"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
:
: :So you agree or disagree with Paul's assessment? I tend to think he's
: :right.
:
: Well, his is a great path if you think the general populace is right
: to be apathetic about space and you want to continue that.
:
:The general populace's apathy is a rational response to the situation.
:What, exactly, is the manned space program doing for them or their
:descendants?

It wasn't doing anything before and lots of people were excited about
it, Paul.

:The only complaint I have about the apathy is that it's allowing
:the charade to continue.

As opposed to killing human access to space (and any interest in same
by most folks) outright?

: :Sending a few NASA astronauts to the moon won't make us any more of a
: :spacefaring nation than Apollo did, so what's the point of Apollo 2.0?
:
: Well, as you pointed out, right now most of the American people could
: give a fig about space. Not sending people isn't the way to get or
: keep their interest. When we were going someplace (before NASA got
: boring) a lot more people were interested.
:
:More people were interested, until after the first landing or two.
:ISS on the moon is not going to be any more interesting than ISS
:in LEO, except perhaps if astronauts start dying there.
:
:Anyway, if your goal is to ensure public tax dollars keep flowing
:down a black hole, then public interest is a relevant metric. If
:your goal is to actually move significant human activity into space,
:it's irrelevant. For the latter, you need positive ROI, and the sooner
:the better, so self-funded exponential growth can take off.

Except that's not going to happen because you'll never get over the
'hump'. You're basically stuck at COMSAT sorts of applications. No
need for people there.

: There's your point. Or do you think we'll somehow become "more of a
: spacefaring nation" by killing human access to space outright?
:
:Since ESAS won't do anything significant to advance that goal,
:killing NASA would be no worse, and would save money.

No, it would be worse because even fewer people would be interested in
the future. The money saved would go where, do you think, Paul?

:Think also about applying your argument historically. If the manned
:space program had been terminated after Apollo, would we be closer
:to being a 'spacefaring nation' today?

Nope.

:Avoiding the shuttle fiasco would have been a huge benefit,

To who? Terminating space, remember? Contrary to what your sort
generally think, cutting manned space does NOT lead to more money for
non-manned space. It leads to a cut in ALL space.

:and US expendable launchers would be much better than they now are.

I can't find a single reason to believe that.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn