Shuttle where are we going ?

Have we lost the will and vision of the space program of the beginning
of the 1960s.

Or what?

Mike
Alaska

On Fri, 14 May 2004 11:28:46 -0800, in a place far, far away, Abrigon
Gusiq made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Have we lost the will and vision of the space program of the beginning
of the 1960s.

Let's hope so.

Or what?

I'd say "what."

Have we lost the will and vision of the space program of the beginning
of the 1960s.


Absolutely. nasa or whats left of it turned into a jobs program.

Let me ask you/ You are the president of a large corporation. You have lots of
nice patronage jobs. the company is non profit. Your big project employees a
standing army of workers and is a mioney pit. but all the money goes to workers
and contractors and your non profit funded by the government.

Now you could ditch that big project, and loose most of the expenses and jobs.
theres no guarantee of a follow up program that large. you wil;l loose all
those high paying patronage jobs.

Why cut your own throat ansd downsize the organization costs, employees,
patronage and everything?

NASA has had no reason to replace the shuttle since its a entranched government
agency without any goals other than keep people working, and the money flowing.

we need a clear goal and end of the shuttle to move forward. sadly they will
likely hold on till we are out or nearly out of orbiters thru accidents.

NASA has no reason to be more and thats so sad
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Fri, 14 May 2004 11:28:46 -0800, in a place far, far away, Abrigon
: Gusiq made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
: a way as to indicate that:

: Have we lost the will and vision of the space program of the beginning
: of the 1960s.

: Let's hope so.

: Or what?

: I'd say "what."

Don't mind Rand. Since he didn't make any money off the space program of
the 60s to him it was a waste. He's really big on space tourism and
wrestling the space program out of the hands of the government.

I'm still waiting for him to create some "cavorite" and get us back to the
moon.

Eric

Rodney Kelp wrote:

The majority of the people are too stupid to see the value of space
exploration and colonization.

Cult members of all stripes say things like this. It's part of the
appeal of a cult: you get to feel superior to all those too foolish
to have joined.

Paul

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Rodney Kelp wrote:

The majority of the people are too stupid to see the value of space
exploration and colonization.

Cult members of all stripes say things like this. It's part of the
appeal of a cult: you get to feel superior to all those too foolish
to have joined.

One obvious counterexample:
The majority of the people are too stupid to see the value of education.

I overreach somewhat; most people do value it, but a lot don't,
and a whole lot don't value it very much a lot of the time
if they don't have kids ...

But the point remains.


-george william herbert

George William Herbert wrote:

One obvious counterexample:
The majority of the people are too stupid to see the value of education.

I overreach somewhat; most people do value it, but a lot don't,
and a whole lot don't value it very much a lot of the time
if they don't have kids ...

But if you don't have kids, educating the children of others isn't
necessarily going to benefit *you* (or your loved ones).

This isn't stupidity, it's selfishness.

Paul

On Wed, 19 May 2004 18:34:54 +0000, Eric Chomko wrote:

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Fri, 14 May 2004 11:28:46 -0800, in a place far, far away, Abrigon
: Gusiq made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
: a way as to indicate that:

: Have we lost the will and vision of the space program of the
: beginning of the 1960s.

: Let's hope so.

: Or what?

: I'd say "what."

Don't mind Rand. Since he didn't make any money off the space program of
the 60s to him it was a waste. He's really big on space tourism and
wrestling the space program out of the hands of the government.

I'm still waiting for him to create some "cavorite" and get us back to
the moon.

I certainly don't mind Rand - seeing as he's correct here. NASA can't
maintain will and vision because it's a bureaucracy that doesn't live or
die by its work. There's no incentive to do something.

Ultimately, I don't think some Kennedy will come around to revitalize NASA
and the US space program in the vacuum of the current situation. The space
advocacy groups aren't powerful enough on their own to spark anything by
themselves. We see what happened since the seventies. It's been a steady
decline all that time. Same with the Russians. Many other countries have
set up their own space agencies but the progress of these programs is
extremely slow.

The ultimate agency of change here will be private industry. That means
such things as space tourism. Government programs go on only as long as
the political will and funding lasts. When we can build a substantial
economy in space that isn't reliant on government funding, then we have
something that will survive the uncertainty of politics.


Karl Hallowell

Cult members of all stripes say things like this. It's part of the
appeal of a cult: you get to feel superior to all those too foolish
to have joined.

Paul

Enron used the same technique, telling the auditors that their feeble
minds were inadequate to understand the vision of Enron management.

On Wed, 19 May 2004 20:14:03 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz"
wrote:

Rodney Kelp wrote:

The majority of the people are too stupid to see the value of space
exploration and colonization.

Cult members of all stripes say things like this. It's part of the
appeal of a cult: you get to feel superior to all those too foolish
to have joined.

....Except in this one case I've got to agree that it's a fairly
accurate assessment of the situation, and that for once the minority
is far more correct than the brainwashed majority. Which is why space
exploration needs to be ordained and mandantory, and given blank check
funding that no idiot can interfere with. The conquest and
colonization of space is mandantory if the species is to survive in
the extreme long run, because no matter how much we recycle and
conserve like the hippie treehugging unwashed say we should,
eventually we *are* going to run out of raw materials. A new world or
three will be needed, and that's all there is to it.

OM

--

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his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

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