BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?

Subject: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 06:19 AM

When I look back at things which have caused me angst, the Space Program probably is up towards the top of the list. One side of me was thrilled, the other disgusted. Now Bush comes along and for motives that are seriously in question tries to get us excited about another great challenge. Once again the little kid jumps up and says, "Hooray!" and the weary adult says, "Bullshit."

I wonder if we have become too cynical to do it now. Do you remember what it was like? I was 8 when Sputnik went up and it scared us and excited us at the same time. I loved planes and flying and had followed the new jets with great interest. Then we chose astronauts and one of them had grown up in the next county! We thought they were great and no matter what the Russians did, our guys would come through! And when John Glenn came home after orbiting in Friendship 7 we went to the parade in his hometown and I shook his hand. I was 12 and saw him as an ultimate hero, just another Ohio kid who went out and did his best.

And the program went on with Gemini and then to Apollo. Even with tragedy and setbacks we were excited to watch.......To watch two spacecraft fly in formation, to stand in our backyards and look up and know that Ed White was making a spacewalk right overhead. But I was changing and along with many in the country we wondered at the cost when people were homeless and hungry. Vietnam had become an integral part of the American psyche and yet even then, much as I wanted to denounce the waste of the space race, I was far too hooked......deep down I loved it.

And on that July night in 1969 when another Ohio boy stepped onto the moon, I stood in a dorm rec room, now 20 years old, with 30 other guys glued to the pictures on the piss poor TV set. All of us from the most conservative to the most flaming radical stood together and watched in complete awe as Neil Armstrong made that little hop off the ladder of Eagle. Many of us walked outside and stared up at the moon in almost disbelief. The flights to the moon continued and became routine. Even the great teamwork it took to save Apollo 13 was forgotten within weeks of their safe arrival back home.

We needed to continue, to shift to new challenges, to reach out farther. Instead we pretty much just let it all slip away and the technology gained went to our personal lives but not back into space. So now we are pretty happy with the status quo and some of the very technology that leapfrogged ahead on the space program now provides us with computerized special effects and enhanced photography so that we can sit safely at home and view the next planet almost as though we were there.

But we aren't............And now the old arguments arise again about costs in a poor worldwide economy and the need to actually send humans for exploration. I wonder if in these times and in this world that has become so different than the one we knew in the 50's and 60's, is there enough will to do it? Can we capture that same magic again? Or is it too late and are we too calloused to the ways of politicians and have our kids seen so many special effects that the reality will hold nothing for them?

When John Glenn flew again on the Shuttle, I watched the launch and as I heard Scott Carpenter once again say, "Godspeed John Glenn," I knew that I had been allowed to grow up in very special times. Maybe the magic is still there. Maybe not.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 08:38 AM

Ah, the magic is still there, Spaw! Yes, I was thrilled by Sputnik, and Laika,and Yuri Gagarin, and John Glenn, and the Bell X-15 and everything else. I know the X-15 wasn't a spacecraft, but it was part of the magic, all the same -- and it looked more like one than the real ones did.

I don't remember any notion of danger in it all, in England; but then I was only 5 or 6 when Sputnik went up. Now I know all about politics and the Cold War and the arms race and the importance of showing the other guy how accurately you can target your ICBMs. Is growing up merely the discovery of cynicism and disillusionment? There's a little boy inside me that say "No!"

I work at the Open University (though not as a rocket scientist), and I've been following the progrees of Beagle 2 ever since I first heard about it a few years ago. I went to the exhibition at the last OU open day a couple of years ago, saw all models and met some of the folks working on the project. I've bumped into Colin Pillinger -- literally! -- a couple of times around the campus. It's very real, and it's in my back yard! You can imagine the disappointment we've felt since Christmas morning came and went with no news ... indeed, if you've been following NASA's Mars missions, you'll know what it's like.

