Posted on 01/09/2003 11:33:24 AM PST by NonZeroSum
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:35:22 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Since the dawn of the space age, both proponents and opponents of the manned space program have used the "spinoff" argument to buttress their respective cases.
Many fans of Apollo, and the space shuttle and the International Space Station, and whatever the NASA manned space program happens to be doing at the time, make grandiose claims about the many benefits showered upon our nation because we sent a few people to the moon, or into orbit.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
BTW, I remember the glory days of Apollo, when every launch was questioned by the poverty pimps who said that the money for each launch would be better spent in the "War on Poverty," and after one launch, one of the pimps mused, "Consider all that fuel that is used to launch these rockets into space. That fuel would be better used in the cars of poor people who could use it to look for work." I've always wondered how the poor could afford vehicles that ran on liquid oxygen.
Everything from polymers to cells phone to weather forcasting to PCs ARE an outcropping of the defense and space programs. There are literally thousands of items that were invented that later found a useful outlet, therefore a reason to be made in abundance, and in turn be applied to other areas. Science invents, engineering applies. These are often mutually exclusive endeavors, but both are necessary to bring products and technology to market.
The new science brought about by such changes saves lives, saves the environment, makes us more productive, and creates enormous amouts of wealth, which in turn does the same in a self-feeding cycle.
There is very little that is unknown about low earth orbit, which is all that astronauts have been exploring for the past thirty years, since the last man walked on the Moon.
NASA's manned space program is expensive because it's designed to be. It's a jobs program. In the minds of Congress, the high cost isn't a bug, it's a feature.
There is no "civilian space program," there are only government space programs.
This is another area government should not be in. Private enterprise could have done a better, less expensive, and ultimately profitable job of it.
Hank
So?
You miss the point. The article doesn't say there is no spinoff--just that this is a poor justication for a manned space program. If your only justification for doing something is serendipity, it doesn't really matter what you do, because you'll always get that.
Our country supplies, for those who wish to do so, the freedom to explore on their own dime.
To insist that the government subsidize our leisure is wrong. Just as wrong as insisting that the government subsidize health care, another "human need".
If there is a definite universal desire to explore space, private industry will capitalize on it.
So then what are the spinoffs of the welfare program? With all those dollars spent, surely there must be some.
Spinoffs come from solving challenging technical problems. NASA certainly does that. While I wouldn't claim that spinoffs justify anything, they can be significant, and do offset some of the real cost.
Hard to know. Some child may have lived, or gotten to college, who wouldn't otherwise have, who came up with some medical breakthrough.
Spinoffs come from solving challenging technical problems. NASA certainly does that. While I wouldn't claim that spinoffs justify anything, they can be significant, and do offset some of the real cost.
Which remains beside the point of the column.
If you believe that's the point, I suggest that you reread it. The point of the column is that "spinoff" is a lousy way to justify expenditures on manned space.
You seem to have some pre-conceived bias against government-funded space exploration. What, excactly, do think the government should be spending "its" money on?
I'm all in favor of government-funded space exploration. What we're doing with the current manned space program has very little to do with space exploration, and everything to do with high-tech welfare and foreign aid. The ISS should have been funded by the State Department--not NASA.
BTW, I heard that the real stumbling block to deep-space exploration goes like this: if you put four rats in a box and leave them overnite, by morning only one will be alive. Do the same thing with humans, it'll take longer, but the end result will be the same (remember those stories about people freaking out in BioDome and those Antarctic bases?)
That's the least of their current problems.
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