|
|
|---|
|
American Politics Journal Atrios Barry Crimmins Betty Bowers Buzzflash Consortium News Daily Howler Daily Kos Democatic Underground Disinfotainment Today Evil GOP Bastards Faux News Channel Greg Palast The Hollywood Liberal Internet Weekly Jesus General Joe Conason Josh Marshall Liberal Oasis Make Them Accountable Mark Morford Mike Malloy Political Humor - About.com Political Wire Randi Rhodes Rude Pundit Smirking Chimp Take Back the Media Whitehouse.org More Links |
Subject: disagree with Bruce on NASA
I don't even know where
to begin Bart.
Well, let me start by saying that Bruce doesn't know what he's talking
about (there, I said it.)
I qualify my answers by as a student of the space program since
childhood and as a former practicing Aeronautical Engineer.
Manned space flight
is a huge waste of resources.
Huge? The entire NASA budget is a
fraction of one percent annually. That money just doesn't vanish,
it goes back into our economy to pay the suppliers and workers which in
turn feed and care for their families.
That equates to jobs and a lot of them.
Everything a person
can do can be done faster, cheaper, and better with robots.
Wrong. Robots cannot reason. They
cannot fix themselves (i.e. Galileo's stuck main antenna and numerous
failed Mars probes both Russian and American.) Unmanned space probes do
have their place and it's an
important one but they simply can't replace a human presence entirely.
Seriously, there
is no real science that came out of the shuttle program - even fixing
the
Hubble would have been cheaper and easier to do - just launch another
one.
Wrong. We learned how to design,
construct and fly the worlds first reusable spacecraft! No science?
That was a huge leap forward in aeronautics and astronautics. We also
learned how to capture and repair
satellites in space and build the world's largest manned orbiting
laboratory, The International Space Station.
These are just a few of the very basic
things we learned. As for Hubble, without the Shuttle and a manned
repair crew, it would now be just billions of dollars of orbiting
debris. Robots simply could not have repaired Hubble.
We don't possess anything that
sophisticated yet. Anyone that says otherwise is probably still trying
to build
Reagan's fictitious "Peace Shield." It took the presence of living
breathing astronauts in two missions and
about a dozen space walks to make Hubble what it is today.
You can't just order a new Hubble.
Probes of this kind take years to make.
Let's not forget the plethora of technology that has trickled down to
everyday life
as a result of NASA's research especially in medicine.
And lastly, the space program inspires.
You can't put a price on that.
Rob
explain to The Bitch and The Boner that HE won the goddamn election and the voters
backed HIS vision for America and it's time the super-rich put in their fair share of taxes.
But
he choose to surrender, instead - again.