The Debate About Spaceflight (Manned or Robotic) Vs. Poverty, Has ALWAYS Been A False Choice

[WillyT]

And it is a false choice today.

It was NEVER a matter of solving poverty versus ANYTHING!

You see... poverty is pretty useful. To paraphrase George Carlin...

The rich do none of the work, and pay none of the taxes,
the middle-class does most of the work, and pays most of the taxes,
And the poor... they're just there to scare the shit out of the middle-class.

You can reduce spending by 95% and NEVER fix poverty!

Yet...

We CAN do it all, but both sides refuse to see that. Too many sacred cows in the road.

:shrug:

[Posteritatis]

1. And anyone who thinks NASA's budget could cure poverty obviously doesn't know what it is anyway. nt

[Democrats_win]

2. LOL! Recall that it was W.orthless Bush who wanted to go to the moon and beyond!

It was a way to reward his billionaire buddies. With W.orthless bush's plan, America will never gain anything! America needs a "Stop loss" order and then a re-boot of NASA. Then NASA will become an asset rather than a transfer of our tax dollars to W.orthless Wall Street Crooks. W.orthless Bush's plan IS about keeping the rich out of poverty.

[flyarm]

8. hell he was laughed at and ridiculed horribly here about wanting to go to Mars..

up is down now and down is up..don'tcha know.........

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Saying "Send Bush to Mars" is not the same thing as ridiculing the concept of people going.

Actually, I think it was one of the few decent ideas the guy put forward. Unfortunately he didn't have the guts to go for the funding, even as he was sending duffel bags of cash over to no-bid contractors in Iraq.

[flyarm]

14. do some research ..Bush was mocked here extensively when he proposed going to Mars!

check the archives here at DU..I won't do the research for you.

or use a little google.......



United Press International
02-19-2004
Space station crew to conduct Mars studies

HOUSTON, Feb 19, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The next International Space Station crew said Thursday their mission will include experiments to support President Bush's goal of going to Mars.

The international Expedition 9 crew - composed of Russian Genaddy Padalka, American Mike Fincke and Dutchman Andre Kuipers - leaves on April 18 for a six-month duty on the ISS. A Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will take the crew to the ISS.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Not by me.

I'm not responsible for the opinions expressed by other people.

[flyarm]

17. ok not by you whipeee..he was mocked by a majority of democrats! eom

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Really. And 99% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Let's see: in this thread, you have people 'ridiculing' not the fact that he proposed it, but the fact it isn't funded. Sure, you have one or two people pissing and moaning about spending any money on space at all (typical) but given the garden variety anti-science cranks that seem to populate a certain fragment of the "left" (funny, I haven't heard from any of those folks "outraged" about the Cassini probe and it's potential to 'destroy all life on Earth-- and for what?' now that it is returning priceless science) that is to be expected.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3662483

Here's an "anti" thread. You will see it is essentially the same cast of characters complaining then, as it is now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8159981#8160037


Anyway, it doesn't really matter: It is going to happen. One way or another, humans will move out into the Solar System.

The good news is, one can always go to the Renaissance Faire and pretend that they live in the middle ages, if the modern world bugs 'em so much.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Actually, I recall a different President wanting to do those things.

As for NASA being a bunch of, as you put it, "W.orthless Wall Street Crooks"....


...W.hat the hell are you talking about?

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Poverty can never be cured...

but it can be made less horrible.

[WillyT]

4. Yes... But It Will Have NOTHING To Do With Whether Or Not We Have A Space Program...

Just like it will have NOTHING to do with a Defense Program...

or a National Parks Program...

or a Health and Human Services Program...

We can have, and afford, ALL of these things.

We choose not to.

:shrug:

[ihavenobias]

5. Not with our current system, but yes, we COULD have those things. n/t

[Ozymanithrax]

9. Actually, good education and jobs are one of the most important tools...

in fighting poverty. Funding NASA creates jobs and inspires people to get good educations. Those highly educated people working for NASA live in communities and spend money at stores and other places where those less educated work.

Poverty will always be with us. But by aiding people to get a good education and stimulating the local economy, we can help people make a living wage and find their own path to happiness.

[quaker bill]

13. No, actually we can't.

Defense consumes 1.6 trillion dollars a year. No country has successfully sustained this level defense spending relative to GDP over the long haul.

A curious thing about defense spending in particular, is that it is the one form of spending that buys products that are extremely expensive to use, and the best choice is to never use and simply allow to rust. It is a "value sink", a place where real value disappears. Using a million dollar missle to blow up two guys in a thousand dollar mud hut over and over again is not sustainable.

The space program is not large enough to be relevant. Expenditures on the National Parks are not relevant either. Defense spending is relevant because it is massive and largely debt financed anymore.

[immoderate]

6. That's not the debate I saw. Yes, there was poverty before the space program.

The debate was over how we can use our resources to return the best science.

--imm

[WillyT]

7. That's A Fine Debate...

And yet... even it suffers from the same false choice.

Just like many think that heavenly adventures should be put on hold until we've settled Earthly matters...

Many think that because of our "limited resources", we can only have 1) manned space exploration, or 2) robotic space science.

I happen to think we could do both at the same time.

:shrug:

[Warren DeMontague]

12. For everyone making that legitimate argument (that I disagree with, but still)

there is another terrified that sending probes into space will anger the sky goddess, another who thinks the moon landings were a 'hoax', and yet another who not only can't see the value in science, is also philosophically opposed to anything resembling progress, technology, human reproduction and/or the continued survival of our species on this planet.

The tin foil hattery, self-loathing and neo-luddism gets a little old.

[Statistical]

15. Luddites love their strawmen. There was a time when people believed we should do amazing things.

It is sad how anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-big thinking, the country has become. We no longer strive foe the hard or the difficult. We are content to eat a big Mac and watch "reality" TV. This has even begun to creep into DU.

It is sad.

At one time our country thought like this:

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon... (interrupted by applause) we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_moon

Imagine if Obama said that about Mars? Imagine if we cut wasteful defense budget by a mere 20% and put us on a fast path to actually DO SOMETHING in this country. Not just a plan to go to Mars but also to invest in roads, bridges, fiber optic and electrical links. Imagine what it would do if people still felt it was possible for America to do great things, impossible things.

The belief we can't or shouldn't is merely a symptom of a larger issue. Our empire, our civilization is in decline. The decline won't be rapid, no it will be far more insidious, it will stretch for decades, generations. Things like Americans saying we can't do something because it is "impossible" is a symptom of that slow all encompassing decline. We will go gently into that good night, rather than rage against the dying of the light. Within a couple generations we will be another backwater "has-been" ex-empire. Don't worry though I am sure we will still have Big Mac and America Idol!