Open space mission total waste of money

Aberdeen American News ^ | Jan. 25, 2004 | Donna Marmorstein

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[CyberAnt]

Wow! Thanks for posting that!

[Bobby777]

$7 Trillion Clams? ...your (you're) off by a factor of about 14

I don't know where you get your numbers but the U.S. Gov't disagrees with you ... by a factor of 14 ...

01/22/2004 -------- $7,008,606,702,827.92

(when that snapshot was taken a moment ago)

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

[Aracelis]

Having worked in a sister organisation within the Department of the Interior

That wouldn't have been the Department of the Interior, Office of Red Herrings, would it?

I am well aquainted with all the praddling that goes on at the USGS. You could have saved taxpayers even more by quitting and getting a job in the private sector.

In fact it was a 2-year internship, and what I saved the US Taxpayer more than made up for my salary.

Did you publish some deep thinking circular that no one will read? Never in my life have I seen more useless overeducated people contribute so little with so much waste and spend so much time justifying their own existance than in the federal government.

Hit a nerve, did I? Whattsamatta...you lost funding due to a USGS project? Tsk! So sorry, my dear fellow.

As far as my work, I will only tell you that it was intimately involved with archiving pertinent terrestrial data for long-term environmental studies. These studies are currently being drawn on by a number of other organizations and researchers to determine the cyclicity of Earth's climate.

[Aracelis]

but we're a long way from Star Trek ... too bad ... it would be pretty cool ...

Each journey begins with a single step. We are at the very beginnings of space travel, and who can tell what we will develop from these missions? Many of the technologies we enjoy today have their roots in NASA...even down to the athlectic shoes you are probably wearing now or will wear tomorrow.

[Lokibob]

Note that the extra spending occurs in the out years 2009 and beyond.

 

 

 

[SpaceBar]

Whattsamatta...you lost funding due to a USGS project?

Actually I got a much better job. One that didn't involve having to listen to snoring from the adjacent cubicle.

[Aracelis]

It was the adventurers and misfits who braved the oceans in cockleshell ships, landed on hostile shores and made America in the first place. Providence provided enough people who paid the price of admiralty, to feed their seas with ships and bones. Without curiosity and bravado, our kind might still be cowering up African trees or in Ice Age caves

Wonderful quote, thank you!

[Bobby777]

well, I have to say, I'd rather spend 1.5 billion on the Moon and Mars than 87 billion in Iraq with no hope of recovering the money from their oil ... which should be fair since it's their country being rebuilt ...

but this is the modern Middle East ... we can't ignore it ... but given the Islamic culture, I have little hope of establishing a solid democracy there ... it's a shame that the nations of the world have to spend billions to contain barbarians ... same as every century I suppose ... except the amounts are different ...

[Aracelis]

Actually I got a much better job. One that didn't involve having to listen to snoring from the adjacent cubicle.

Ah! Then you did work in the Department of the Interior, Office of Red Herrings! Geologists don't snore...they simply lithify.

[RLK]

We need basic research in chemistry, physics, and engineering before we can go further. We're not even graduating significant numbers of people in that area.

[Bobby777]

it was about 15 years ago or so that I read that only about 300 Ph.D. candidates in mathematics were Americans ... as you say, quantum leaps are required for even interplanetary travel to be feasible ... and we'll never be able to land on Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and nor even probably Venus, etc.

Mercury, maybe, if we go at night ... (to revive an old joke) ...

[SpaceBar]

And history too. Everyone seems to think that Columbus discovered America. No, he claimed everything he saw, inhabited or not in the name of the Spanish Crown. The only thing they did different than the Olmecs, or the Scandanavians, or asiatic tribes who hooved it across the Bearing land bridge, was to bring guns. Discovered... what rubbish.

[Aracelis]

Prove it.

I am a geologist and geochemist, and I am insulted. A number of other individuals on these threads are scientists and engineers and they are insulted by comments such as yours. Shall I poll the entire population of scientists for you, or will you accept that the sampling of scientists and engineers within FR is fairly representative of all terrestrial scientists and engineers? (Simply talking science and engineering here, NOT political philosophy)

Somehow I doubt it. Thankfully, "Little Earthers" like yourself are in the minority. Most individuals I know appreciate technological advances. I am quite surprised that you are using a computer.

[RLK]

I am a geologist and geochemist, and I am insulted.

---------------------

Your emotional reactions are of your own devising. I am neither to be held responsible for, nor concerned about them.

[Aracelis]

We need basic research in chemistry, physics, and engineering before we can go further. We're not even graduating significant numbers of people in that area.

The Chinese are...and they are coming here for jobs, and returning to China with our technology.

One tiny little problem with your emphasis - just where do you propose to employ American individuals who have invested 10-15 years just to get their PhDs? Hmmm? Private sector positions? Not many of those.

We need the Space Program desperately to help our economy. The spinoffs alone will more than offset the expense, AND keep us a principal power in the world.

[Aracelis]

Your emotional reactions are of your own devising

You assume far too much...but perhaps that is the root of your problems. I haven't had this much pure entertainment in many weeks.

I am neither to be held responsible for, nor concerned about them.

All I can say is "thanks" for the laughs. You're a hoot!

[marron]

The country that masters space technology is the country that is going to matter in the century to come. It could be us, but it doesn't have to be us.

A century from now no one will care or remember that we passed out a few dollars more or less in food stamps, or funded a few abortions more or less than we might have. The bullet points in your high school history class will be who led the way off the planet and how they did it.

Columbus sailed on borrowed money, and the brain drain during colonization bankrupted Spain. But the result was the building of a continent worth far more than anyone could have imagined. Not in terms of money, mind you, which is the least of ways to measure value, but in human terms. The building of modern America set up shock waves that have rearranged the world in ways no one could have predicted when Columbus was hanging around the Lisbon waterfront boring people with his crackpot theories.

Either you push forward, or you implode in slow-mo and cease to matter anymore. There is nothing wrong necessarily in being Belgian, if thats all you aspire to be. I'm sure they're very nice. But they're not going anywhere.

[Aracelis]

Either you push forward, or you implode in slow-mo and cease to matter anymore. There is nothing wrong necessarily in being Belgian, if thats all you aspire to be. I'm sure they're very nice. But they're not going anywhere.

Beautiful summation - thank you!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Exactly.