[extropy-chat] USA - No Science, No space travel, No money ........

[Mike Lorrey]

--- BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Over at "What's New?",
> <http://www.aps.org/WN/WN05/wn030405.cfm>
> 
> Friday, March 4, 2005
> 
> 1. SCIENCE BUDGET: TAX REVENUES DOWN, WAR COSTS UP, BIG TROUBLE.
> You don't have to be Alan Greenspan to know what happens when taxes
> are cut during a costly war. And it's happening. Science, with no
> champions in this administration, looks to be one of the big losers.
> NASA, alone among science agencies, would get an increase under the
> Bush request, but the entire 5%, and more, is destined for the
> Moon-Mars Initiative, which has no discernible science content.
> Meanwhile, Hubble will be dropped in the ocean.

Actually, Alan Greenspan knows otherwise. He happens to know when you
cut tax rates that tax revinues rise. Always. 

Nor is there "no discernable science content". Quite the contrary,
further research in long term space habitation, testing of solutions to
microgravity related physiological and psychological problems, testing
long term use of nuclear space technology, research into remote fuel
manufacturing technologies, and the granddaddy of them all is all the
in person science that can be done by putting geologists,
hydrogeologists, microbiologists, and biochemists feet on the ground
with a multitude of research equipment.

What the author really means is that there won't be a lot of science
for the scientists who don't win the competition to become an
astronaut....

> 
> 2. MOON-MARS INITIATIVE: EXPLORING THE OUTER LIMITS OF POLITICS.
> So what's really behind "The Vision"? Why is the administration
> pushing so hard for a science initiative that scientists scorn, and
> which won't take place on Bush's watch? Ah, but that's the plan. It
> will be up to the next administration, stuck with a huge deficit, to
> decide whether to go ahead with a meaningless but staggeringly
> expensive program to see if humans can do what robots are already
> doing. As one well-informed NASA watcher put it, "Moon-Mars is a
> poison pill. It hangs responsibility for ending the humans-in-space
> program on the next administration."
>  
> And he hasn't even mentioned the growing Social Security problems as
> well. Not a very optimistic outlook in the US.
> It might be so bad in four years time that the Dems won't even try to
> get elected.

If ending the GOVERNMENT humans-in-space program on the next
administration is the really the goal of the Bush initiative, so what?
Then we have a future to look forward to entirely private space
exploration by humans. How great is that? Whoever you quoted there
sounds decidedly quite statist in their outlook, as if space can only
be 'done' by governments. Gimme a break.

There is going to be a space race, against China, for us to get into
after the dollar tanks next year thanks to Chinese sabotage, and after
the Chinese walk into Taiwan because the US won't be able to afford to
fuel its non-nuke naval ships. American morale is going to hit the
skids and the Chinese will be strutting their stuff, just the recipe
for another big ticket space race.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


	
		
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