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Did anyone catch the episode of NOW on PBS about 2 weeks ago featuring "Chuck" Spiney? For those of you who didn't, he is a retired Pentagon staffer from the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (they judge who should get how much money for projects and whether it is worth it). Anyway, he posited a very interesting point: to provide a better defence, we must cut the defence budget. His analyses over that past 30 or years have consitantly pointed to this fact, using Pentagon studies and findings to support this case. By eliminating useless "congressional pork" programs, enforcing GAO auditing standards for the Pentagon (they currently, and illegally, claim exeption from this process), and requiring new systems to actually be tested before purchase and proven before deployment, we can save more American lives while at the same time saving tax payers money and providing a better defence.
Just how much could we save while still improving defense? Earl Ravenal, a Distinguished Research Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University, estimates that only a budget of $125 billion would be more than sufficient to meet our defense needs. This is a drastic difference from the bloated budget of nearly $400 billion for a Defense Department that, even with all of this money, has a hard time effectively protecting the U.S. and its interests.
My recommendation is that if we wish to pursue an actual space program, which the U.S. has not had since the 70s, we draw the funding from the ever fattening military-industrial-congressional complex. At the same time we can spend money on other much needed programs (i.e. Education, which goes hand in hand with space exploration) without drawing from some other programs nessecary funding. Imagine what a space progam backed with an extra, lets say for example, $20 billion annually.
No longer would we need to justify the "what about the problems hear on earth" nonsense espoused by the general public. The money would not be from an increase in taxes, cutting the budget of health, education, etc., or drop us further into debt. We have more than enough funding (~$250 billion per year) to put humans on the Moon, Mars, and wherever else we choose to go in less than a decade (production wise, never mind travel time). At the same time we can have a Defense Department that works if only we can learn to tame the military-industrial-congressional beast.
Just another American pissed off with the morons in charge...
Motto: Ex logicus, intellegentia... Ex intellegentia, veritas.
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hmmmm. . . .tell that to the employees of the miltary industrial complex that. They will fight hard, and we can't win cause they got all the good weapons. . . .
"I am the spritual son of Abraham, I fear no man and no man controls my destiny"
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Yeah, I think that fact is very sad.
Damned military...
[url]http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Echus[/url]
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Yep, the damn people who developed or paid for the development of just about every booster we use currently..
Damn them!
We are only limited by our Will and our Imagination.
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Actually Seth, the military is to blame for our lack of large boosters. If they had had their way in the 1950s, we would only have rockets that are ICBM variants (actually for the most part that is exactly what happened). The reason that ESA and Russia hold 2/3 of the space launch industry is that their governments were able to recognize the need for large boosters. In fact, IMHO, the very reason we are stuck in a go nowhere space program is this military intervention to refuse anything that cannot be used as a weapons platform (the russians did the same thing, but lucky for them their military wanted rather large warheads). Our boosters, which the military has graced us with, are far below par on the global market and are part of the reason for the collapse of America's space program.
There are a pair of op-ed arcticles at SpaceDaily.com talking about this very subject. The second one also examines the actions of Gen. Medaris that helped pervent the military from from totally keeping us out of the space race.
Just another American pissed off with the morons in charge...
Motto: Ex logicus, intellegentia... Ex intellegentia, veritas.
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