Posted on 02/17/2010 10:11:36 PM PST by Names Ash Housewares
Ed Buckbee, journalist and former director of the Alabama Space and Rocket Center, has sent the following letter, bearing the signatures of astronauts Scott Carpenter, Gene Cernan, and Charlie Duke, representing the historic Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
Letter below.
(Excerpt) Read more at web.me.com ...
“Would space exploration be better done by public or private enterprise?
And in the grand scheme of things, what is the point of going to the moon? Mars?”
The nations that lead on the frontiers, dictate the course of human history.
The reason are broad and manifold. Easily googled.
But that one is a biggie.
Look up lunar helium 3 and nuclear fusion. Not a future energy industry we want China dominating in.
I can’t speak to his intentions, but his actions are 100% consistant with that goal.
Put in other terms, perhaps as a question for your liberal acquaintances:
What would 0bama be doing differently if his intentions were to utterly destroy America?
“And in the grand scheme of things, what is the point of going to the moon? Mars?”
And who knows what might be very soon launch-able from the moon?
Every day it gets closer to being unanimous:
everything and everyone that WAS America is seeing the true face of what is going on, and one by one , are issuing their statements. There will come a time when the MSM will no longer be able to ignore this VAST vote of NO CONFIDENCE,
issuing from every corner of American life.
Armstrong had now been maneuvered to the point where there was no alternative to offer but a credo, or claim that he was spiritually neuter. That would have violated too much in him. Yes, he blurted now, as if, damn then and damn their skills, they had wanted everything else of him this day, they had had everything else of him, including his full cooperation, now damn them good, they could have his philosophy too if they could comprehend it. "I think we're going," he said, and paused, static burning in the yaws of his pause, "I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges." He looked a little defiant, as if probably they might not know , some critical number of them might never know what he was talking about, "It's by the very nature of his deep inner soul." The last three words came out as if they had seared his throat by their extortion. How his privacy had been invaded that day. "Yes," he nodded, as if noting what he had had to give up to the writers, "we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream."
OF A FIRE ON THE MOON
( Previously quoted on this forum )
I still say that about a third of the money wasted over the last 30 years on worthless “green” studies and other “social science” garbage,(which produce NOTHING!!), no doubt trillions..abut 1 trillion or so could have gotten us back to the moon, a dozen times, and to Mars. and a moon base too.
And then harvesting the Helium 3 on the moon would have repaid that ten times over at least.
But instead....here we are today....
“HAVING a Frontier” made This Country! Jefferson and his Treasury Sec. Gallatin gave us the Louisiana Purchase. {Later; came the phrase “go West, young man”.}
Kennedy gave our young folks the dreams of Space, as the Next Frontier.
Obama is NOT the next JFK.
And don’t forget...O wants us to get the “Muslims” involved in OUR space program!!
Like they have ever came up with any breakthroughs...except how to make an IED.
Astronaut Story Musgrave would agree with you...
“We have been a frontier culture. We were born out of exploration, we were born out of adventure. We were born out of the plains and the mountains. We’ve been a very physical kind of culture. And so, if you look at adventure, if you look at exploration, if you look at immersion in nature, a physical culture, and all those things, you can see directly how space flight relates to the way America has been born and how it evolved.”
We need both. There are overwhelming military reasons to have space superiority; there are also economic reasons to have a native space industry.
The problem is that the government has a vested interest in seeing private space flight operations tank to maintain their monopoly, so any time one of the non-NASA-sourced ventures starts looking like they’re going to succeed, NASA and the Feds start spewing FUD.
All of which means that if NASA doesn’t fly, nobody’s going to fly - at all. At least when NASA was flying they allowed very limited competition.
Teflon was designed for frying pans, and NASA adapted it for the space program.
“And in the grand scheme of things, what is the point of going to the moon? Mars?”
Same point as leaving the African continent and traveling to the New World. We really didn’t have to do that stuff either. I mean, what was the point when it comes down to it? Hell, the entire population of the planet could live comfortably on the African continent.
NASA, when it comes to space exploration and aviation, I believe, is perfectly constitutional and one of the few government programs that makes any sense. Space travel can spur a ton of innovation in the private sector and create new markets not directly related to space itself.
Programs such as Mercury and Apollo paved the way for pinpoint accurate dropping of satellites into near and far earth orbit. It revolutionized our defense capabilities. It also paved the way for human beings operating in space to repair said objects should they become damaged. There isn’t a private company out there that would have done this for the good of the nation. Please name one if you can prove otherwise.
The Russians were doing the exact same thing at the time ... if they were to have controlled space by the 1980s, the USA would have had serious problems. Once we reached the moon, we found no real strategic purpose to use it for defense purposes. That still shouldn’t deter any travel to the moon. There’s a damn good chance that forms of energy my lie right beneath the moon’s surface that would benefit the entire planet.
We still haven’t a clue as to what lies in outer space. Sure private companies might stand to profit by taking cattle cars of people into low Earth orbit, but we need something more to get us farther out there. Many answers lie outside this planet that could make human life much better (energy sources being my primary interest).
It is a valid point to question how much government should be involved in those endeavors...please don’t get me wrong. I think it is needed as I doubt any private company will launch missions to the moon or Mars without some kind of indication that it is worthwhile. Still, I’m willing to risk my money I pay into the tax system on something like the way NASA used to be to explore. I think we get a “promising rate of return” second only to the military as a society from the manned exploration of space.
But the NASA of 2010 has come a long way from the risk-taking, gung ho team it was in Scott Carpenter's time.
And not for the better.
It's a pork spewing bureaucracy, differing from all the other pork spewing bureaucracies only in that once upon a time it did something that patriotic Americans applauded.
Yea? They've been retired for years!
I assume you have no clue what you use everyday that is a by-product of the space program.
While in college, one of my Muslim friends told me, in these exact words, that “Louie Armstrong converted to Islam when he was walking on the surface of the moon and heard that voice of Allah speaking to him.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. There were so many jokes in that statement I didn’t know where too begin. So I just told him, “you know history as well as you know your own Koran.”
NASA is a part of National defense by virtue of the technology it creates.
The Left has dreams, too. They are dreams in direct conflict with your dreams.
Hah! Even I know it was Neil Armstrong and not Louis. Later, Neal’s son, Lance, would go on to fame as the Armstrong and Hammer Baking Soda founder.
It was nice and relaxing this am. listening to the NASA channel having my coffee....then all of a sudden doofis comes on to speak with the crew....oh brother....change the channel...Can’t get away from this a-hole.....I felt sorry for the astronauts having to pretend they respect this moron....
I’m an American and I still applaud NASA human apaceflight and the amazing robotic missions.
And I want much more. I am proud of NASA, not of how Presidents tinker with it as a playtoy.
But congress has the final say.
This is no time to give up and throw the baby out with the bathwater!
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