Eric Chomko wrote:

: There are unmanned space activities that clearly do deliver
: value justifying their cost.

Check it out, everyone of them is in a blue-state. Don't believe me? Check
it out!

So effing what, fool? I'm not critiquing NASA's manned space program
because of state colors. I'm critiquing it because it's a waste of money.


: I will readily admit war, overall, has been very wasteful. The cold war
: consumed, what, $20 trillion in current dollars? In many cases not
: fighting would be even more costly, however. Do you think, for example,
: that we should not have used bombers and carriers in WW2? That we
: should not have gone to war with Afghanistan after 9/11?

I agree with WWII and Afghanistan, but disagree with Iraq, as it was a
ruse. Which we are beginning to find out with leaks of CIA agent's names,
etc. But with advent of the bomb war has changed. Do you not agree?

I don't know of Iraq was outright fraud, but I do know I didn't
support going to war there.

As for the bomb... war has changed, yes, but then war is always
changing. Perhaps the existence of nuclear bombs means we have to
go to war even more, lest insane countries threaten our annihilation.


: The 'success' of manned spaceflight has been largely one of meeting
: arbitrary, self-defined goals.

Which is typical in a prototypical environment such as manned spaceflight.

The point is not that the environment is prototypical, the point is
that it doesn't connect at all with real external goals. We're going
to the moon because we're going to the moon, apparently.


: You fool, art is life in this sense! Going to the moon was superior to all
: of warfare from day one on earth.

: Risible nonsense, Chomko. A war to defeat a genocidal dictator bent
: on world conquest, for example, is incomparably more valuable and
: worthwhile than a program that, at enormous cost, sent 12 people
: to the moon. A war to eliminate slavery, for example, is more valuable.
: A war to replace autocracy with democracy, as fought here in
: the 18th century, is clealy more valuable.

So you admit that no war since WWII other than the brief stint in
Afghanistan was worth fighting? That would leave going to the moon as more
useful than war during the same time. Okay, I overspoke when I said from
day 1, but certainly true since WWII.

I didn't make that claim. What I was doing was shooting down your
nonsensical categorical statement about war, by showing three obvious
counterexamples.

No doubt going to moon was better than, say, the Vietnam War, but
that's damning with faint praise.

No, we can spend money on needless wars or space exploration. I opt for
space.

And now you're back to your ludicrous false dichotomy. I'd vote for
'neither' (if space exploration means the current manned space
program), if possible.

Paul