On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 11:54:02 -0400, you ("Stephen Bolton" <sbolton@nbnet.nb.ca>) wrote: >I have no doubt money must be wasted in other research areas. >But doesn't your argument boil down to "others waste money why shouldn't >we?" No, actually I think it boils down to the fact that other, even much more abstract fields are _well_ worth funding huge amounts of money, and so has to be spaceflight, especially when considering how extremely little that is compared to the rest of a FY budget. You can't possibly state figures without putting them into perspective towards the rest of the household, and certainly you can't disregard their broad short-term and long-term value and effect. I sometimes feel it's pure magic how NASA still is successful in doing what they're doing with that measly less-than-1% of the US household that they're granted, and yet they're feeling the increasing budget cuts year after year. And that is from someone who strives for objectiveness and who is not exactly a 100% NASA fan. CU! Markus I don't think the basic issue is who funds what, or if research is considered basic or "applied". The fundamental issue is as follows: All research costs money. Manned space research is proportionally MUCH more expensive compared to unmanned space or ground. Are we getting out monies worth? When I look at what the manned LEO program has returned VS what could have been a program with bigger space telescopes and a complete robotic exploration of our solar system (because, face it, the manned space steals from the unmanned space budget) I get upset. I'll take the return from the Hubble over the return from the entire STS/ ISS program. Steve ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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