Posted on 01/25/2004 9:12:37 PM PST by jwalburg
Prescott: Have you heard what the president is proposing now?
Howell: Something about exploration, isn't it?
Prescott: Right. He wants to send a crew out into the great beyond to explore uncharted territory. Have you seen the price tag?
Howell: Yeah. And I understand that much of the funding goes into the pockets of the president's close buddies. One of the guys in charge served as his personal secretary for years, and the other is his good friend, William Clark.
Prescott: There should be an investigation.
Howell: Definitely!
Prescott: It's almost as bad as that Louisiana Purchase deal earlier in the year.
Howell: Talk about wasting taxpayer money on frivolities! No one was even asked about this. The president just went ahead and squandered all this money on a bunch of wasteland no one will ever use!
Prescott: You're telling me!
Howell: How much was it? Twelve million dollars??? Man, you could do a lot of important things with 12 million dollars.
Prescott: Our sailors are being starved from Navy cutbacks and we are going to send 47 men to scamper around the wilderness at government expense? And you know what? Everyone thinks this exploration deal was because of the Louisiana Purchase, but I happen to know that the president was making plans for this back in January, BEFORE there was even talk about purchasing the territory.
Howell: That's pretty incriminating stuff! The Congressional Budget Office should get on this right away.
Prescott: No, I think we'll need a special investigator for this one. The thing is, it isn't 12 million. The public is being told it's 12 million - as if that wasn't enough - but really it's 27 million, with interest figured in. Talk about deficit spending!
Howell: You're kidding me!
Prescott: No. I've looked at the figures. This stupid idea is costing taxpayers 27 million dollars! And for what? It's all a public relations move for Jefferson.
Howell: I heard he thinks that by adding all this land we'll seem big and bad to the Europeans. They won't want to mess with us.
Prescott: That, and the stupid Northwest Passage idea. Northwest Passage! Only pea-brains believe in that Northwest Passage theory. But there's Jefferson for you.
Howell: I understand the vice president has some shady motives for this expedition, too.
Prescott: Aaron Burr! That guy's got ulterior motives in everything he does. And this Lewis and Clark thing is no exception. You knew he lost his seat in the New York Assembly when suspicious financial dealings were leaked to the public, didn't you?
Howell: I heard something about that.
Prescott: Well, now I hear he's been scheming to build up a Trans-Appalachian Empire using new land from this Louisiana Purchase.
Howell: Talk about conflict of interest!
Prescott: I wouldn't be surprised if this whole deal was secretly engineered between Burr and the French. Jefferson is just a puppet, you know. He's been a failure at diplomacy on his own. Burr's behind everything.
Howell: Well, just look at the mess Jefferson made of the Declaration. "Endowed by our Creator!" You'd think the new Republic was run by Church of England fanatics, with language like that inserted in the thing!
Prescott: Did you know that Burr's grandfather was that preacher, Jonathan Edwards? The two of them are in the pocket of the religious right, that's for sure. The explorers have already started this asinine trip, with no real public input, no hearings, no committee debate, no environmental impact reports - nothing! They're taking 6 tons of supplies along, mostly to bribe Indians with. Six tons! And much of it on a stupid keelboat.
Howell: Wonder how far they'll get.
Prescott: I don't know, but there are sure better things to be done with that kind of money. You know what Fisher Ames says about the Louisiana Purchase? "Now - we rush like a comet into infinite space!" He's right! This is a crazy idea. And the Lewis and Clark business is even crazier.
Howell: About as crazy an idea as going to Mars! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Donna Marmorstein writes and lives in Aberdeen. You can contact her at dkmarmorstein@yahoo.com.
Paying for their own ships and horses, and carving out homesteads, or returning with a profit on balance.
Thirty five years after Apollo, where are the moon settlers? Where is the lunar equivalent to the East India or Hudson Bay Companies?
There's a slight glitch, you see. It costs millions of dollars to put a poung of gear on the moon, and you can breath the air there. No settlers, no private enterprise.
If there were private moonbases paying their own way today, you would have a valid comparison to Lewis and Clark.
But there aren't, and you don't.
So I'll support a manned Mars mission, sure thing. Just as soon as the private moon bases are paying for themselves.
Otherwise, all we'll be paying for is a trillion dollar photo opportunity.
Robots can do the science, and 1% of the cost.
Ummm... Nope. Did it take months for the Apollo crews to talk back to the Earth? Even during the Voyager Neptune encounter, the light time was only about 4 hours.
Note to self: check spelling before posting when touch-typing while watching television.
Lewis and Clark covered a lot of ground north of there, but were not the first. Not counting the indigenous residents, there were French trappers (and English) in the region, some of the early voyageurs and mountain men.
Not true. Robots can do great science indeed. However, remember Hadley Rille? Those MEN furthered our understanding of the origin of the moon. It is doubtful a robot explorer bringing back a few pounds of rock would have done that.
I don't believe anyone has said, "Mars or Bust!". The only way we get to Mars is through our experiences on the Moon.
Robots can do the science, and 1% of the cost.
Have you ever looked at a photo of an outcrop, and then visited one? Ever looked at an image of a quartz crystal, and then held one in your hands? Bit of a difference, wouldn't you say? Several formations I have run into out in the field were initially identified on the basis of smell. Certain rocks can be identified by feel alone. Geomorphologists and structural geologists put together the history of a region by what they discover based on field observations. These are things that are all lost without the human component.
It's one thing to be a man of vision and to talk about space travel. It's a far different to be a man of ignorant fantasy and hallucination. George Bush should have taken a course in Physics instead of guts courses.
"looking around", I don't see anyone else talking about star travel including President Bush. He was talking about the Moon and Mars.
We can't "land" on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune because they're gaseous. ......there's no solid surface to land on.
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