Mars, eh? It's not going to be like John Carters Barsoom, or Ray Bradbury's Mars, or Robert Heinlein's Mars or Captain W. E. Johns' Mars (or even the Australian outback!) It's going to be a Really Big Adventure ... six months to get there another six to get back ... is it really feasible? Or Desirable? Or necessary? Ask that six-year-old kid ...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 08:44 AM

From my distance (I'm not American) it looks like Bush is trying to direct common observation away from his failures by summoning the nostalgic hope of space travel, and ride that hope to another term in office. What an asshole...a bigoted, homophobic, war-mongering, polluting, selfish, deluded, manipulating, shallow asshole. Oh golly, I shouldn't say that, he's also some kind of deity.

Go on, go to Mars, but what of home?

Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 08:52 AM

When can I go? How do I buy a ticket?

I remember the Vanguard explosions, and the US Army saving the day by launching Explorer, and Ranger landing on the Moon, and how annoyed I was when the Russians launched Sputnik before the US got anything Up There, thinking "Ah, MAN!!! Those Commies! We'd said WE were gonna do it! How DARE they do it first when we said we were going to?"

Of course, I was also thrilled that Mankind had finally done it.

Then Carpenter and Grissom and Glenn and Gargarin and Laika and Ham and everyone and it sort of got lost in college and the Vietnam War and race riots and things.

And then, in July 1969, standing in a Day Room at Camp Casey, Korea, a room literally filled with Koreans and Americans, watching a black-and-white TV picture from THE MOON!!! and everyone, no matter their nationality, cheering....

Yes, we can do it. Humanity can do anything it sets its mind to. There's cynicism, sure, and yes, there are lots of things that need to be addressed here on Earth, but we also need a Great Adventure to complement the Merely Mundane. We need heroes, and not the military kind and CERTAINLY not sports or cinema! (If you doubt that we need heroes, look at the popularity of Harry Potter and LOTR.)

Let's do it. This time as a planet, not as a nation.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 08:57 AM

Bush is an asshole, yes.

But --- far more important--- man is going to Mars!

A

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:08 AM

Well danged!

At the rate we're screwin' up the planet, we sure should be in the market fir another one...

But most of us see right thru Bush's motivations and I don't see this as becoming a campaign issue. Most Dems should just say, "Yeah, we gotta do a better job in taking care of our prople but we can do both." And we really can. We are still the wealtiest country in the world with the highest poverty rate of any industrialized nation. That's a value issue.

But, heck yeah, me and the Wes Ginny Slide Rule ready to go to Mars, like today!...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Midchuck
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:14 AM

Yes, it's f***ing necessary!

As a species, we have to grow or stagnate. If we grow much more while confined to one planet, we'll suffocate in our own wastes.

If I were sure George W. really meant it, I'd forgive him everything and vote for him. On the other hand, I no longer believe anything any politician says, particularly one running for election. So I don't know what to think about this new push.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:16 AM

I doubt that Bush sincerely thinks man is going to Mars, but that HIS America is going to Mars. There's a distinction, no matter what comes out of his mouth.

Resources are finite, so there's little question that such an endevour will drain time and money from other pressing needs, though I suspect the war machine won't be hurting.

I need some caffeine.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Wesley S
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:18 AM

I hope we go. I grew up in Florida during the 60's and my father helped to make the inertial guidence systems for the Mercury missions - so we were very concerned about the space race. We can't help but benefit from the research involved in an endeavor like this. Here's hoping that shrub succeeds this time.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:22 AM

Mars! been there it's crap.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:32 AM

Just another load of Bushit in aid of conning a few more idiots into voting for him. And it will work.

Which IS a shame... ditto what 'Spaw said.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:54 AM

Hey -- I wouldn't vote for him on a bet, and my species will get to Mars before yours!! Neener,neener!


A

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:23 AM

If someone had told me as a six-year-old I'd be working with computers when I grew up, I'd have been delighted: almost as good as as going to Mars, and you get to go home for tea. Sometimes I feel cheated that I don't have to deal with a big room full of glowing valves and whirring machinery ...

I know it's going to cost tons of money, and Mankind is not likely to begin migrating to Mars for a very long time, if ever, and I know Bush is playing the Kennedy card to get more votes, and I know it's going to be of no direct use whatsoever ... so what's the answer, kid?

