J
bmccabe said:
Well put. You’re correct, the economic benefit works exactly as you say. But let me ask this rhetorical question: If we spend the money on development of alternative fuels, does this upset the economic mechanism and benefit you described? No, it works the same – Except at the end of this path……[wag – idealistic speculation] …….. We liberate the world?
Am I the only one who sees this? Trust me; there are few problems in the world today that $2E9 won’t fix. If we spent this money on alternate energy: We’d have alternate energy.
It’s as I said, a moon shot now is an unconscionable waist of resource; when there are obvious, attainable, tangible, realistic, beneficial, globally minded, sorely needed places that require our attention. And all of them bring the R&D jobs and economic ripple that some mistakenly perceive has been sacrificed. When will we put the toys down and shoe the horse? When will we grow up?
Am I the only one who sees this? Trust me; there are few problems in the world today that $2E9 won’t fix. If we spent this money on alternate energy: We’d have alternate energy. It’s as I said, a moon shot now is an unconscionable waist of resource; when there are obvious, attainable, tangible, realistic, beneficial, globally minded, sorely needed places that require our attention. And all of them bring the R&D jobs and economic ripple that some mistakenly perceive has been sacrificed. When will we put the toys down and shoe the horse? When will we grow up?
I'm showing my age here, but I seem to recall very similar arguements going on in the '60's while we were striving to beat the USSR to the moon.
Your arguement for alternative fuel is a good one, and eventually will come to pass. But only when we are forced into it. (see thread about gas prices) As far as the other ills of the world most will be with us forever simply because they ar unsolvable. They deal with human nature. I won't get into all of this because we don't want to go political.
Let me pose this to you. Current science accepts that, the earth has been hit by asteriod/meteor/objects large enough to cause mass global change and extinctions. Should we try to locate and track these to prevent such a future catastrophe? And if so don't we need a viable space program to do this? I don't know if this current proposal is the best one, but I support NASA in what they are trying to do.
As far as commercializatioin of space goes, I say GO FOR IT. We are a capitalist country. Lets let the adventuresome rich help pay for it. Remember too that Automobiles were once the expensive playthings of the wealthy.
James
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Not going to happen. The oil companies have a death grip on the world. They have an exclusive, captive market, protected from fair trade and competition by the might of the US armed forces. 