New Mars Forums

Yes, it is entirely true. So far, they have found nothing. If they find anything in the future, it makes no difference, though, because Iraq was invaded illegally, and still chose not to use the weapons. If they have that kind of restraint, then it makes no difference whether they had them or not. Of course, it is true that Hussien would use them if he thought he could get away with it, but that is not the case here.

And, yes, of course Bush lied. Wolfowitz admitted in a recent interview that the reasons we went to war were "swimming in oil", or something along those lines. Anyone who does not believe that oil is a major factor in US foreign policy should read the internal record. It is very naive to trust what power says to the public (though the media does it to a massive degree, it being made up of huge corporations). And yes, Clinton lied. Where the UN lied I am not sure, mabye they did. The UN is to a large extent a tool of the powerful nations, anyway, and the US is certainly the most powerful. As I recall, the Hussien regime admitted it had weapons, but said they were all destroyed after Gulf War I. Nobody has ever found any evidence to dispute this claim, despite years of inspections and, now, an invasion.

And, finally, the gassing of the Kurds, indeed an atrocity, was done while the West was supporting Iraq with military aid, including the US, which gave it WMD as well (anthrax, biological agents, and so on). The war between Iraq and Iran was useful to our "strategic interests", meaning the expanding of US power, so we supported it, despite the thousands of people who died. The example cited obviously exemplifies our grave concern about weapons of mass destruction, perhaps only outdone by our upkeep of at least 6000 nuclear weapons.

You just said they didn't. Mabye what you're trying to say is that they do want (and get) new programs, but they don't accomplish very much. That would be agreeable to me. Of course we differ somewhat on the reasons.

It would make more sense to just scrap the Shuttle and divert all the money to other programs. Put it into developing launch vehicles that work, or put it into unmanned exploration. It does very little that is useful and can't be done otherwise.

It's certainly difficult, it isn't as difficult as NASA makes it out to be, however. Look at the all the things they've done when there is a minimum of overhead and the engineering teams are really allowed to flourish. We can take a lot of that out by removing the contractors from the picture and turning more of the power over to people whose goal it is to actually do science. And there is ample evidence of corruption in the administration. Zubrin comments on a lot of it. A lot of other sources do also, including scholarly studies.

You can look almost anywhere that the current administration doesn't control outright (at least besides the far right) and find that the general opinion is that the Iraq invasion increased the likelihood of a terrorist attack on America. It's a sure bet, too, that 9/11 would never have happened if America was not supporting the murderous sanctions over Iraqi civilians, or if it withdrew from Saudi Arabia, and had not been funding Israeli imperialism to the tune of $3 billion per year, among numerous other monstrous policies which, on the people of Middle East, have had a toll far greater than that of 9/11 on America.

Warning: random thoughts ahead

Bush has no more of a goal of exploring space than anybody has. There is no correlation between whether you have a Republican or Democrat in office and whether NASA does interesting things. Both parties are in any case funded mostly by buisness, the Democrats the tune of close to 70% at the Republicans at around 80%. If exploring space is seen as being an important goal for the buisness elite in the US, then the US will explore space. At the present time it is not seen as an important goal. The most important goal of NASA is to provide a support for high technology industry and complement its much larger brother, the military establishment. So you will notice much talk of "commercialization", "public-private partnerships" and so on. Zubrin critizes this sort of stuff pretty harshly in his books, although being a status quo kind of guy he doesn't label it "corporate welfare" explicidly, instead attributing it to government bureaucracy and the usual stuff. NASA has cozied up very close with its contractor bedmates, and now some people are even faulting this kind of stuff as pretty much responsible for the Columbia disaster.

Anyway, science and exploration are secondary goals. That is pretty clear. The Space Shuttle should have been scrapped long ago, because it makes no sense from an economic or scientific standpoint to operate for the tremendous cost. I think probably a large reason for this is that it is just a stable arrangement: the companies and their government cronies who are involved just want a stable flow of cash, a stable system. They don't want some new program and launcher which might upset the status quo, perhaps damaging precious profits. It is an extremely corrupt arrangement. In my opinion the whole system ought to be nationalized and put under the administration of public officials who have exploration in mind and not robbing the bank.

The ISS had the potential to be a worthwhile project. Unfortunately numerous things happened to make it slide into oblivion and today we are left with something which is almost completely useless. In my opinion it ought to be sent into a higher orbit and left alone, and we should start something which makes sense.

What makes sense? Some people contend that we need to develop SSTO vehicles before we start launching manned missions to Mars and other places. My guess however is that the best approach is to develop the capability for manned missions as soon as possible and then bring up SSTO and so on as a replacement at some later point.

