07-20-2009, 12:56 PM
Vanraw Wrote:Not to turn this into a political discussion
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Saying we should not have done it is on par with saying we should not have bought and mapped the Louisiana Purchase. You need to put your foot in the water.
Sometimes that government needs to take that leap in order to move progress forward.
Hoof, I do like your analogy related to Solar / Green technology. Until a market is created, private industries will not move into the space with the level of tenacity needed. Same goes for space. I see some distant future in which we using space in a productive manner. Talk about off shoring Factories!!. Minning, Energy creation, and off planet living. Further out, traveling to other solar systems, and teraforming planets for humanity.
I just want to point out that, as Niel Armstrong said today on CSPAN, it was the nuclear arms race that lead to the moon landing. It was the great advancement in intercontinental ballistic missiles that provided us with a high performance rocket capable of sending people to the moon. In other words, it was in our effort to be able to blow up the world, that lead to our ability to fly people to the moon. Sending a human to the moon certainly had it challenges, but it was just one of many "neat" things that became possible once we had the rocket technology that was developed with the express (initial) purpose of dropping nuclear payloads anywhere on earth.
If anyone is interested, CSPAN had a great hour of programming today with Armstrong, Mike Collins, the head of Goddard (can't remember her name) and others. It was neat because there was a little bit of a live tiff over whether we should go back to the Moon first or skip that and go strait to Mars.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison