11–20 of 33 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Our financial priorities as a country are a wreck. You would really be downvoted if you had pointed out how morally and intellectually bankrupt we are as well.
I downvoted because it was an off-topic attempt to digress into talking about the war, a topic which is always guaranteed to start a very dull argument pretty much anywhere. Let's talk about NASA.
I like the fact that we don't have money for $9 million a day to go to the moon, but we have about $800 million a day to screw up Afghanistan even more than it already is, and $1.9 billion to soak into the sands of Iraq, also for nothing obvious. Fiscal scolds drive me crazy when they overlook mere elephants in the room - this is like a whole pod of blue whales. (Note: figures from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933…
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Our financial priorities as a country are a wreck. You would really be downvoted if you had pointed out how morally and intellectually bankrupt we are as well.
The only thing worse than this is if you made a big post about how "morally and intellectually bankrupt" we are.
I like the fact that we don't have money for $9 million a day to go to the moon, but we have about $800 million a day to screw up Afghanistan even more than it already is, and $1.9 billion to soak into the sands of Iraq, also for nothing obvious. Fiscal scolds drive me crazy when they overlook mere elephants in the room - this is like a whole pod of blue whales. (Note: figures from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933…
I downvoted you, but I feel like I owe you an explanation. Here's the problem with what you said. The use of lethal force in the national interest is either justified or it is not. I mean, you can't half-kill somebody. If it is justified, then whatever the cost, we have to pay it. It is a matter of survival and critical national interest. Compared to this, any other program doesn't make sense. We're doing what we hav…
The Space program may be best served by moving to the private sector. I believe the private sector will be able to do it faster, cheaper, and just as safe as Nasa. The only thing that worries me is once control is conceded from Nasa to the private sector, the government will regulate the new industry harshly. It is sad to see the American Dream squashed because of politics but I think a new chapter is around the corn…
Thinking like that is what led the EPA to allow BP to neglect to install an acoustic trigger that could have prevented this whole debacle in the gulf. Harsh regulation is essential if you want safety.
The problem, and it's one that won't go away by the magic of capitalism, is that no one wants to put real money into space just for the sake of spaceflight.
I like the fact that we don't have money for $9 million a day to go to the moon, but we have about $800 million a day to screw up Afghanistan even more than it already is, and $1.9 billion to soak into the sands of Iraq, also for nothing obvious. Fiscal scolds drive me crazy when they overlook mere elephants in the room - this is like a whole pod of blue whales. (Note: figures from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933…
But yeah, in retrospect, it's flamewar material and I probably should keep my big mouth shut. It's just ...
I'm in Europe for the summer. And I know Europe has its own problems, but they're actually doing some stuff here that makes the place a better place to live, instead of taking huge piles of money and burning it. The roads are better, the cities prettier, the public services more helpful, the health system more efficient - it just kills me.
I live in Indiana, largely because the real estate market has crashed and it's so cheap (and yeah, I'm from there, but that's why I went back). Indiana really can't afford squat now, because all the money is being sucked out and spent on wars to profit the rich, or just plain being gift-wrapped for them because they're too big to fail.
And now we can't even go to the moon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Our financial priorities as a country are a wreck. You would really be downvoted if you had pointed out how morally and intellectually bankrupt we are as well.
I downvoted because it was an off-topic attempt to digress into talking about the war, a topic which is always guaranteed to start a very dull argument pretty much anywhere. Let's talk about NASA.
I now see that mentioning the war at all was foolish - it kills all debate about whether that much money is actually doing anything useful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're making it far too simple. The military industrial complex causes us to spend more money on the military than we should. It's definitely possible to support a military effort but at the same time not overspend on it. I'm not saying that we're spending too much on Iraq/Afghanistan, just disagreeing with the principle. On the other hand, not so sure about those fighter jets. :(
Hang on here, I'm not the one throwing up Afghanistan as compared to NASA. That would be the parent poster. I met those comments at the same level of abstraction as they were presented. EDIT: You guys read my comments and think I'm some kind of shill for the military-industrial complex. But that's not my point at all. What I'm trying to tell you is that comparing the high-level goals of national defense to the space…
The moon program is an accounting error in terms of the military budget for either war, and I was irked by the Times' mention of "$9 million a day", implying that this is an unGodly amount of money to be flowing down the drain, while not mentioning the far, far, far larger daily sums we toss away on other projects.
The Space program may be best served by moving to the private sector. I believe the private sector will be able to do it faster, cheaper, and just as safe as Nasa. The only thing that worries me is once control is conceded from Nasa to the private sector, the government will regulate the new industry harshly. It is sad to see the American Dream squashed because of politics but I think a new chapter is around the corn…
>The only thing that worries me is once control is conceded from Nasa to the private sector, the government will regulate the new industry harshly. Thinking like that is what led the EPA to allow BP to neglect to install an acoustic trigger that could have prevented this whole debacle in the gulf. Harsh regulation is essential if you want safety. The problem, and it's one that won't go away by the magic of capitalism…
There's only a few things that people are willing to pay $1000 a pound to send into space. One of them is communications relays. Another is cameras. The third is themselves.
I'm hopeful that space tourism will be the killer app for human spaceflight, because the current model of "let's fucken just send people up to see what happens" has pretty much reached its endpoint: we know what happens.
Essentially, NASA has lacked any concrete direction since the 70s, and projects like Constellation are stupid because they waste a lot of NASA money on developing NASA's own launch capacity. When NASA should just buy (or pay to upgrade) existing capacity such as the Delta IV Heavy or Falcon 9 to fit its needs.
Most importantly, with development of launch capacity moved out of NASA, NASA will have to specify the ends, not the means. Being the party that sets the budget, makes the design, and implements the design is a very bad position to be in.
I like the fact that we don't have money for $9 million a day to go to the moon, but we have about $800 million a day to screw up Afghanistan even more than it already is, and $1.9 billion to soak into the sands of Iraq, also for nothing obvious. Fiscal scolds drive me crazy when they overlook mere elephants in the room - this is like a whole pod of blue whales. (Note: figures from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933…
Downvote or not, the article is about how America can't afford a space program, and my comment is about how that really pisses me off given our clear priorities. But yeah, in retrospect, it's flamewar material and I probably should keep my big mouth shut. It's just ... I'm in Europe for the summer. And I know Europe has its own problems, but they're actually doing some stuff here that makes the place a better place t…