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

[Bret Kulakovich]

Greetings,

Crew Exploration Vehicle and Prometheus?

I heard flight testing for 2008 and 2010 respectively.

NASA is ordering reactors from the US Navy.

If getting humans to the orbit of Jupiter in 2 mos. travel time isn't 
doing science, I don't know what is.


Chin up.

Bret K



On Mar 8, 2005, at 5:14 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>
> --- 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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