Message posted by Mark Lincoln on July 11, 2011 at 20:33:15 PST:
Reality intrudes. Welfare budgets and social programs have been consistently cut for the last 30+ years. The defense budget has now become over 1/2 of the nation's discretionary spending. Pretending that the current social and economic plight of the USA is the results of liberal impulses which died thirty years ago is folly. It was not the liberals who cut the space program following the 1968 election and have continued to restrain it to this day. You joust with a fantasy in your mind. The 'space program' collided with the cost of the Vietnam War and Nixon's realization we could not afford both. I do not argue with his judgement. Nor do I argue with the decision of the defense department following the Challenger disaster that it could not depend upon a system which could not reliably and cheaply deliver what it needed. The 'Golden Age' of American space exploration was a fantasy produced by the Camelot Administration of John Kennedy and the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson. Since that time the USA has not desired to put the money necessary into space flight necessary to develop - if possible - a practical manned capability. It has developed the ability to do anything necessary in space at less expense using unmanned craft. The question now - as shown by the House cancellation of the Webb Space Telescope - is whether the US will remain capable of even that effort.
In Reply to: Re: OT - Last Flight Out posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on July 11, 2011 at 6:33:15 PST:
Replies: