[CharlyFord]

Again, we can look to the history of ‘The Old World’. The British Empire was built with knowledge gained from exploration and education. The British Empire ‘conceded the High Ground’ and embraced socialism. Look where it is today. On our current course, that’s where we are headed.

[WhiskeyX]

The British Empire has almost always spent itself into sovereign debt and lived beyond its means. The crushing debt and illegal forms of taxation was one of the substantial causes of the American Revolutionary War. The Royal Navy was infamous in its niggardly habits towards compensation of its officers, crew, and maintenance of its warships. Accustomed to these bad habits, it was only a matter of time before socialist tendencies found fertile ideological ground in which to germinate and grow.

The King and his court came to be regarded as a plague on the nobility, because the Royal debts caused the King's personal properties to be repossessed. Having little means with which to entertain the court and dependents, the King took his court on the road to the homes of the nobles. The nobles were obligated to shelter and feed the King and his court.

The sad thing is just how little money is needed to sustain a full blown space program, manned and unmanned. If even one in one thousand Americans spent as much on the space program as they spend each year on trivial magazine and cable television subscriptions, you could have a greater space program than we have ever seen before. The economic and technological benefits resulting from that in the decades to come are incalculable in their immensity.

The problem is there are so few Americans who understand what space really is, much less what space exploration and development do for all life on Earth. Even among those who are knowledgeable enough to understand space exploration, there are so many who are philosophically and/or theologically opposed and fatalistic about the future of humanity. It sometimes seems like discussing the subject with a post-turtle.