Mars exploration and govt. spending.

[HankB]

Yeah, their budget was slashed.  And I seem to remember they spent a bunch of what they had left in the middle east a few years back trying to do something about educating folks there.  Maybe if we let NASA spend their budget on outer space issues rather than a political ploy to appease folks in other countries, we'd have a better return on the money.

And rather than visionaries like Werner Von Braun and a policy of hiring the best and the brightest, we have political brown-noses and diversity goals in hiring. (Von Braun had his faults, but they were few compared to some NASA leaders now . . . whose political acts brought down not one but two space shuttles.)

And now, under Obama, we've conceded manned space flight to Russia. <expletive>

And, with a couple of glasses of cheap wine under my belt after a crappy day at my crappy job, I have to applaud longeyes' percipient remark, and observe that this is the essence of "American exceptionalism". First, the belief that the seemingly impossible is not. Second, the will to see it realized. The world owes much of what is good in it today to that stubborn, impractical idealism.

Or to put it another way - 

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

[longeyes]

Perhaps we have become uncomfortable with the fact that honoring individual liberty and pursuing excellence reflects not strictly egalitarian principles but aristocratic principles.  The pursuit of happiness does not mean that all are to have equal dollops of carefully measured "happiness."  It is about the pursuit, not the happiness.  No society can guarantee happiness; that is the doing of the individual himself/herself fulfilling the fullness of his/her nature.

[agricola]

Yeah, their budget was slashed.  And I seem to remember they spent a bunch of what they had left in the middle east a few years back trying to do something about educating folks there.  Maybe if we let NASA spend their budget on outer space issues rather than a political ploy to appease folks in other countries, we'd have a better return on the money.

In fact I would be willing to bet money that the US got more goodwill, more respect, and improvement in its standing amongst the world from Apollo than from the combined total of all of the friendship programmes, all the military aid, all the food aid and all the other little and big bribes sent out by your government in the last forty years.

[longeyes]

People perceive and respect the power of excellence.

[brimic]

It would be great if private enterprise was doing this instead. However the whole "I'd like to buy the World a Coke/Kum-by-yah" U.N. space treaty that forbids ownership of anything off of Earth's surface is kind of a hindrance.

1. Build self-sustaining colony on moon
2. Build space catapaults
3.??
4. Profit

[Ned Hamford]

And rather than visionaries like Werner Von Braun and a policy of hiring the best and the brightest, we have political brown-noses and diversity goals in hiring. (Von Braun had his faults, but they were few compared to some NASA leaders now . . . whose political acts brought down not one but two space shuttles.)

http://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro

[zahc]

NASA neither infringes on my freedom, nor anyone elses.

A utopian libertarian idealist would disagree, since NASA funds are stolen in the form of taxes.

[TechMan]

[MechAg94]

In fact I would be willing to bet money that the US got more goodwill, more respect, and improvement in its standing amongst the world from Apollo than from the combined total of all of the friendship programmes, all the military aid, all the food aid and all the other little and big bribes sent out by your government in the last forty years.

I can see cutting funding to something like NASA especially considering how big of a bureacracy NASA has become.  However, there are so many other things such as what agricola mentions that IMO could and should be cut first.  I think it is only brought up as a discussion topic because a lot of people like it and it is more high profile than a lot of the other worthless spending. 

[JonnyB]

Holy crap!!

And, in the end, the overall net return from the Olympic competition is...

...warm fuzzy feelings? (I get a lot less than that from the whole goat-rope)

Dropping a one-ton object, intact adn unharmed, right on target, after 352(?) million miles and eightmonths of travel, is a far, far more outstanding feat than running fast, jumping far or throwing an object. Even when those things are done by hundreds of athletes.

jb

[HankB]

. . . Dropping a one-ton object, intact adn unharmed, right on target, after 352(?) million miles and eightmonths of travel, is a far, far more outstanding feat than running fast, jumping far or throwing an object  . . .

Not to mention twirling a ribbon, girls kicking their feet in a pool, or teaching a horse to dance.

[longeyes]

The problem is "Mars" teaches a lesson that the Powers That Be don't want taught.  They prefer the message of The Olympic Games, which was made manifest in the opening ceremonies and in all the little PC dramas about race and discrimination and immigration, et al., that followed.  NASA is not a "we are the world" organization, you see, and the rover wasn't propelled by rainbow power.  Bit of an embarrassment for the NWO crowd.

[MicroBalrog]

A utopian libertarian idealist would disagree, since NASA funds are stolen in the form of taxes.

NASA infringes on freedom far less than BATFE, DEA, FBI, TSA, EPA, FEMA, or even the Border Patrol.

[Perd Hapley]

NASA infringes on freedom far less than...EPA...

Why do you hates the condorz!!