It's going to be very exciting.
Yeah ...
And Mr Bush won't still be president by the time we go there, will he?
No, that's true.
Calculators and non-stick frying pans and desktop computers (thank you--NOT!) and digital cameras and satellite telly and --
Yes, we all know about the spin-offs.
No you don't -- there's loads of stuff that came from the Space Programmme that nobody even thinks about! And it's not just old stuff like that -- what about all the miniaturised stuff from Beagle 2, like the mass chromatograph? Just think what we might get from a manned mision to Mars -- things we can't even imagine yet!



Steve

"Humans! There goes the neighbourhood!"

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:25 AM

Well then, all you six-year-olds: what's the Space Program ever done for us?

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:00 AM

Only an idiot would ever even have to ASK that question...

How's about bringing us one step closer to getting off this little rock, whose days are numbered anyway...

If Meteor/asteroid strike don't get us, the slowing microbe-cycle will... Or when the magnetic poles flip and we have to try to survive for 2-10 years with NO protection from solar radiation.... and eventually the sun goes nova anyway... so we gotta git!

The sooner the better...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:44 AM

Bush has no idea is we will really be able to pull this off. He has no idea if succeeding administrations will continue to allocate $$$$ to the project. It is just one more "feel good" thing to wave to get one more area of support for this years campaign.

I hope it DOES work, and that we quit spending quite so many billions to build bigger & better bombs, so that more reasearch is done on "what we are and where we came from" rather than ways to make the question moot.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:45 AM

Spaw, excellent thread. Your posting should be published!

I can't stand the thought of humankind staring in on the trashing of another planet. We cannot get it together enough to take care of the one we live on, why should we then be able to go ruin another? Granted it may take a long time before we could actually live there, but tourists leave a lot of trash, too.:-)

The shrub is grandstanding, trying to deflect from his hosue of cards falling down around his batwing ears (sorry Bat Goddess:-). It's just mroe fo his smarmy, spoiled little brat posturing AND you can be sure his cronies head the companies which will benefit the most from contract to build whatever we need to get us there.

I'd love to feel that thrill and wonder, again and I believe we might, but not with him as a so-called leader. We need a hero as noted above,like the LOTR, Luke Skywalker, etc.!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:49 AM

I'm no fan of Bush, but it's the first forward-looking thing he's proposed and I applaud it. Speech-making, diversion, whatever, it's a positive objective in my books. It was a speech by JFK that promised a man on the moon by the time the decade was out that a lot of people felt crystalized the impulse and industry to make it happen. Maybe it's a tactic Bush is trying to give his image a boost but if it makes things happen in that direction again, be happy with the benefit from it.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Peg
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:49 AM

Now let me get this straight: more space exploration is   justified because we need another PLANET to live on? Because we've f*cked up this one by being a bunch of greedy, impatient pigs with no concept of why we should think about future generations?

Gee whillikers, wouldn't it be easier and more desirable to clean up the one we got? I mean, at least we have oxygen here...

I do think space exploration is important in terms of gaining   knowledge that will help us improve life on the planet humans were made to live on...but any notion of living in a Mars-based space station seems very pie in the sky to me...Learning about how to counter environmental damage, yes this is useful; how to determine astronomical events before they happen, useful also...perhaps how to   mine extra-terrestrial elements for medicinal or other value, sure.

I agree with Barney Frank on this one; the bills that come due for another space program push will be well after Bush has left office (and go far beyond the single billion he is proposing); he is looking to establish a legacy he does not deserve, and win votes for it, and wag the dog's attention away from the nightmare he has wrought...

And I also believe the reason he has gotten away with half of what his administration has done, and why he will get away with this (despite its lack of economic justifiability),is the vulnerability and fear people still feel in the wake of 9-11. Despite distastrous and deadly accidents on space shuttles in recent years, Americans want to feel like they are winning against dangerous odds. It's easy to subdue a bunch of starving Afghanis. Finding a way to get a shuttle to re-enter the atmosphere safely, now there's a challenge...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:11 PM

He PR'd thegreenies wioth his "billions for hydrogen research" paragraph in the State of the Union address, as well. I haven't heard another owrd about them (those billions) or about hydrogen research being revitalized. The Toyota Corporation will do more for hydrogen research than the White House in the next five years, I betcha.

