President-Elect Obama and NASA

Will you ever stop bring up Columbus. Outfitting a couple of ships to find a new route to the orient doesn't compare to the incredible expense and effort needed to reach and colonize another planet. Again, the moon and Mars are not habitable.

I deplore Brandon's remark about reducing ourselves to the level of the least fortunate members. It's **** like that that makes the Republicans despicable pieces of barely human ****--it's very likely crypto-racist, too.

However, that doesn't make Advocate's horseshit any more plausible. In the terms of their day, when specie was scarce, government-sponsored voyages of exploration were terribly expensive, which is why monarchs were reluctant to fund them, and always tried to find other shifts, like joint stock companies (the English and the French Protestants) or simply the seizure of private property (the Spanish). The Portuguese financed their voyages from the royal purse, which is why it took them more than a century to creep around Africa and finally make the plunge to cross the Indian Ocean--the pay-off was unheard of, though.

The effort to just get out into the solar system would be more than repaid in resources. It is utter bullshit that the moon and Mars are not habitable. Inhabiting them would be expensive, at least initially, but the expense is something we've been discussing right along before Advocate showed up with his stupidity and his statements from authority, an authority which not only do we have no reason to assume he possesses, but which is contradicted by his witless pronouncements.

Going back to the moon, and setting up a habitable base there is "do-able," and not even really that expensive if it were shared between one rich nation (China) and two very experienced nations (the United States and the Russian Federation). Mars is more difficult simply because of the constraints opposed by microgravity and cosmic radiation in getting there. In the case of both the moon and Mars, once you're there, you obviate the problem 0f cosmic radiation by tunneling under the surface.

I've long stated that colonizing other planets or satellites of planets (the moons of the Jovian planets might yield some interesting prospects) is unlikely--but because of a lack of resolve (see Joe's post), not because they are unattainable.

Advocate is being, as usual, and idiot and a dick.

I didn't say that we shouldn't care about and reserve resources for society's least fortunate members. I said that we cannot restrict society to the limits of its least fortunate members. We cannot forgo advanced activities like moving out into space because poor people have more immediate concerns. Don't put words in my mouth. Nothing I actually said here indicates any lack of compassion for the poor. I also believe that schools shouldn't be restricted to teaching solely based on the limits of the least capable students. Does that mean I disdain people who aren't as clever?

I'm all for colonization efforts. Just delayed for now.

Your initial remark didn't say "restrict," it said "reduce." I'm not putting words in your mouth, and you're not being honest about what it was that you actually stated. This was your statement to which i objected (with emphasis added):



That is the theology of capitalist greed, which suggests that to help others, one would be obliged to give up one's own prosperity. Tommyrot.

That couldn't have been further from my mind and I simply will not accept blame for what I didn't mean. I only meant that the human race shouldn't avoid advanced activities like scholarship and exploration, just because its least fortunate members have more practical concerns.

I could see our efforts becoming quickly 'undelayed' in the event China, Russia or India announce their colonization efforts.

Not me, since even they do not have the resources to acheive it immediately.

I'm unimpressed by what you will or won't accept. If that is what you meant, you ought to have said what you meant. You can no more blame anyone else for your seeming inability to frame your remarks properly.

Fine. I can see how you might have thought that, but I was only responding to Joe Nation's remarks by saying that we shouldn't forego space travel because everyone isn't at that stage right now. It's like saying that schools should only teach at the level of the lowest common denominator. It doesn't mean that I don't want less gifted students to have good instruction or tutoring if they need it. I also think that the Internet shouldn't be restricted to what's suitable for small children. It doesn't mean that I don't like children.

So long as you expect the collective to pay for the effort out of taxes, the people not being in the frame of mind to approve of the expenditure certainly does mean that it does not happen.

Well Brandon, it may seem that i'm just being petty, but i think the issue is an important one. The alleged "victory" in the cold war has left many people to believe that capitalists "won," and that capitalists should never be restricted in their activities. The plain evidence, though, is that they will move their operations to whatever venue allows them to escape with the least social responsibility, be it decent wages, safe working conditions, wage floor legislation or hours ceiling legislation.

I don't think you will get a genuine international effort in space until these problems are resolved. So long as there is wide-spread poverty and exploitation in the world, there will be sufficient resentments to trigger wars and terrorism, entailing huge and otherwise unjustifiable military expenditures. We got to the moon for a fraction of the cost of the war in Vietnam. How much of Bush's promised return to the moon could have been accomplished if he hadn't pissed billions down the hole that is Iraq? How much resentment and concommitant terrorism has been engendered by that brainless military adventurism?

The human race will need to grow up before it can reasonable expect to devote most of its surplus resources to space exploration and colonization. And resources cannot reasonably be considered surplus while greedy capitalist shithooks who only care about their own bank accounts sweat "third world" labor, and while children starve and go ignorant into the world.

What surplus are you referring to? Much of the population is grossly under resourced, you know, starving, without much of any medical care, nor much of any structure to call home.

Hey, asshole, you said in another thread (which was an exercise in humor, a concept which it seems is alien to you) that you considered me a train wreck. So don't f*cking respond to my posts, shithook.

as tempting as avoiding you is, I try to follow the discussion/logic/points, not the screen names that voice them. No soap.

Your nobility is inspiring.

(For the irony-challenged, that was sarcasm.)