I was just thinking, Hawking radiation should be equally matter and anti-matter. Of course, it would only come in significant quantities from a small black hole--perhaps even one small enough to haul along in a starship. Assuming that it is feasible from an engineering standpoint to in some way haul a small black hole along in a starship, it would seem possible to generate unlimited amounts of antimatter. One could envision Hawking drive ramscoops, whereby hydrogen is harvested from the interstellar medium, fed in a controlled fashion into a small black hole, and then, once the mass reappears as anti-matter in form of Hawking radiation, harvest it to use in a photon rocket.

Let's see here...

The author states that "The real lesson of the STG debacle was that a healthy program was not sustainable if funded only by taxpayers", as opposed to the rich elite. I think there's some legitimacy to this statement, as the main concentrations of wealth and power in our society rest with the commercial elite, but simply stating that the government chose not to fund something does not prove that it could not be done. There are numerous programs that the government runs quite efficiently (say social security), moreso than the private sector, and this applies further in countries which have more of a welfare state (so for example, the Canadian healthcare system is more efficient than ours).

"...the purpose of human spaceflight is to open the solar system to all of us, not just to civil servants. The appeal of the program depends on the perception that it is opening a new frontier where people can escape the increasing regulation of life on Earth. A centrally-planned, government-run program is incompatible with that vision. It cannot survive, because it contradicts a principal reason for popular support..."

As opposed, I suppose, to a program which is planned by huge commercial entities for the profit of their investors, obviously a highly individualistic alternative, a true vision that we can all take pride in. We must all grieve for these entities, increasingly (well, actually decreasingly) constrained by dangerous forces which are at least marginally accountable to the public, a terrible threat to the true individualism, and one which, if allowed to continue... well, you get the point.

"Corporations can make rapid progress because they can take risks that government agencies cannot."

Actually, the reality is often just the opposite ; government agencies can often take risks that corporations cannot, because they are not profitable to take in the short run (so take for example the development of advanced planes, rockets, computers, the internet, and a host of other things which originated in the military-corporate nexus).  And anyway, all the biggest aerospace and defense firms which do the work of NASA wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for massive government cash infusions over the years. Boeing just recently got another big one, it was in WSJ article a couple of days ago. The writer was very open--not critical, of course--of how this was simply a cash infusion to save Boeing from hard times.   

"Ground the remaining three shuttles permanently, as too dangerous and expensive to fly...Mothball the ISS and move it to higher orbit, where it is safe from reentry, citing the lack of shuttles as the excuse. Perhaps somebody will eventually find a real use for it."

This is agreeable to me. What comes in their place, however, is where we differ extensively.

I'm not arguing against private sector involvement in space exploration in the present political climate ; because in that climate either you're going to have it, or you're not going to explore space. I also wouldn't vouch for the efficiency or ethicality of centrally managed operations, though it is absurd to talk about government as the only possible example of this. But nevertheless, I think this article suffers from several major delusions, as does the whole mainstream commentry on these subjects.

I'm wondering what people thought of the movies Matrix Reloaded and also X2. I thought X2 was much better and most people do think it was at least somewhat better in the ratings. Reloaded was a big dissapointment. There was lots of crazy special effects but the plot sucked. The characters had no depth. X2 was better, it had a plot, and characters.

I posted the following message here.

Regarding my message about "libertarianism", what I said does not have much directly to do with the first colonies on Mars ; I'm really just talking generally. If you want a system where people keep the fruits of their labor, then that is not capitalism. People in our society do not keep the fruits of their labor, rather they work for people who have the resources to exploit them into giving that away, thus increasing the wealth of the exploiters and keeping the exploited in a life of servitude, even if, as in some cases, the exploited make a decent living. I don't know what kind of a society exactly should take the place of capitalism, but it should be one where people are for the most part equal, and where everyone has a similiar standard of living and a say in what they are doing with their lives. So, no bosses telling people what to do at work ; that needs to be decided democratically, or individually, the latter being the preferable choice, to be used whenever it is found to be possible for the task at hand.

The idea that we are between a "national" and an "international" order is largely not true ; there is no "international" order, and never has been. We are not moving toward an order which is much, if at all, more "international" than it has been for the past couple of centuries. The past few centuries have seen the world dominated by Europe. After WWII the US emerged supreme over all the European powers and took over their role. The past centuries have been ones dominated by a few developed countries, and, if not stopped by global movements, the future will be similiar. As to the US wielding its power in a more civilized way than other country which has had "such power", any country which has "such power" militarily as the US has will necessarily be using it for imperialism ; there is no justificiation in today's world for a military half the size of that of the US. US imperialism has been slightly eroded for the past quarter century or so because of public opposition to it, but now it is back in full force.

