Mars Looks Like Nevada

King Features Syndicate, Inc. ^ | 01-11-04 | Reese, Charley

[billorites]

"Mars Looks Like Nevada"

Prostitootsies?

[hellinahandcart]

If they ever get air conditioning on Mars, maybe somebody will open a casino there.

Air conditioning?!

(slamming forehead repeatedly onto desk)

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[Always Right]

Like most people, I have a certain amount of curiosity about Mars and the other planets, but not $400 million worth. The scientists will no doubt have a jolly time looking at the Martian desert and studying its rocks, but it seems to me that the public will get zero benefits from the project.

I made a similar point on a previous thread and I got attacked by at least 8 different people. To me there are much more interesting and beautiful places on earth to visit. You couldn't pay me enough to spend 4 years of my life traveling back and forth to Mars. It is just no that interesting.

[bmwcyle]

Now Hillary and try to claim it for the Federal Government.

[FourPeas]

Actually, it's a great technical accomplishment, but the key question is, of what benefit is it to people on Earth?

My father-in-law, a 40 year diabetic, who was kept alive many times by new procedures or machines that were a result of the space program often made this same sort of statement. People who don't understand science or the benefit thereof are wise not to comment on it.

[Moose4]

Well, if Mars looks like Nevada, then where's Art Bell's trailer out in the middle of the desert? Hmm? They haven't seen that from space yet have they?

}:-)4

[Piquaboy]

That really is Nevada and the whole thing is a scam by President Bush to bring his poll numbers up. I know this for a fact as Sheila Jackson Lee told me.

[cb]

Oh sure. NOW everyone sees the benefits of satellites and computers and so on. But in 1960, the same howl, what good is it. I remember people being incensed that a camera was left on the moon which cost (gasp!) $1 million.(Why couldn't they bring it back?????) I spent years explaining that what was left on the moon was 39 cents of raw materials and the million was paid here on earth and now was in knowledge, mortgages and kids braces. (see new camera phones)

I look at the mars pictures and see REAL ESTATE! The fact that it looks familiar makes me think it might be accessable. Does anyone doubt that we need someplace new to go??????

For me, the space program was all the last half of the 20thcentury had going for it that was positive. Everything else was liberal crap and the resulting carnage.

[smith288]

Air conditioning?!

(slamming forehead repeatedly onto desk)

When "journalists" attack...LOL (ill take a space heater for what its worth)

[Arkinsaw]

Charley should have let his retirement stick.

[BushCountry]

[Always Right]

I look at the mars pictures and see REAL ESTATE!

Location, location, location. Lets see, there is no infrastruction, no easy way to get there, no water frontage, no nothing. I wouldn't pay a dime for an acre on mars. Well maybe a dime, but not much more.

[Rebelbase]

Looks like Nevada to me............

[Moonman62]

My father-in-law, a 40 year diabetic, who was kept alive many times by new procedures or machines that were a result of the space program often made this same sort of statement. People who don't understand science or the benefit thereof are wise not to comment on it.

I hope you aren't making the assumption that we couldn't have developed those things without the space program. Imagine what we could have done by attacking diabetes directly, rather than through the space program. I'd rather see money for new political stunts, disguised as a manned space program, go directly to diabetes research.

[Always Right]

I agree, although with your screen name it is rather ironic.

[McCloud-Strife]

I made a similar point on a previous thread and I got attacked by at least 8 different people. To me there are much more interesting and beautiful places on earth to visit. You couldn't pay me enough to spend 4 years of my life traveling back and forth to Mars. It is just no that interesting.

One could have argued that 200 years ago there was no need for the expence of exploring the West. After all there was plenty of room East of the Mississippi, why go to the waste and bother of seeing it? After all there are endless deserts, dinosaurs, and huge jagged impassible mountains of salt. Why put people in danger just to visit some wasteland?
In fact in 1802 Congress allocated $2500 to outfit the Lewis and Clark Expedition, although in the end it ended up costing $20,000.
The Result? Well I live in some of the most beautiful places on Earth (Bush called it Heaven on Earth in 2001) that was unexplored 150 years ago. It is rich in wildlife and natural resources and most of all Space.
Opening up new territory for exploration and colonization benefits the whole human race. Money spent on these trips have benefits back home. For one, who built the space craft, serviced and launched it? Americans, put to work. Who gets the benefits for the new technologies that were no doubt developed as a result of space exploration, again, Americans.
It's expensive, but in the end the benefits people at home 10 fold in the long run.

[varon]

The only thing that comes to mind that the space program created having "universal" utility was Tang ;-)

[Brett66]

Still, we have not reached the point where we can confidently say that no child in America is hungry or malnourished, that all children receive a fine education, have plenty of opportunities for jobs when they grow up and will not end up in a human dump if they get sick or injured. We have certainly not reached the point where we can say that we are properly conserving the resources of our own planet. Until that day is reached, every public dollar spent must answer these questions: What are the benefits, and who receives them?

Good question, why have we spent trillions on poverty, hunger, etc. etc. and they haven't been solved by gubmint yet? Perhaps it's time to terminate some of these wasteful programs that are a couple of orders of magnitude greater than what's spent on NASA. At least I can pick up a magazine and find some answers to questions I'm interested in as a result of NASA's exploration. I recieve no benefit from all of these feel good social programs so why don't we terminate or privatize all of them?