A

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:30 PM

A moon base would have an advantage over the space station in safety and durability. I think it is a good idea, considering the ammount of research and advances in technology that would result from such a venture. Far better to advance the cause of medical science and technology, than stagnate or concentrate on military science alone.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:48 PM

" tourists leave a lot of trash"

All life leaves trash... The lessons learned (conservation, recycling, terra-forming) in a small, closed system like a space station or moon/mars base will prove invaluable to life here on earth...

Seems like the whole internet is talking about space exploration, and everywhere I go, I find myself recommending that people read "The Millennial Project" by Marshal T Savage... subtitled "8 Easy Steps To Colonizing The Galaxy"

"The Toyota Corporation will do more for hydrogen research"
Space exploration might be better done by the private sector as well... I guess we'll have to wait and see eh...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:12 PM

If there was as much effort spent on solving Earthbound problems as is spent on Earth-leaving problems maybe that too would create "spin-offs".

I like the idea of research and exploration in space but not when pollution, war, hunger, human overpopulation, animal depopulation, keep getting ignored.

Mom never let me play outside until I did my chores at home.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:18 PM

There's a school of thought that says most of the problems our earthbound society faces are due to overcrowding on this planet. We are an exploring, consuming, ambitious, aggressive, but inventive species. It's time we spread our freakshow to the stars.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:30 PM

But pollution, wars overpopulation, and all that stuff are NOT being ignored!

And quite frankly, the money in the space program, if diverted wouldn't make so much as a blip in any one of those problems... Let alone solve them ALL...

My mom knew that the best way for ME to get my homework done was to take breaks occasionally, and have some fun WHILE I was learning...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: TIA
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:33 PM

Mars - God of War. Perfect choice for current POTUS.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:48 PM

I'm afraid I'm way to cynical to put any stock in the recent announcements. First, I think Dubya will implement part of the agenda. He'll end space shuttle flights and US participation in the International Space Station all right but the additional thousand million for NASA will never materialize and neither will any manned flights to Mars. Asside from elation over the attention, very few scientists think there is much payback in a manned trip. If any manned flights are attempted, it will be to the Moon so that, in violation of international treaty, it can be claimed as a US teritory and mining operations can begin. Look for Halliburton to get the contract. Of course the contract will also include WMD bases but, of course, only as a defensive and deterrent measure.

Bookmark this post and check back in three years.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 02:29 PM

pure politics and nothing but. no price tag, nothing concrete to be accomplished while bush is in office, nothing but a speechwriter's attempt to craft some grand sounding phrases that dubya has trouble pronouncing. a true new vision for space travel would include the rest of the world to make it a human endeavor rather than an american "go it alone" ego trip. dubya doesn't know (or care) to make that connection. complete hogwash to get iraq and o'neill off the front pages.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 02:36 PM

Mark,

Surely he won't put WMD bases on the moon - he'll be looking for them. They're as likely to be there as the last place he looked.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 02:40 PM

Nothing a little Lunar Regime Change can't handle...

A

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: kendall
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:09 PM

Go to Mars? On what, our looks? we are so far in debt right now we would have to look up to see down.
This lying phoney is running for President, and we shouldn't believe a word he says. Remember when he was running before? He trashed Clinton for spreading our troops too thin, and engaging in "Nation building". Then what did he do immediatly after getting appointed?

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:10 PM

Sorry to be a curmudgeon, folks, but here's how I see it:—

Grover Norquist, who has been described as "the philosopher of the Greedhead wing of the Republican Party" once stated that "We hope to get the federal government small enough so we can strangle it in the bathtub."

One of the intentions of the Bush administration is to get the federal government completely out social programs or anything having to do with such things as Social Security, Medicare, or anything vaguely resembling what might be called "welfare programs." Attempts to privatize Social Security are part of this and the so-called "Medicare Reform" bill is another step in this direction. This also involves making many things, such as education, the responsibility of the individual states. Why has "no child left behind" never been adequately funded? They expect the states to do that. Any social programs to aid the poor and/or homeless are to be turned over to "faith-based organizations" (read "fundy churches"). This has been a dream and a goal of reactionaries since Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal," during which many such social safety-net programs got their start. This was what drove Reagan. And this is what drives Bush.

