Weirder election than Battlestar Galactica's

Andy wrote:

Robert J. Kolker wrote:

Bob wrote:

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:14:28 -0500, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:


It was JFK who proposed the mission. NASA took him up on it.




You mean Congress authorized the funds...

Werner was talking about a manned landing back in the 1950s.



Without JFK's grand proposal Werner v. Braun would just be another ex
Nazi rocket scientist.

Bob Kolker


It still amazes me that it happened at all. Would that we had that much
coherent spirit behind it now.

I don't know how old you are or if you lived through the late 50's into
the 60's, but JFK who was a fascist and a womanizer somehow touched a
spirit that existed then, but no longer does. Americans, at that time,
were genuine naive, dewy eyed idealists who believed anything was
possible if you worked at it. I am sorry to tell you that spirit is not
longer there to the degree it was 40 years ago. When JFK was killed,
more than his body died.

JFK was a good "Hitler". He even had his Kennedy Jugend, the Peace
Corps. Instead of Josef Goebbels's we had Pierre Salinger. It was an
amazing time. The country fell for that neo-fascist line "Aahsk not what
your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". It
is absolutely amazing. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would
not have believed it.

Bob Kolker

Andy wrote:

It was the best deal in history. It gave the wildest imaginations of
the frontier intellect proof that it can be done. I'm not sure the real
worth of that can be calculated.

You would have loved living in Camelot.

In economic terms it had a ****ty multiplier effect. Do you know why?
Because once we got to the moon, we did not stay there. That was the
failure. Going there wasn't so bad. But coming back with nothing to show
for it was tragic.

Bob Kolker

Andy wrote:


In other words, we should have followed thru with our investments.

Bingo! Give this lad a prize for brightness. Many a bad investment can
be redeemed by perserverance. Instead of turning bad money good, we just
****ed away good money. To this day whenever I see "2001: A Space
Odessy" with its sky full of habits and colonies on the Moon, I could
weep tears of frustration. So close. But we missed.



We didn't. Why not can be argued to death but the fact is we had a good
head start on opening a new frontier and we blew it; and now our
government, our public, isn't willing to commit to anything near as
ambitious. Pretty pictures, yes. Pretty pictures of astronauts
elsewhere, no - not if we have to worry about lawsuits.

Pussies.

A



Yup.

Bob Kolker

Scott Hedrick wrote:



By doing a better job than NASA, of course. NASA isn't the only way into
space.

It should be done privately. That is elementary and axiomatic.

Bob Kolker

Scott Hedrick wrote:


Why don't you simp,y "propose" it, and avoid the use of taxpayer dollars at
all?

It costs money that private industry does not have. You need the
Government to "seed" the thing. That is how the transcontinental
railroads got built.

The government had to go into the great plains and do genocide on the
aboriginals, steal their land and clear the way. Then private capital
could do the rest.

Bob Kolker

Scott Hedrick wrote:

"Robert J. Kolker" wrote in message
...

Scott Hedrick wrote:


"Robert J. Kolker" wrote in message
...


People like Morton Thiakol personel. Wonderful. When NASA sat on them,
they folded and let Challanger fly.


Feel free to provide the legal authority for Morton Thiokol to have
stopped the flight.

They cold have told NASA do not fly and they could have gone to the
newspapers and the broadcast media.


Which doesn't in the least explain how *Morton Thiokol* "let Challanger
fly". Again, please provide the legal authority for *Morton Thiokol* to have
done anything.


NASA being run by the brain dead and dickless would have folded.


When did you work there?

Scott Hedrick wrote:



Which doesn't in the least explain how *Morton Thiokol* "let Challanger
fly". Again, please provide the legal authority for *Morton Thiokol* to have
done anything.

If the team at Morton Thiokol had courage ( it didn't) they should have
spilled the whole thing to the press. It would have cost them the
contract, but it would have saved lives. The NASA management would not
accept a professional and objective appraisal of the risks and they
pushed the MT team around. They sat on it. It was like arguing with the
Sopranos.

Bob Kolker

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:



You're mistaken, Project Apollo was announced as a program to land men on
the moon.

Up the creek without a LEM. The LEM idea was not developed until after
the JFK initiative.

Bob Kolker

No One wrote:
example.


Both were utter disasters.

I was there. The company I worked for at the time was contracted to do
software work for the infamous Price Commmission. I was privy to the
muddy turgid thinking that went into the policies. No pinko stinko
fascists socialist could have come up with anything as abominable. It
was positively Kafka-esque. I know that on Judgement Day I will have to
answer for even being a minor player in that swindle.

Dickie was an arch pragmatist. He did not have a princple to his name.
In fact his principle was lack of principle. He was like one of the
villians in the Ayn Rand novel -Atlas Shrugged-.

Bob Kolker

Robert J. Kolker wrote:


Thank the Diety of your choice for that! One FDR was bad enough.


People hated him so much that they reelected him president four times.

Pat