This is great for science and all, but I can't shake the nagging feeling that we could have bought a whole lot of square meals and health care for all that money, and probably had some left over for a few science scholarships.
But maybe my priorities are wrong.....
BillS
The peasants in Portugal said the same thing about that stupid Spaniard in 1491. And it’s true, the queen could of fed a lot of them for the money she squandered on that foolish trip. They are just gonna fall off the side of the world anyway. We need that money here at home. Ditto with the moon and going to the poles, everest, K2, the transcontinental railroad, the list is endless. It's our nature to explore, otherwise we would still be living naked on a savana, or extinct. DASHOriginally posted by Bill Stone
I dunno.....
Those pictures look like Arizona to me!
(Remember when the conspiracy nuts were claiming that the manned moon pictures were a fraud?)
This is great for science and all, but I can't shake the nagging feeling that we could have bought a whole lot of square meals and health care for all that money, and probably had some left over for a few science scholarships.
But maybe my priorities are wrong.....
BillS
Probably the latter! (And then - imagine: No Gauge! )It's our nature to explore, otherwise we would still be living naked on a savana, or extinct.
I'll have to correct/disagree with that statement Ron. NASA and the space program were spun-off from the defense industry. The first men in space rode up there on ICBMs to show the other side their nations Kung Fu. The Space Program was just another fighting front in the Cold War. Nasa didn't develope computers to fly to the moon, the war department (British) did to decode coded messages. NASA used ICBM flight computers and Airforce/Navy navagational equipment to get us into space and to the moon. Most everything NASA used/uses was really military technology. We just pretended NASA was a civilian endevor. DASHOriginally posted by RailRon
Dash,
They say, war is the father of all things - meaning that warfare development advances inventions and technolgy. IMHO the NASA programs clearly generated more all-day-useable spin-offs than the development of 'intelligent' mass destruction weapons. We needn't even speak of the respective gain of scientific knowledge for mankind - NASA wins hands down!
Ron
You are right, Dash - after the Sputnik shock 1957, when the Russions were first in space with a satellite and then two years later with a man, Kennedy kicked off the 'race to the moon' program to restore American supremacy in technology. And for this ambition, military technology (and money!) was the only way to go.The Space Program was just another fighting front in the Cold War.
The Japanese and Europeans both attempted Mars this year, they failed...We suceeded.
Originally posted by RailRon
But never forget, the development of such space vehicles advances technology immensely. And we all have the benefit of this. Hadn't it been for the race to the moon in the '60s, perhaps we still had slow and unreliable analog computers which would fill whole gymnasiums. The same holds true for modern plastics (e.g. Teflon), ceramic and special metallic materials, and so on - lots of side products of space technolgy.
You also have to consider the source of that soundbite...the Discovery Channel. Kind of like Barbra Strisand's rhetoric about conserving the envioroment and resources while she drives an SUV and/or limo from her 100 room mansion on the fragile California coast to the airport to fly on her private jet to London for brunch and a day of shopping. Makes me want to cut back on my lifestyle, yes it does. DASHOriginally posted by csxengineer
Discovery Channel said:
If everybody in 3rd world countries lived like Americans (size of house, yard, food intake, natural resources consumed), we would need 2 more planets!
wooooo