We have no legal basis for invading Iraq--indeed, under the UN Charter there can be no such legal basis, because Iraq is not a threat to the United States and never has been. Even if this were not true, no resolution currently on the books would authorize such a thing.

UN approval is not needed for war if there is an imminent threat of attack--ie if Russia is sending its bombers to strike New York City, we have a right to blow up its airstrips to stop that. This is nothing like that, being a textbook case of aggression and imperialism. The Soviet Union certainly did not always obey international law, but as the supreme global power, I think we have a responsibility to do so, instead of publicly announcing we are not subject to it, as we do now. Or as Madeline Albright stated, "We will act multilaterally if we can and unilaterally if we must". That is, we will obey international law when it suits us, and when it suits us to go invade the country of our choice, we'll also do that.

There is no telling when we intend to leave. Of course, we could leave in a few months--mabye we will. But if we do, it will be because the order that we have established there is suitable to the US government, who of course knows best. And the precedent for US global hegemony over any nation which lacks weapons of mass destruction--probably nuclear-- to defend itself is now well established.

There are levels of progression, I think, with regards to how to colonize space. The most elementary criterion, on the political front, for doing so is strong, focused government initiatives for interplanetary exploration and low cost LEO transport. It appears to me very unlikely that we will see much progress in these areas until this happens. A continued policy of such should, I think, get us into space. However, there are other considerations as well, which I will discuss shortly. They do not, I think, directly influence whether we can get into space or not. The Pentagon System, as some have called it, of funding the R&D necessary for something to gain short term profitability, is a tried and tested approach, and I have little doubt that, if done in a competant fashion, it can succeed at its goals if pursued long enough. Nevertheless, I think the following questions should be raised, because at least in the long long term they will, as far as I can tell, become very important.

In a capitalist system, the fundamental aim of the people who hold power--or, that is, the people who control the major institutions of the society--is to gain profit. If it wasn't, then they wouldn't be there. As such, capitalism is a system which fundamentally promotes domination and profit at the expense of others. This relates to warlordism, where the aims and structure of the "system" are similiar but the methods are more brutal. The most ferocious individuals gain the power. At least in the long long term, ie centuries if nothing else, I think it is clear that allowing systems like this--based, fundamentally, on the values of imperialism and domination-- to remain in existance in the technological societies can only result in the annihalation of the human race. Albert Einstien had a similar position--he was a kind of socialist, taking a position very nearly the same as mine, actually--and was much disturbed by the prospect for total nuclear war. The methods for massive destruction can only increase in the future--say, by steering an asteroid into a planet, it would be a simple matter to obliterate civilization there.

So I think therefore we face two choices if we plan to create a sustainable civilization. Either we go into space using the Pentagon System and then reform these structures of domination and control, or we do it beforehand and then colonize space, not because our competitor is going to out-do us and crush us if we don't, or because we just want the power, but because it is something that would be valuable to the human--or perhaps, looking more speculatively, the conscious--spirit. It is my opinion that, if we find ourselves committing to a mostly pure version of the former approach, we will not have much of a civilization left to take to the stars down the line as a consequence.

If they are actually going to finish the ISS with only a three man crew, then they may as well just deorbit it now and save us the expense, because such an arrangement is almost completely useless scientifically, with some two and a half persons being used simply for upkeep.

The Hubble would have seen fog without the Shuttle, that is true, but the fact is that fixing it with the Shuttle took somewhere around half as much--this is one flight--as it took to put it up there in the first place. So, if we had cancelled that flight and another one, we would have had almost enough money, just from that, to launch a new Hubble. And most Shuttle missions do nothing as compelling as this. Most of the things with much scientific value done on the Shuttle could be done much cheaper with unmanned probes.

Having a manned space program is not the point of space exploration. It has to do something. At present our manned program is not going anywhere and is, to a large extent, a waste. Given the choice between cancelling our existing manned space program and diverting a substantial fraction of the leftover money to robotic exploration, and keeping things going the way they are going, the scientific value is unquestionably favoring the former choice. But I think we can do better than both, however.

Congress hires the administrators, so it is logical to expect that they won't disagree much with Congress.

I agree with you very much that Lockheed and Boeing don't make so much money on space. Space is a side program. The DoD is the main pork provider in our country (ever hear of something called the military industrial complex? Bingo). Nevertheless, they make some money.