Eric Chomko wrote:

: 'My party'? Are you laboring under the misapprehension that I voted
: for W? (Not that this has any relevance to whether NASA manned space
: efforts are wasteful.)

So you voted for Kerry and Gore? You, a flat-earth liberal? What a joke!

I voted for Nader in 2000 and whomever-the-hell the libertarian
candidate was in 2004.

I didn't vote for W because he struck me from the start as
intellectually insufficient to be president (an impression
that has not since been contradicted); also, he's socially
conservative and economically non-conservative, which is about 180
degrees away from my position.

None of this was all that significant to the outcome, since my
state (Illinois) will be won by the Democrat candidate by a wide
margin in a nationally-close presidential election.

: I'm crystal clear in my statements. You just have serious problems
: reading and understanding.

Then state what you do. Heck I told you that I once worked on the Spacelab
project and you almost soiled your shorts ridiculing me for it. The only
neurotic tick is yours WRT manned spaceflight.

Just a bit defensive there, eh?

Spacelab's main purpose was to pad the shuttle manifest to help maintain
the fiction that the absurdly large flight rate they had promised
would actually have enough demand to be sustained (never mind that
the shuttle itself couldn't sustain that flight rate).

: : The military has space applications that are cost-justified. Recon
: : sats, weather sats, communications, early warning, navigation, to name
: : a few. Why should I consider space 'off-limits' to the military?
:
: Perhaps because NASA was set up to be non-military by its very nature. Or
: did you miss that part?

: Um... what? Bizarre non sequitur there, Chomko.

No it isn't. You have a problem with the manned spaceflight budget and I
have a problem with the DOD budget. Given that, my comment is relevant

No, since I asked why should *I* consider space off-limits to the
military (and that doesn't involve NASA at all). Need I point out that
*I* give zero weight to your personal neurotic prejudices?

: At least not yet. So because there is no manned military application of
: space, you're against manned spaceflight?

: No.

Just the cost? What percentage of what it is would make you happy?

Whatever is justified by adequate return, just like any other
investment. I don't play the game of trying to retro-justify
some predetermined percentage.

I have to say, the justifications I've seen so far would not
leave much of a manned space program, by that criterion.

: As for public funds, I'm not against support of manned spaceflight
: in principle, but in practice there doesn't seem to have been
: a situation where it has made sense.

Art, in an of itself, doesn't make sense. When are you going to get that
manned spaceflight is more of an artform than it is science?! Are you
really that much of a "think-inside-the-box" sort of guy?

Ah, so NASA is in the same category as the National Endowment for the
Humanities, '**** Christ', and all that. Gotcha.

The 2006 budget for NEH is $138 million. Gosh, I guess that there
'Space Art' is more than 100x more popular than all other art combined!

Needless to say, I find your argument here completely ludicrous.

Better than being an angry little man, such as you are...

Anger is empowering. Stupidity is just pathetic.

Paul