Bush doesn't believe in "trickle-down" economics any more than you or I do. Massive tax cuts serve a purpose beyond further enriching the rich. It reduces the federal government's income. This, plus massive expenditures on the defense budget and the Iraqi war have given the United States the largest deficit in history. Despite the usual Republican objections to government spending, Bush has pooped away more money than any other president ever, Republican or Democrat.

What would you say of an individual who, already so deep in debt that he will never be able to pay it off in his lifetime, dashes out and buys himself a Lear jet—on credit? Fiscally irresponsible hardly describes it. This is, essentially, what Bush is doing with his newly announced space program. It doesn't matter that he will not be around to officiate when humans finally set foot on Mars; he will have accomplished his purpose: the country will be so deep in debt for generations to come that any future Democratic administrations will not be able to afford to pay for the social programs that the right-wing reactionaries have wanted to cut for the past seventy years. He will have achieved Grover Norquist's ambition: he will have strangled the federal government in the bathtub.

No one could be more enthusiastic about space exploration than I am. I became fascinated with the Buck Rogers comic strip before I could even read. I have read vast quantities of science fiction and still do. I have seen just about ever science fiction movie that ever came out. I have watched every episode of the various Star Trek incarnations several times (I have all of Star Trek: The Next Generation on tape), not to mention regularly tuning in on the Sci Fi channel. And I have about six feet of bookshelves dedicated to such nonfiction books as Road to the Stars by Iain Nicolson, Understanding Physics (three volumes) by Isaac Asimov, Other Worlds by Paul Davies, and just about everything Carl Sagan ever wrote. I stayed up all night watching television when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Few things would make me squeal with delight more than a manned landing on Mars.

But that's not what Bush is all about. He will undoubtedly look like a visionary to many space enthusiasts, thereby garnering their votes, so it's a good election year move. But the main purpose is to bore another drain hole in the fiscal bucket.

The right thing (manned interplanetary travel), but at the wrong time (massive fiscal deficits) and for the wrong reasons (to look good while further increasing the deficit).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:20 PM

*In my best Leonard H. MaCoy*

Damn the cost, man!

Full speed ahead!

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:30 PM

we have no business going to mars and messing it up and it is to our eternal shame that we set foot on the moon and left all that trash there as well.

I think it was Burma who in 1969 filed a formal complaint with the United Nations that we were desecrating something sacred to them. I was with them on that then and now even more.

As a species we could do so much more to solve the problems on this planet, which are NOT all attributable to over population, and the moon is not another Australia where we will send our convicts and surplus citizens anyway. this is one of the stupidest, most flagrantly diversionary, infuriatingly asinine ideas this moron Bush has ever had.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:37 PM

I'll go even further and aver that all of modern science has been a big waste of energy. Nuclear energy has given us Hiroshima Nagasakie, Chernobyl, etc. and high utility bills. Medicine has given us heart transplants for smokers who keep smoking, antibiotics that we feed to chicken so bacteria thrive and evolve into super bacateria that may kill us all. radio and television have given us rush limbaugh, survivor, and not much else of any real cultural value since the 50s.
computers have made it easier to bring porn into the home without having to show the brown paper wrappers. and solitair, I forgot that. yet we still let people go to bed hungry, homeless. it's a distribution of wealth problem, a social problem, and it needs to be solved first. if solved, why would anyone want to go to other planets? this earth could be a paradise, but for our selfishness and greed.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:16 PM

I'm always amused to see Luddites posting on the internet.

Have a beer, Bill. It'll all look better in the morning.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:17 PM

Left all that trash on the moon? I'll bet it could be measure in 10's of pounds and still not be a big number...

Cultural value of the 50's?? Oh please... I'd rather be dead than live in the wasteland THAT appeares to have been...

