Well, my main point was that you really need to tell your
congressperson and senators that you want GPS and other space
programs to continue. If not, they will go away. (And we will all
go away if, in 2036, the asteroid turns out to be headed straight for
earth and we haven't spent the money to figure out how to deflect it
and we haven't built the hardware to go up there and actually do it.)
NASA is heavily dependent on political factors to get the funding for
basic programs that you would think would need no justification.
Like the national parks, they are chronically underfunded. (You
would think that funding the national parks is another no-brainer,
but they've suffered greatly during the last 8 years, and they
weren't exactly rolling in the dough before that.)
And I DO think the manned space program is important. I hope NASA--
or someone else--gets the funding to do the basic research to make
more manned space flight possible, to the moon and and beyond. (For
example, I've heard of work on an engine that would get to Mars in
less than a quarter of a time than current hardware could. It's a
step in the right direction.)
Robots are great, but they are no substitute for humans.
--Constance Warner
On Sep 11, 2009, at 9:43 AM, Chris Dunford wrote:
Actually, there are quite a few reasons to be in space
Constance, I might have missed something, but I didn't see anyone
disagreeing with this. The disagreement is about the manned space
program...
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