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#12
October 10th 05, 06:45 PM
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K4YZ wrote:
wrote: Mike Coslo wrote: After all that. I would wager my life that there will still be poor, there will still be starving people, there will still be inequality, and the world will not be any better a place than it is today. Sounds pretty fatalistic to me. I say things can be made a lot better, if the will is there to do it. Oh? The United Nations tried in Somalia. And they failed. You're saying that one failure proves there's no point in trying to change anything when it comes to poverty, inequality, or making the world a better place. They were more interested in guerrila warfare. Seems they couldn't find the resources to feed themselves, yet when the resources were brought to them, they resorted to murder and feudalistic warfare. Sure. They valued warfare higher. Doesn't mean everyone does. Take the whole energy issue. Suppose there *were* a serious, longterm, well-funded national program to improve our energy situation. Attack on all fronts - conservation, recycling, new sources, greater efficiency, etc. Do you really think such a program couldn't help improve the lives of almost all Americans? Hmmm? Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? In industrialized society's history, major technological advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors. BINGO! The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer, ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from private industry, for commercial purposes. No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Nobody knows. Right - who knows. Nobody. Technological advance isn't always predictable. True...there's no linear scale to it. But it's been in a positive trend with STEEP improvements following warfare. Not because of warfare, but because the resources were dedicated to solving the problems. One interesting historic game is to look at what was predicted for the future back 10, 20, 30 years. It's hilarious how many predictions never came true, and how many things that are common today were not foreseen. And how much of it COULD have been done if only the money were applied to them? Some could, others were simply not practical. Point is, nobody seems to be very good at predicting the future of technologies. Even the "experts" and "professionals" get it wrong most of the time. But people don't remember what an awful track record they have... As much as I believe that the Space program was a peaceful spur to technology, in the end, I don't care. I like adventure, I like science, and I like exploring. People *will" go into space, people *will* go to Mars. Will it be us, or will we be known as the Portuguese of space exploration? IOW, you're in it for the Buck Rogers factor. Huh? Don't you remember "Buck Rogers"? Old sci-fi character. The reference means Mike is more interested in the excitement than the hard science or the technological benefits. Recall that the "great nations of Europe in the 16th century" all went exploring for *commercial* and *political* reasons. For the bucks, not Buck Rogers. And did science NOT benefit, Jim? Not really. And the point is they did *not* go exploring for "science" or "because it's there" but for reasons like making money. Did I not say that direct commercial investment was a prime source of scientific advancement? Certainly NOT in the time frame that they have. Why not? The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost us dearly, and will cost us more, until we tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to do it for us. Paying big bucks for the Buck Rogers factor, while ignoring the serious earth-bound issues like energy supply, trade deficit and vulnerability to weather disruption isn't smart...(SNIP) OK... That's the very argument that was bantied around at the end of the Apollo project. Were they wrong or right? So the Space Program got back-burner'd except for robotic explorations, the ISS and and the Shuttle. Also Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, Viking, Galileo, Cassini, the Mars missions.. Hardly "back-burner". How much was NASA's budget in those years? How much is it now? And how much would it have cost to continue lunar missions? Global warming is as bad if not worse than it ever was in the 70's. Think about *why*. It's not because of NASA. It's because, after a few years of gasoline shortages, fossil fuels became cheap and plentiful in the early 1980s. And the problems were largely ignored. Which administration refuses to sign the Kyoto agreement? However spaceborne assets such as the Shuttle, ISS and MIR have been used to document and archive these events as never before possible. I think most of that data collection is done by unmanned weather and geological observation satellites. Poverty is as bad if not worse as it was in the 70's. Think about *why*. Most of Africa is a wasteland. AIDS shot across the continent like a cannon-shot. Think about *why*. The 50's, 60's and into the 70's were periods of great scientific expansion and awareness of not only ourselves, but our "communities" of the world. Sure - for a bunch of reasons, not just space programs. But science is useless unless the knowledge is put to work. Today our kids can't even find Africa on a map. Depends which kids you ask. I know plenty of elementary-school kids who can. It's exactly like the guy who buys season tickets and a new bigscreen plasma TV/home theatre to watch the games using a credit card. While he ignores his rundown, collapsing house, sick children and insecure job situation. Amazing how we arrive at the same point via different paths. (Wanna buy an AK-47...?!?!) The question is *why* that guy wants/needs an AK-47 rather than, say, a better plow or clean water. Is it because he's an aggressor? Is it because he's been attacked so many times that he needs it to defend himself? Is it some other reason? Consider this, Steve: The reason "we" succeeded in going to the moon was that a clear goal was defined, nearly-unlimited resources allocated, and limitations on success were kept to a minimum. If it took a three-man crew, they sent three men - not two and not four. That one of them would go all the way to the moon and back yet never set foot on it did not change the plans. That they built an enormous and expensive rocket, and only got a small capsule back, did not change the plans either. They simply did what was needed to meet the goal and nothing more nor less. Similar methods can be used to solve some (but not all) earth-bound problems. But too often, "we" are unwilling to do what's needed here at home to make it happen. Problems which are not as tough as Apollo (such as modern surface transportation) are considered "too hard" to solve. There's another factor at work, too: short attention span. The moon missions were essentially a crash program - the Rooskies were beating us in space "firsts", and JFK needed something that looked good to counter his critics about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis. So NASA got a blank check, contractors got cost-plus contracts and things went night and day for almost a decade. But when it was done, there wasn't a long-term plan for after-the-moon. Americans seem to do well in crises but not so well at careful long-term changes and planning. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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