I suggest you'd better go back to the cave Bill...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:20 PM

The strange thing is that, it appears that a whole lot of Americans are so sceptical that they think the whole moon landing was a hoax; but now Bush is betting on the idea that enough Americans are actually naive enough to believe this empty promise about Mars, so that he can actually get elected President next time.

Of course it might enable to few more healthy contracts to his mates, but this shrikes me as about as serious a commitment as his Daddy's similar one.

Now if they were serious, they'd be announcing a programme to put up some kind of space elevator, which could really make human space travel a practical possibility...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: TIA
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:21 PM

"all of modern science has been a big waste of energy"

Ouch!

How 'bout:
the germ theory of illness
penicillin
polio vaccine
earthquake resistant construction
genetics (e.g. for disease and drought resitant crops)
bioremediation of pollutants (well, okay the pollutants too)
Tang instant breakfast drink
.
.
.

I guess you do have a point, but I object to the word "all". The products of science, like any knowledge, can be put to good or bad use.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:32 PM

" if they were serious, they'd be announcing... some kind of space elevator,"

Read the site you linked to... it's being worked on...

"The discovery of carbon nanotubes and the ongoing development to implement them into a composite is the key to space elevator viability being achieved in the coming years."

Note the "Ongoing development" part especially...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:43 PM

Interesting...

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:47 PM

"It's being worked on", but on a shoestring budget.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:50 PM

thank you for the post, Don Firth...it says what I 'felt', but hadn't the background to put into words...and it puts one more name into the list of right-wing zealots who seriously intend to reduce the world to a new form of oligarchy

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:53 PM

Oh I still wouldn't vote for Bush (if I was American), but I was happy to see at least lip service paid to expanding the space program. Gotta take what we can get.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:56 PM

(I'm not sure that most of the conservatives even realize what the vector forces of their attitudes and policies are heading towards...many just want certain daily stuff done their way. But some, like the Roves and Wolfowitzes and Grover Norquists certainly have far reaching agendas in mind.)

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 06:48 PM

You ain't gonna find me climbin' in no tin can that gets shot to the moon or Mars. No sir. I leave that job to the crazy humans who thought it up. With any luck they will all emigrate to some other planet one day and then we apes can put this one back in order again. I know what's up with Bush. He's been hittin' the bottle again and gettin' all excited, jumping around and screeching and hooting, and then he makes a speech about somethin' like space travel. He's just havin' After-Saddam letdown, that's all. He needs a new big objective to focus on, but he figures he can't afford another war right now.

Nice writing, though, Mr Spaw. You are almost simian. From me, that's a major compliment.

Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:14 PM

My two pennies worth. I was as thrilled as any when the first man stepped on the moon. But even at that time, there was concern in this country about priorities. Pehaps we will never be rid of the poverty, violence and fear in this country and on this earth that so many live with every day, but we have to try. Another race to be first is deplorable, imo. And it isn't necessary.

Many, many times out of our testosterone-driven quest for excitement, human beings have been added to an equation, when it would be but a fraction of the cost and at no risk to sentient life if sophisticated instruments and tools alone were sent to do a job. With the capabilities we now have and with more on the horizon, why would it be necessary to send people? For pete's sake, we are getting wonderful pictures right now from Mars, 49 million miles away, by remote control. Very soon it will be possible to bring back physical data for examination. All without risking one life. So yeah, Clinton, count me in: "Only an idiot would ever even have to ASK that question... "

Quote:
Today's Luddites continue to raise moral and ethical arguments against the excesses of modern technology to the extent that our inventions and our technical systems have evolved to control us rather than to serve us and to the extent that such leviathans can threaten our essential humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: DougR
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:21 PM

Not in my lifetime.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:24 PM

That's not the same as "over my dead body" is it, Doug?

Subject: RE: BS: So Are We Going To Mars Or What?
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:35 PM

Sorry to be negative, but Bush's first priority will be the moon -- to make it a military base so that the US controls the entire planet from outer space. He will tie the moon in with the space shield project, and it will all be military, and with nothing but war applications.

Mars is a dream that Bush doesn't have to consider, as it (if it ever happens) will be way beyond his time.

But the moon will be an American military base.