Our future in space, stunted in its youth-because Americans, as a whole are pretty stupid. We went to the moon, in an aggressive fashion, and then pretty much stopped.
When I think about all the money that has been wasted on all the wars between 1972 and now-we could have gone to Mars 20 times, had a base on the moon, and a real space station-with gravity.
But we made other choices. Like tax cuts for gajillionaires-and tax breaks for corporations who send jobs overseas. Now, the best we can do is go to the ISS in a Russian rocket-if that does not disgust you-then you have a screw loose. But we found money to go bomb Libya though. ( Of and if you even say one one word about the health care bill-I’ll just zap your comment right there).
The Economist has a great pictorial about the future that might have been-had we not been so collectively stupid.
TODAY marks 50 years since Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first human being in space. The dizzying pace of developments in aerospace technology—just 58 years separated the Wright Brothers’ first demonstration of powered flight from Gagarin’s trip into orbit—inspired plenty of optimistic speculation about what humanity’s future as a space-faring species might look like. This slideshow takes a look back at a future that was thought, in some quarters at least, to be just around the corner, and compares it with the reality of space exploration half a century after Gagarin’s flight.
Skippy,
I agree we have wasted our money on many useless things since the great space race. We gave tax breaks to corporations, and wars. But one war we keep spending on is the “War on Poverty.” I have seen first hand what some of these “Do gooder” policies have done to the areas that I have lived and grown up in.
Sad to say, the mantra in some areas (even among my family) is don’t worry, I’ll get a “check” from the government, to take care of that. Just to show you an example, in my home state of AR, Virgin Mobile (one of those greedy corporations) in conjunction with the state has started a new program that for those who receive some sort of public assistance that they will be given a free cell phone and 250 fee minutes per month. The reason being (and this is in the advertisement in the local paper) so that they will be able to have a number to be reached at when searching for jobs. If that is not enough, they also have a plan for you to get an extra 250 min ($5/month), and for 750 min/1000 texts messages ($20).
The “poverty pimps” have struck gold with that one. Keep in mind, I learned this one from a person I knew who had a business that was not legitimate, keep the prices down, and they will come and buy your product. The current Dem Gov/legislature in AR has just made one of those greedy corporations a ton of money. Never mind that providers like AT&T and Sprint require you to pay for a service up front and all of the other items that go along with being a responsible consumer, but now this company will be able to undercut every other service provider by offering a free service (subsidised by my tax dollars), and then once they have them using their products, will be able to get more money without out of those that they are supposed to help.
Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t help those who are unfortunate, we should, but knowing how the “Do gooders” are this is not.
That’s just what is being done on the small AR scale. Look at all of the money we have wasted as a nation on programs like this one, and then comment on how we have lost the edge in the space race.
Well, I think its all a matter of degree-there are also programs that have helped a lot of people, that folks are screaming to get rid of. If we were really short of money (and by that I mean total money out there in the economy) then it might have more meaning. But when we can afford to misdirect money to whatever location-then we have a problem.
And besides the technological ROI on spaceflight is pretty high. Just look at the improvements in computers.
The technological ROI on war is pretty high as well. With space there are no reasons like “if we don’t do it the aliens will come” as opposed to the 2 wars.
Oh I don’t know. $15 trillion of make believe non existent money. I’m for pouring another few billion of that stuff into Virgin Galactic and Rhutan. Not a penny for NASA.
Skippy, I know that many of the programs that have been used in the War on Poverty have had good intentions, and I am all for helping those who need help. But I can tell you, just like the wars we are fighting now in the Middle East, are being fought the wrong way. People like my brother, who was an Direct Marketing director for 20 years, making a six-figure salary gets laid off. Goes through his savings just to maintain a home (that he didn’t overextend on or try to flip), and paid his taxes all this time and did the Middle class thing. When he was really down and went for assistance, what did he get? Nothing because the government workers said he had made too much in the previous year, all the while young Black and Latino females with children and more on the way were able to walk out of the office with all types of health care, financial benefits, and “educational grants” (i.e. free money). While a tax payer like my brother gets nothing.
Fight the war on poverty like you really want to win, just like we did when we really wanted to go to the moon and we did.
Just like we have the contractors who are making money from these wars we are in, companies like Virgin Mobile are doing the same thing. I keep hearing about the evilness of Haliburton and all of the things they are charging us for, this company is doing the same thing.
Well, one can interpret the Space Shuttle program as a misstep with a significant opportunity cost. Also, I never understood the justification for the ISS. It provides neither the romance of manned space *flight*, nor does it achieve as much as unmanned probes. Skylab was deorbited, so why not the ISS?
