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Space program was our biggest bridge to nowhere(Ignorance Alert)
The Examiner ^ | July 1, 2011 | Gene Healy

Posted on 07/12/2011 6:25:48 PM PDT by CharlyFord

Friday marked the space shuttle's swan song, as the Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center for the program's 135th and final flight.

It was President George W. Bush who announced the shuttle's retirement with his 2004 "Vision for Space Exploration," which included a moon base and "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." But it was President Obama who put the kibosh on that vision, canceling the moon project and leaving "worlds beyond" in doubt.

"We are retiring the shuttle in favor of nothing," Michael Griffin, Bush's NASA administrator, wailed to the Washington Post recently.

Here, as usual, "nothing" gets a bad rap. I'll be "in favor of nothing" until the advocates of federally funded spaceflight can come up with an argument for it that doesn't make me spray coffee out my nose.

NASA's Griffin failed that test in 2005, when he gave an interview to the Washington Post insisting it was essential that "Western values" accompany those who eventually "colonize the solar system," because "we know the kind of society we would get if you, for example, carry Soviet values. That means you want a gulag on Mars. Is that what you're looking for?"

Well ... is it, punk?

Outside of avoiding the hypothetical horror of Martian gulags, what does the ordinary taxpayer get from the space program?

Not much, says Robin Hanson, a George Mason University economist and research associate at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute: The benefits are "mostly like the pyramids -- national prestige and being part of history."

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: nasa; space; spaceshuttle
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To: CharlyFord

>>One of the important measures of a culture is it’s scientific and engineering advancements.<<

Yes, and all of these glorious advancements in scientific and engineering issues were paid for with other peoples money. I wish just once I could have been comfortable spending OTM. Even when I was a youngster in Nam and I saw a chopper or a plane half buried into a hillside, I recognized that as taxpayers dollars.


21 posted on 07/12/2011 6:50:56 PM PDT by B4Ranch (Allowing Islam into America is akin to injecting yourself with AIDS to prove how tolerant you are...)
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To: a fool in paradise
The guy is not a liberal, but a libertarian. And whether or not you agree with him he got in some pretty good slaps at neo-con-man Krauthammer:

"Space must be an alluring muse indeed, given that it makes Krauthammer, normally a hardheaded neoconservative, sound like a yoga instructor gone lightheaded during a juice fast."

"He calls space skeptics "Earth Firsters," deaf to "the music of the spheres." Apparently there's nothing more "isolationist" than wanting to stay on your own planet."

"Krauthammer's obsession makes sense, in a way, since federally funded spaceflight is the quintessential neoconservative project: a giant, wasteful crusade designed to fill Americans' supposedly empty lives with meaning."

I'll tolerate a poor critique of the space program so long as it is connected to an accurate one on neocons.

22 posted on 07/12/2011 6:52:12 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: a fool in paradise
I wonder if the luddite who wrote this has a cellphone, uses GPS technology, or listens to sirius radio.

We didn't need NASA to launch satellites, but the every existence of NASA, as THE CIVILIAN MASTER of space, did preempt most private endeavors that would utilize the rocket, satellite and related technology that we needed and developed for military uses. That is to say, we didn't need a NASA to get to GPS or Sirius

I have NO IDEA where you get the idea that NASA was helpful or needed for cellphones. That would be laid to ham radio, packet radio, and the venture stage of MCI using truck delivery packet radio for general telephony.

23 posted on 07/12/2011 6:52:12 PM PDT by bvw
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To: tanuki
So what did this clown write this drivel on? A Selectronic?

He's an offshoot of "Chicago" typewriter technology.

24 posted on 07/12/2011 6:54:35 PM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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To: bvw

Did you plan to use Sputnik for all of your satellite needs?


25 posted on 07/12/2011 6:54:52 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Ask Barack Obama this election if he believes Jesus Christ rose from the dead and walked among men.)
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To: iowamark

If there is anything out there in space that’s worth a buck, private companies will compete with each other or join and go get it much more effectively than NASA ever could. I don’t see the world coming to an end because we aren’t spending money like teenagers.


26 posted on 07/12/2011 6:55:32 PM PDT by B4Ranch (Allowing Islam into America is akin to injecting yourself with AIDS to prove how tolerant you are...)
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To: CharlyFord
I have mixed feelings about the space program, especially as a government sponsored endeavor. Remember arguing against it in 1972 just for fun - just to tweak the status quo coming out in Weekly Reader.

Part of it has to do with our inability to harness the wealth already present on our planet, let alone understand what we've got here. The other part has to do with the fraud and waste ubiquitous to the Fed as we know it. Nevertheless I heartily applaud the intrepid pioneers who probe the unknown as they expose ever more certainly the fact that the heavens and the Earth are by no means the result of unguided events.

27 posted on 07/12/2011 6:59:34 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew (minds change)
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To: iowamark
You are so correct. Federal Government spending drives all progress!

