Re: columbia -- what really happened
On Tue, 4 Feb 2003 10:55:44 -0600,
Brooks R. Robinson wrote:
>
> | How the US can justify spending so much money on Space while
> | 33 million US citizens live below the poverty line amazes me.
>
> The ideology of capitalism puts people with money into power.
> Benevolent as the may want to be, power corrupts, and they are
> corrupted by power. From this point of view, the impoverished
> only have themselves to blame. The impoverished should go get
> jobs or an education, then jobs. It does not occur to those in
> power to aid in education, but to cut it. Those in power are,
> to a certain extent, educated and no longer require education.
> It's their money and they can spend it how they choose (after
> all it is capitalism). There are potential economies of scale
> and new opportunities to make money to be had from space. What
> better way than to get to those potentials than by getting your
> government (which you control) to pay you to get to do it!
> Space shuttles are expensive and you can share the burden with
> your fellow man. I can suck those tax dollars into my own
> coffers and still get the space research I desire. It's a win
> win situation.
>
> As hard as they try, putting a socialist blanket over
> capitalism will never work. There will be class warfare sooner
> or later, the question is when. The only thing those of us
> stuck somewhere in the middle can hope for, is that the
> research paid for by our government accidentally stumbles upon
> that magic energy formula, bringing us into the Stak Trek
> economy.
Really, I always thought it was the communists that ushered us
into the Space Age ;-). The US space program was an attempt to
blunt the impact of Sputnik. With the Soviets out of the picture,
I believe the fastest way to get bipartisan support for a manned
mission to Mars is to convince the politicians that the mainland
Chinese are going to get there first.
[1]http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/china_manned_030102.html
Reply to: