--- James Cobb <james@cobb.name> wrote:
But Ames and others raise a serious point that science suffers from all the resources lavished on propelling man to space.
Yes, but where do you draw the line? Defense (& offense), social programs, they all draw funding away from 'electives' like space exploration. Drawing-down a manned program to fund a robotic one sounds more like cannibalism to me. It's only "either-or" because of politicians. Too, you have to keep engineers employed somehow. The Soviet Union lost hundreds, perhaps thousands of unemployed engineers & scientists due to lack of funds. Some of them now work for rogue nations and terrorists, whomever will give them a paycheck. I would also argue that our survival as a species depends on us one day becomming a multi-world species. I personally think that we are still on the verge of self-destruction, for several reasons, superstition among them.
Some bash Bush, without reflecting that the immediate Hubble crisis arises from the destruction of Columbia, and the frantic demands on the shuttle for the ISS pork in the sky. At this point, I have heard no one put forward a serious argument that the shuttle has advanced science when weighed against its opportunity cost. It has, in fact, been a disaster.
True, if the advancement of science is *the* criterion for success. But I would wager that there are hundreds of thousands of people whom earn their living on the Shuttle program & related sub-contracting programs who would strongly disagree. There are much worse ways to earn a living, and success can be measured against the "happiness standard".
Can I add that I'm tired of the Saganized NASA that seems to think that the only reason for visiting the planets is the very slim chance of discovering life (my estimate is that buying a lottery ticket represents a better probability, and I've never bought a lottery ticket)? Sure, some are captivated by this. But there is so much more Saganquest that makes the planets and moons interesting...
Just to be on the right side ethically, I think we have to eliminate the possibility of life or it's precursors before we start-up the strip mining. Think of it as an EIS for space. Too, someone once told me that Biology always wins. The space budget is peanuts compared to what the country spends on medical research. These numbers even stand up to Dept. of Defense figures! I have said before that we need to stop thinking in terms of 4 year increments, and start planning programs that extend for decades, even a century. We are not going to find all the answers in our lifetime, no matter how much we like Star Trek or NASA TV. Great commentary, James! C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/