Bush wants to go to Mars

Like I said, you're good.

Gee, the way fedral puts it, it almost make sense to spend billions in space while people go hungry and lack health care here on earth in the U.S.

You may fire when ready, Gridley!

That invites a couple of questions, D'artagnan. Would people in the U.S. go hungry and lack health care if we didn't spend billions in space(new Mars program)? Well, we know that to be the case, so the question might be - Would more or less people go hungry, without health care? If the answer is really obvious, I guess I asked a foolish question.

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Hmm....did I say that any of the programs that the Dubya Regime wants shouldn't be done?

I am not opposed to space exploration etc. I just don't feel that right now is the right time considering the state of the deficit.

It seems that Conservatives and libertarians do not want the state or Natl. Govt. to have any Social Programs. They want to cancel Social Security, Medicare, Worker's Comp. Medicaide, Welfare etc. I remember that their Hero Ronnie cut a lot of programs and we had a whole lot of people homeless and people kicked to the street that were mentaly ill.

I guess that some people aren't worth helping and others are.The Repubs give a lot of welfare to Corps. but have great disdain for the poor, physicaly or menaly ill and consider all of these people lazy people that don't want to work. Sometimes I think that they would go along with putting these people in concentration camps and if they couldn't carry their weight exterminate them.

Good. It is time America starts thinking big again - tackling huge projects in the name of human advancement, even if it is not pragmatic or neccessary. If we can find over a hundred billion to wage war and rebuild nations, than we can certainly scrounge up a few billion for this endeavor.

that's exactly what I thought

While I think we should continue to explore our moon and mars and beyond, I don't think the missions should be manned. They simply don't need to be. In any case, the extra 1 billion bucks was added to the usual 80-something billion budget NASA gets. I think that this admin's priorities are wacked beyond belief, but not here. I'd rather see the tax cuts rescinded and such to help pay for the things we need to focus on like health care coverage and education (as well as space exploration).

I wonder who McGentrix thinks would do the un-supported jobs that need being done if everyone made the same choices he made. I have an education, I am intelligent, I chose a job that didn't have health coverage. I pay an astonishing portion of my monthly salary to cover myself. And, all I'm seeing in the biz world tells me that companies aren't covering the way they used to. That people in the safely supported jobs are having to foot more and more of their health care bills.

Whatever.

Go to mars Bush, enjoy the ride.

Anyone but him!

Some loser like me, I guess.

You're no loser Kris.

Not in my eyes, but thanks.

I think this thread has been sufficiently derailed, sorry kickycan.

Plenty more lying days to the election and thrilling but worthless pre-election promises create headlines, make voters feel good and cost nothing apart from hot air.

It is more likely that Bush will find W.M.D.s in Iraq, than man landing on the Red planet during his Presidency.

"Bush wants to go to Mars."

No, what he really wants to do, see, is put on an astronaut suit and sit in a space capsule and play with the controls and push a button and yell, "Whoosh!" and have his picture taken with some real astronauts for his upcoming campaign, because Unca Karl said that would be a good thing to do.

I still say the money for this program should go towards increasing our energy independence.

Couple research on alternative fuels with an aggressive conservation program and we may be able to do it.

BUT--as long as we have oil men in power it'll never happen.

A quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
August 16, 1967

"And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth."

Good quote, kickycan. Here's one of my favorites, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, engraved in stone at his memorial in Washington, D.C.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Whatever it costs to send Bush to Mars, I'm all for.

I have formed an opinion on this matter. I know how all of you have been waiting for me, so here goes...

The US space program is very necessary for the advancement of mankind. However, there are many other issues facing the US that should take priority over the space program at this time. I think that the budget should stay where it is and we should be using the money that is going to be funneled into increasing that budget into *gasp* social programs...US Infrastructure, schools, healthcare, are no longer at the place they should be. A billion dollars a year would go a long way towards better equipping our schools and hospitals with modern appliances (many of which owe their creation to the space program) and better trained teachers. Perhaps the insurance industry could be overhauled.

So, there it is.

Unfortunately, McG, as I've mentioned to several people in this thread -- using that logic -- WE WILL NEVER GO, because there will always be things here on Earth that we can consider more important than moving off the planet.

We are going to go sometime. Let's do it now.

McGentrix
I bet if you ask nicely, Bush would let you go to Mars with him ;-)