On Jul 14, 4:30*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article b409867b-4b82-4ccd-820b-8ed7665028c3
@g19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com, says...



I gotta be quick here due to time limits but want to see what you
think. This is a bad time to mention expanding any federal budget
components. This idea may need to wait 'till a better time to be
promoted or implemented. But...

Why did the space program get bi-partisan support in the 1960s?
Because it was a national priority after the USSR upstaged America in
getting people into space.

True. *The Soviets were actually out in front with the first satellite
to orbit the earth, the first man to orbit the earth, and etc. *The US
had to play catch-up. *This was deemed a high priority, so quite a bit
of money was spent.

To be quick and succinct: If it was a good idea then, it is STILL a
good idea. NASA had like 4% fed. budget then (maybe up to 7%).

Wrong. *That funding during the early 60's was an aberration. *That
level of funding will never come back. *Claims to the contrary are
extraordinary claims and therefore must be backed up with extraordinary
proof.

Big Science and Big Space are not PRIMARILY about national prestige,
though national prestige is always a good idea. Scientific advances
that are not yet free-market meaningful, at any moment, do BECOME SO
before all that long.

Exactly how does socialistic spending by a huge government agency such
as NASA have much of anything to do with the free-market? *If NASA was
still primarily an R&D agency like they were during the NACA years, I
might agree with you, but today, NASA spends the bulk of its money on
missions rather than research. *There isn't much that can directly
transfer to the free-market as a result. *

Proposed: major increases in science and space budgets as soon as
politically reasonable.

Links:

http://groups.google.com/group/one-million-mph?hl=en

http://1mmph.yolasite.com/

http://groups.google.com/group/scien...ublicans?hl=en

It's never been politically reasonable to do so. *In fact, the current
administration is proposing doing exactly that and there is currently a
furious uproar from the people who are going to be impacted by the cuts
in current programs (i.e. axing Ares and axing or scaling back Orion). *
Don't you read the news? *The politicians don't care about R&D, they
only care about maintaining their steady stream of pork.

The budgets were bumped up a bit to recover from the Challenger
disaster, but this money wasn't spent on R&D of new tech, it was spent
on making an existing "operational" system a tad bit safer.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

So, the only alternative is to start over from scratch.

Obviously you wouldn't like my 50/50 plan, so no matters what nothing
good is going to happen without those traditional strings attached,
that have kept us far behind the potential that we could muster.

JFK had the right plan and was even willing to pull a few of his own
plugs, and his newly formed cabals certainly took care of that threat.

~ BG