To heck with Mars — I am just happy that the Hubble Telescope has been maintained until now. Does anyone here remember all that talk of early decommissioning, of canceled service missions?
Skippy, I view the space race as one of the greatest inputs to American education as the GI Bill was to post WW2 America. The government pumped more money into schools to teach the hard sciences, which in the long run helped us out. Now all you get in American schools is a bunch of feel good crap and how it’s all America’s fault.
Now, with the example I have talked about with the free cell phone service we are going the other way. Instead of teaching, we are giving out more free stuff. I know that is a simplistic view but that is the way that I see it. This is the same sort of thing that led to the housig bubble. People were buying homes with no real proof of income, and buying more than they could afford. Why? Because of the poverty pimps who kept saying that lending institutions were being discrimanatory in their lending (they were but there are better ways of solving this), and the push to get more people into homes to pump up the construction sectors. When the music stopped and the banks stopped giving, we got what we have now. Same thing will happen with this. More free phones for one everyone, until the FCC says that too much of the spectrum is being used up.
Instead of giving away free cell phones, and research on buying carbon credits, I say we get back heavily into space exploration. As some have stated, the technology we gained from that has helped us a long way. I don’t see how allowing “the gang” to text and call each other to talk about nonsense will help us in the long run.
What is Rhutan really doing for space flight? Or the other companies that are supposedly a better deal than the Constellation program? How many launches have they had? How many of us have they taken into space? The government is the only customer.
Plus lets not forget too-the natioanlistic aspect. Going into space is a way to show tell the rest of the world to do it out way. Cheaper than invading Iraq.
Skippy which would you gamble on, winning the next powerball lottery, or going up in a Russian or Chinese rocket to the ISS?
I’d put my money on the lottery.
I assume your referance to Rhutan, is to Burt Rutan. I have flown in Rutan designed aircraft. He did make the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period. ( Note privately funded)
It is with these private companies that a lot of the technolgy is developed then goes into space programs.
As far as the Constellation program, it was Obama that conceled it so he could redirect the money to have NASA study AGW. This brings us back to the point Maurice is making, it’s all about control. Government picking and choosing the winners and losers in all realms of life and business.
don’t our Galtian overlords live on MARS and maybe thats the reason Skippy wants us to be there?
Are there Asian women on Mars?
Poverty pimps? This was not a government program to put people in homes. This was an international fraud scheme to disguise crappy American home loans as AAA-rated safe investments so that they could then be hawked to foreigners and insurance companies and pension funds. The fact that a whole bunch of people who probably didn’t deserve credit ended up owning mortgages and buying homes was actually an incidental side-effect. The fact those same poeple are now being blamed for the crisis is another kick in the balls.
If they have Asian Women on Mars-That’s even more reason to go there If you saw total recall there are chicks with three tits-what’s not to like? 🙂
Sorry that was my bad on Rutan.
But there was one here that laid claim to saying that the only customer for space launch to orbit was the government. “The Government is the only customer”.
Good grief Skippy
Government is the only customer-in as far as using it for something other than a sub-orbital journey. If we want commercial companies to build the rockets fine-but there is not a demand for companies to flying to space stations or building them. Maybe there should be.
I want my NASA back! I want the American flag back on the Moon, Mars, Gannymede and any other place we can put it. I want a base on the moon. I want average people to be able to go to the moon.
Skippy, the director of NASA was on a speaking tour in the Islamic world giving them the speech on the great contributions that they have made to science. He is not trying to get us to Mars, but making sure the “rabble” feel good about themselves.
And get their cash.
Got any numbers on what your tax $ brought back from ISS? I’ve seen no feedback discussing ROI on the station. Have you? A $ hole in space in orbit.
There’s flocks of satellites in geo centric orbit that commerce paid for. Irridium ring any bells?
Worked above a part of ULA for years at Plant 19. Terrible dump.
And consider this too — Werner von Braun was not only a good engineer and project lead, he was a fine publicist too. There is no face to NASA now, no champion for the dream of space flight. NASA failed to make a compelling case for its budget in the past quarter century. Without someone like Mahan or Rickover, the organization will remain mostly earth-bound.
I think Feynman could have done it. I don’t think he had any interest since he thought it was just like the Manhattan Project and wanted nothing to do with it.
Whiteduskon:
“The technological ROI on war is pretty high as well. With space there are no reasons like “if we don’t do it the aliens will come” as opposed to the 2 wars.”
I really doubt that – war has enormous costs; the technology gained has an incredible price.