Comment

Comment by Godless Poutine on April 15, 2012 at 4:12pm

Thanks for your insightful comment Davy.  I think you put it better there than in my post.   I know several people who use the argument that we shouldn't be spending money on space until we fix things down here.  I don't think they realize just how little we spend.  If we extend that analogy to it's logical conclusion we should also probably cancel parades, colored lights in the winter, public parks, public libraries ... etc.. etc.. 

Comment by Davy on April 15, 2012 at 1:24pm

Should read "To my Mind"

Comment by Davy on April 15, 2012 at 1:23pm

Well! The commercial version of space flight I would not trust because what prevents them from cutting corners to save money and increase the profit for the trip! My life is worth more than 95,000$, thank you very much. 

They are not space explorers because they are only exploiting the average Joe's desire to travel in space. 

To mind to be an explorer you to leave the safe harbour of your home port and lose sight of you familiar coast line. You have to go over the horizon. Face the fear of the unknown.

I would love to space travel and low Earth orbit ain't space. Space is out between the planets or even the between the stars. 

Those that do not realise the everyday technology that they use a lot is the results of the ground breaking technologies that got Humanity to the Moon and our robots to the distant planets in our Solar system. Are the ones that think Space flight and exploration is a waste of money.

Space Exploration also channels our energies away from trying to beat the daylights out of each other and gives the young ones a decent goal to pursue. Whether building the spacecraft, designing them, engineering them, and piloting them. Then there are the people that have to look after the well being of the craft and its personnel. Then there are all those other industries that support the industries that build the craft. Then there are the sciences that rely on being able to look at both the Earth and the cosmos from different angles to the one that get from being on the ground or in orbit around the Earth.

They talk about house build being an economic indicator they should use a single dynamic pursuit as an economic indicator such as the Exploration of Space because of the number of industries that support the endeavour! The healthier that is the more jobs there are going to be therefore more money around to build or renovate homes!

IMHO, anyway.

Comment by Godless Poutine on April 14, 2012 at 7:43pm

Thanks for the comment Michel.

I had completely forgotten about the Cirque guy.  Kind of reminds me of all that hoopla that happened a few years back when Pizza Hut wanted to put a giant billboard on the moon and plaster their logo all over rockets.  Kind of sad that NASA needs the money so much.

Comment by Michel on April 14, 2012 at 7:17pm

Well, our national clown in Québec, the founder of the Cirque du Soleil Guy Laliberté had his moment on the ISS - thanks to the Russians for transportation - but he paid a few dozens of millions if I remember correctly.

NASA could probably use that kind of money too.