Jonathan wrote:
.... the Nasa administrator gives this reason for
going back to the moon.

"But no society can reasonably predict that a given venture
will prove to be worth its cost. Sponsorship of such a quest
is always an act of faith, not an act of science."
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20189


He states that our scientific goals should NOT be based
on scientific reasoning. [....] INCREDIBLE!

He didn't say they *shouldn't* be based on scientific reasoning, just
that they *can't* be. At least in the case of the U.S. space program,
he's merely stating a fact. (Though I can see where saying "a gamble"
would have been more accurate, albeit less politically palatable, than
saying "an act of faith".)

At best, you can select, using something like scientific principles,
areas of endeavor that appear more fruitful than others. Where the
gains are in political legitimacy for continued effort, they aren't
easy to predict. Who would have predicted, before it was even
launched, the massive public opposition to letting Hubble die a natural
death? Not me.

Science itself progresses (and stalls) through the appearance of the
unpredicted and the not easily predictable. It happens all the time,
and requires something like an act of faith -- or call it "gambling" if
you like -- to keep people from just quitting while they are ahead.
Acceptably efficient photovoltaics, which enabled satellite power
supplies, and thus the entire comsat industry, were an outgrowth of
research yielding semiconductor diodes and transistors at Bell Labs, at
a time when only a tiny handful suspected the potential of
semiconductors for electronics. Did that most famous of ex-RAF
electronics techs, Arthur C. Clarke, predict what could be done with
germanium and silicon? Far from it. He thought GEO satellites would
be the manned-spaceflight "killer app", because -- you can't make this
stuff up -- we'd have to have people up there to change the *vacuum
tubes* as fast as they burned out.

You cast aspersions on faith? Be wary of being the pot calling the
kettle black. A great deal of space advocacy (as well as its
opposition) truly is faith-based.

"Space is our future"? Well, prove it.

"We can't indefinitely prosper as a civilization without space
resources"? Prove it.

"The human race needs space as a new frontier or we will culturally
stagnate"? Prove it.

"We need to get off Earth to establish long-term safety and
perpetuation for the human race". Prove it.

You can't.

You can offer *arguments* for (or against) such propositions, and some
of them will sound very persuasive (especially to those predisposed to
believe them). But you can't prove any of them. Nor can your
opponents prove they are false.

-michael turner
www.transcendentalbloviation.blogspot.com