"snidely" wrote:

:
:Scott Lowther wrote:
: Jim Davis wrote:
:
: wrote:
: No, I don't, because that's *ENTIRELY* *IRRELEVANT.* The
: question is whether ESAS can work, not whether it will be
: profitable.
:
: Scott, this is an incredible statement, indeed it is an admission of
: sorts. It's hard to escape the conclusion that you do not care if
: ESAS enriches or impoverishes the nation; you just want to see
: Americans on the moon, consequences be damned.
:
: Utter rubbish.Again, point to a government agency or project that *is*
: profitable. ESAS plans to spend about what Shuttle does annually.
: Shuttle has not impoverished the nation.
:
:It isn't the source of the incredible deficits and foriegn debt, no.
:But there are many who feel it has done much towards bankrupting the
:budget for *all science spending*, and indeed we are seeing important
:research programs and desirable satellites being cut *at NASA itself*
:as we speak, in order to do ESAS.

And this is where the planetary science types always screw up.

Look at the numbers historically. When manned space funding declines
so does planetary science funding. When manned space funding
increases so does planetary science funding.

Science folks who want to kill manned space in the mistaken belief
that this will someone transfer THAT money to THEIR budgets are peeing
in their own punch bowl over anything except the very shortest of
terms.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw