only be half full.

MacWolf

[Charlieje (imported)]

I have had difficulty with the Space program since it started, and I still don't know the answer. I have heard over and over all the wonderful things we enjoy today as side benefits of the space program. Things like velcro, the computers we all take for granted, etc, etc, but has anyone ever stopped to think that these things would have been invented anyway?

I'm sorry, but I'm with Paolo on this one. The space program is great, but WE'VE GOT STARVING KIDS OUT THERE, GANG! I don't mean in Kuwait and Africa and South America, I am talking about the United States!

As for choking to death on this planet, well, if we do end up poisoning ourselves, I have to ask, whose fault is that?

Then of course there is that video flash of the little boy at the memorial service for the astronauts. My attitude changed a great deal when I saw that little child. I have to ask, what the hell is the mother (or father for that matter) of a small child doing flitting about in space? I have raised three children to adulthood, and my wife and I had many discussions about our various acitivities, but we always understood that our first responsibility during those growing up years was to keep ourselves healthy and available for our children. Were we wrong?

I've got to say, when I see what my adult children have accomplished I think we did something right. They will never be President, they will probably never be in the headlines of any newspaper, but I still think the world is a better place because they are in it. And I have to ask, if I had gone and got myself killed flying about in a rocket, would they be the people they are today? I am just conceited enough to say I don't think so.

[yankee masha (imported)]

With due respect to Paolo and the others, except the jerk who thinks it is okay to let people starve or kill off the ones he doesn't like, I should point out that there wold be no space progrm if there was not a large monetary profit involved both in the short and long run. Without it we would not be talking on the Internet like this, for one. I don't want to spend the day numbering all the other benefits we have received from our space research, not to mention the sheer bounty of scientific fact.

The reason we have a governemnt helping the poor is because it is the right ting to do. Since we cut down on our helath programs (thank you, Mr Reagan, Suh!) we immediately had a homeless class in this country, while seeing an equivalent rise in selfish Yuppies buying things they can't afford and living on credit and declaring bankruptcy when things get hairy.

The same conservatives who don't want welfare also want to stop abortion and birth control. They also want to limit funds for educaiton, while professing tehir support for it. They also jack up the prices of health care and drugs while denying people the means to get it. How long can you strangle a chicken before it dies?

Space research is a money maker. We have teh money for education and health care but we also have a bunch of selfish people in power who want the money so they can golf in more luxury instead of helping the millions of people who pay taxes. We msut stop seeing the government as a money pot and realize the money is only there to elevate the cultural existence of its people, not to curse the people who aren't millionaires and want to see tehm swept into the gutter.

This nonsense that tehre is no money available when suddenly tehre are billions and billions to wage a war without question is stupid. We have the money for food and health care. The space program is part of how we got it. The space program also generates more non-space related industries and jobs than you can imagine.

If welfare or health care made money for the government you can bet it would be a top item in the pork barrel. Prisons are money makers; why else do you think the conservatives want more and more prisons and mandatory sentencing?

Please. Let us all get off the lies and cliches that have been fed to you and look at what is really going on.