I hadn't noticed 'The War On Poverty' producing any progress. but, over the past 50 years, it's consumed a lot of money and done significant damage to our culture. No, not all government spending leads to progress.

I am sure that you agree that we should fully fund Obama’s high speed rail program, wind turbine, and electric car programs as well!

No! I don't agree! Rail programs, generating electricity, and manufacturing and selling vehicles are examples of 'business for profit'. 'Business for profit' is best left to the private sector.

There has been and still is no expectation of profit from space exploration. The private sector would be a poor choice for that. But, the private sector has benefited greatly from the things NASA learned in it's efforts. Communications satellites are an example. If governments had not financed space exploration, during the last half of the twentieth Century, it's doubtful that we would have some of the technology that we enjoy today.

28 posted on 07/12/2011 7:00:31 PM PDT by CharlyFord (t)
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To: BerryDingle

Being a fan of ‘Chicago typewriters’, I concur!


29 posted on 07/12/2011 7:01:47 PM PDT by tanuki (O-voters: wanted Uberman, got Underdog....)
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To: Cvengr

Radar ranges predated the space program, Ma and Pa Kettle had a Radarange one. Raytheon’s introduced the commercial model in 1947, it was based on ideas and patents that went back to 1934 at least.

The use of dehydrated food predates recorded history. NASA’s manned space program certainly adapted some packaging and delivery techniques, but these were adaptations for space flight and did not drive other uses to any great extent, afaik.

Styrofoam was first invented by a Swedish inventor, Carl Munters, sometime before 1941. In 1941 Dow R&D discovered the process on their own, then discovered Munter’s prior art and then acquired his patents. Dow developed the process from there. 1941!


30 posted on 07/12/2011 7:06:45 PM PDT by bvw
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To: CharlyFord
If governments had not financed space exploration, during the last half of the twentieth Century, it's doubtful that we would have some of the technology that we enjoy today.

What if's at variance with what actually did happen are close to meaningless mind games. Yet this is one that is unsupported by any real facts.

31 posted on 07/12/2011 7:09:26 PM PDT by bvw
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To: CharlyFord
Does this retard realize that if it weren't for NASA we wouldn't have won the Cold War???

We outspent the Soviets to the point where they couldn't keep up. Reagan proposed "Star Wars" which would have made it impossible for us to be nuked.

But I doubt this loser even took a history course.

32 posted on 07/12/2011 7:11:25 PM PDT by Dengar01 ("Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" - Dr. Michael Savage)
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To: CharlyFord

It just kind of urks me that we spent all of that money on a Space station and now we cannot get to it unless the Russians sell us a cab ride.

How many times did the Shuttle repair the Hubble telescope and other items in space , and how many did it carry up with it?

The shuttles were about used up and I don’t know why it took so long to replace them with something better, but to just drop out of the space industry after all we have put into it, seems a little dumb.


33 posted on 07/12/2011 7:11:45 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: a fool in paradise

Think it through. That is, this: Would our military-industrial complex have produced extraordinary space vehicles without a NASA?


34 posted on 07/12/2011 7:12:38 PM PDT by bvw
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
Krauthammer is a disgusting cranky old fart.

Someone buy him a condo at "The Villages" so I don't have to hear his cranky voice again.

35 posted on 07/12/2011 7:13:19 PM PDT by Dengar01 ("Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" - Dr. Michael Savage)
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To: Dengar01

In your case you surely forgot that “retard” is spelled with seven Z’s. ZZZ ZZZZ. Now go back to sleep.


36 posted on 07/12/2011 7:14:03 PM PDT by bvw
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To: Dengar01
Someone buy him a condo at "The Villages" so I don't have to hear his cranky voice again.

Gee, that's harsh. He'd be competing in a market driven by Federal retirees on ever-pensions.

37 posted on 07/12/2011 7:15:50 PM PDT by bvw
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To: CharlyFord

I see the Willie Green conservatives are out in force tonight. Just substitute rockets for trains.


38 posted on 07/12/2011 7:16:22 PM PDT by decimon
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To: Dengar01

Bringing evidence in support of my last allegation: http://www.narfe.org/departments/home/articles.cfm?ID=2160

The Top Spots

The Runaway Favorite – The Villages, FL. Many of your fellow retired federal employees recommended the active adult communities they live in. The Villages (south of Ocala, FL) was mentioned the most. It also got the most enthusiastic comments – NARFE members who live in The Villages love it there! Their comments pretty much say it all:

“It is the world’s largest retirement community, the world’s largest golf community and the world’s largest golf cart community. Wonderful!”


39 posted on 07/12/2011 7:20:01 PM PDT by bvw
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To: CharlyFord

Translation: NASA employed Whitey. Eric Holder’s people are in charge now. We don’t care about nobody ‘cept’n Eric Holder’s people. REPARATIONS!!!!


40 posted on 07/12/2011 7:26:48 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." - Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins)
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