You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

Bill White · 2003-12-16 09:28:32

From today's Washington Times discussing America's future in space:

. . . According to several reports, NASA headquarters has forwarded a timid plan calling for a return to the moon by the end of the next decade.
How low have we fallen? Manned moon landings in 17 years? Starting with virtually no space technology base, the America of slide rules and rotary phones did it in eight. For the president to stand at Kitty Hawk and proclaim this goal as a bold new vision for the American space program would be farcical.

Mars or Bust!

With critics like this, any bold call to return to the moon will flop like a deflated balloon.

Palomar · 2003-12-16 09:42:40

*Mars or Bust is right.

This is just so pathetic. Things like climbing Mt. Everest or trekking to the North Pole are still major feats of accomplishment...but they've already been done numerous times, the initial excitement of the first expedition is long since GONE, etc. Are we really in this much of a rut? I sure hope not.

And I certainly agree with your comment regarding the critic (we need more like him/her).

--Cindy

jadeheart · 2003-12-16 14:24:48

I wonder if this kind of thing isn't a manifestation of social demographic changes. Statistically (& mentally) we're older as a society... therefore less brash & ballsy. Maybe we really no longer have what it takes to do something like Mars. Just look at Americans' obsession with safety-- you see it in all kinds of commercials, in the number of lawsuits that take place, in OSHA going bananas with workplace regulations... Everybody knows that as people get older they get more cautious.

Is America too calcified to take on anything new & daring? The moon. We just love our sequels. It's Hollywood writ large-- "Apollo II: The Underachieving." Coming soon?

Rxke · 2003-12-16 14:59:34

But the kids are bored... We really should give young people something to get exited about...

As Zubrin points out so nicely: the 'big minds-innovators' of today tech industry were the kids that got inspired by the Apollo landings.

Today they have reality tv... The mind reels what they will become as a 'mature' generation.

I am NOT kidding.

Palomar · 2003-12-16 15:30:57

I wonder if this kind of thing isn't a manifestation of social demographic changes. Statistically (& mentally) we're older as a society... therefore less brash & ballsy. Maybe we really no longer have what it takes to do something like Mars. Just look at Americans' obsession with safety-- you see it in all kinds of commercials, in the number of lawsuits that take place, in OSHA going bananas with workplace regulations... Everybody knows that as people get older they get more cautious.
Is America too calcified to take on anything new & daring? The moon. We just love our sequels. It's Hollywood writ large-- "Apollo II: The Underachieving." Coming soon?

*Well, those are interesting points. We're older, but are we wiser? I fear the answer is "no."

Speaking of social demographics, think of all these: In the early 1970s most married people were married to their first spouse. Divorce, at least in the Midwest, was very rare and looked down upon (extremely so). Most people stayed in the area in which they were born and raised. That's just for starters. Kids used to use their IMAGINATIONS when they played...now the creators of the video games do a lot of that for them. Various "movements" started out with positive goals and unity in mind...unfortunately, IMO, many of these have deteriorated (for who knows what reason) into nothing more than "Time To Get Even" movements and people are now at each other's throats all the god-damned time (that's an improvement??). There really is no unity in this nation anymore, despite all the claims of various "movements" to make it that way, or try to help it along.

The 1980s ushered in such greed, etc. I remember the 1970s being laid back, friendly and happy-go-lucky (especially after Vietnam) by comparison to the 80s.

I think the AIDS epidemic has had some terrible impact on the human psyche; it seems with the discovery of AIDS (which initially scared people silly...but you'd never know it now, considering how many reports I transcribe where Joe or Jane X is scared they've contracted something...decades later, they still don't know what a CONDOM is??), coupled with the "Grab It and Growl -- Fiercely" 80s...I don't know, it's just not been the same nation since.

I don't know what it would take to get the nation back on track, as the space program goes. Just keeping writing your representatives!

--Cindy

Palomar · 2003-12-16 15:39:03

*Quagmire! That's the word I was looking for. That's what America is in -- a major quagmire. And I hate to say it, but a part of me suspects it might only get worse.

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-16 16:13:31

Hell, I've been offered a trip to climb Mount Everest! There is a route one can take that pretty much anyone in good health with a few weeks of pre-climb exercising can do! So yeah, Cindy, it's not even such a great accomplishment anymore, it's just finding the right tourist agency and having the money to do it.

jadeheart · 2003-12-16 19:49:24

There really is no unity in this nation anymore, despite all the claims of various "movements" to make it that way, or try to help it along.
The 1980s ushered in such greed, etc. I remember the 1970s being laid back, friendly and happy-go-lucky (especially after Vietnam) by comparison to the 80s.

Yeah, me too. I think the profit-mindedness that has sprung up since then may have something to do with our lack of real vision. There is a big movement afoot to privatize our government to death-- to shrink it to the size so that it can be "drowned in the bathtub", to quote a libertarian extremist. (Or was it an ultra-rightie? Can't remember.) IMO a privatized (or non-existent) government will not be effective in undertaking things like Mars missions, especially expensive gestures like crewed missions. It will also be extremely ineffective at firing youngsters' imaginations, except for the kids who want to grow up to be corporate CEOs.

It really seems to me that the US is starting down the path that Rome and Ming China followed-- navel-gazing that led to stagnation and decay. Who will the buck be passed to in our wake if we don't get going? Brazil? Russia? China (after 500 years, a second chance)?

Alt2War · 2003-12-16 22:52:09

In the military industrial complex, which the US space industry is an arm of, as budgets go up so do costs.

The larger the budget, the higher the cost for the exact same machine gun, plane, or light armor.

Unfortunately that is often how things go in socialized systems.

This is one problem.

the other is the system of pork padding and pocket lining that must take place in Nasa to get anything accomplished, thus the budget must be run out across a longer period of time.

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#1 2003-12-16 09:28:32

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#2 2003-12-16 09:42:40

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#3 2003-12-16 14:24:48

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#4 2003-12-16 14:59:34

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#5 2003-12-16 15:30:57

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#6 2003-12-16 15:39:03

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#7 2003-12-16 16:13:31

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#8 2003-12-16 19:49:24

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

#9 2003-12-16 22:52:09

Re: You just gotta love - Robert Zubrin!

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