I’ve been a big O’Rourke fan for years, but this time he just served up a dog’s breakfast of observations with the explanation that government is run by dolts. That is not the case. There is a concerted effort to muck it all up to usher in a fascist state. Keep your eye on the ball P.J.
The author, of course, makes the common mistake that Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars are to be spent on the improvement of America for all Americans.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars are to be coerced by a corrupt congress in order to provide funds for the purchase of votes from corruptible Americans.
We need to keep that in mind.
Had there been panels on Muslim Outreach and Climate Change they would have found the money to be there.
Commercial developers will take the lead now — because government lacks the Vision and Wisdom to do it. But it will go a little slower, because it’ll have to pay its way in profits — which is how it should be.
But foremost, we must catch the imaginations of our young people. Nobody dreams of rendevous with an asteroid. How pathetic — and illustrative of the poverty of Vision in WASHDC.
I suggest this motto to excite the kids once again, as I once was...
“First to Mars, and then to the stars...”
I hope somebody can use it to reignite snuffed imaginations.
I used to love PJ O’Rourke when he wrote for the National Lampoon many years ago. I even liked some of his early political writing. But after I saw him bashing Rush Limbaugh on Bill Maher’s show, and watched him drift into leftist BS world, I was done with him. Another sellout.
0bama killed NASA because they generate too much patriotic nationalism. Also, 0bama doesn’t like the idea of saying “Yes NASA!”.
Earky on NASA gained enormous prestige. Therefore, it became necessary to share that prestige with the scientifically inept portion of our society. NASA is rapidly becoming a showcase for the hiring of minorities and women. Its performance will bear an inverse relation to the number of the latter hired.
NASA must make sure that space research provide Muslims with a sense of belonging. Otherwise whats the point in the exploration of anything?
I grew up watching the lift-offs of NASA’s pre-shuttle manned rockets and was facinated by man walking on moon like everybody else. But now that I’ve actually studied the Constitution, unless you define NASA as a branch of the military, the states have never delegated to Congress via the Constitution the specific power to tax and spend for space exploration purposes.
In other words, in order for Uncle Sam to tax and spend for NASA, the states need to amend the Constitution for Congress to tax and spend for such purposes as much as amendments are required for Obamacare, public schools and regulating environment as examples.
So killing NASA is one thing that Obama did right regarding Congress’s constitutionally limited powers regardless that his motives are questionable.
June 10, 2013?
pj o’rourke on nasa
Yeah, I kinda have a little bias when it comes to NASA stuff...Both my parents worked and retired from there...My sister is a senior manager for a major contractor still doing a few things, and always looking over her shoulder...
I worked there for a few years, and got to know some of the smartest people in the world who shared desks next to mine...
And then again, I met some of the most idiotic people there as well...Amazing how the latter always finds a way to linger longer than most of us...
NASA’s deal is that it gets a lot of attention...It basically has to even during the bad times...
When you look at the budget it gets to spend, it is minute compared to the pork spending some other “un-Constitutional” items get, but it still gets more attention than that other stuff...
NASA’s budget was something that wasn’t going to fit with the plans Obama and the rest of the Fabian Socialists had planned for this country...
So most of that money (now) is special projects, sending Astronauts up to play on the station...Since we basically built the whole thing anyway, there was no way the few people who support the program were to be silenced, because we now have NO manned spaceflight capability right now...
NASA will be back, but as usual it is only a management system, the contractors might be back in due course, but it will be a shell of its former self...
And maybe thats a good thing...
One thing is for sure...It’ll take a president to re-ignite national pride in the exploration of space once again, and I do not see anyone with that kind of fire in politics these days...Much less the fact that there will be a considerable resistance to dole out tax dollars to a defunct agency...The only agency of the government that is seeing their future dim, than expland...
Not like the IRS...
Just my opinion...
If we wanted to send a man to the moon today we'd have to start from scratch like we did in the sixties, but we can't afford that now.