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Someone here is horrendously misinformed. It's either me, or the
President of the United States. I would not mind at all if someone
pointed out why it is, indeed, me, but here's my beef:
I dig space exploration as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that
Bush's new space initiative (establishing an ISS-style base on the moon
by 2015, then using that as a jumping off point for manned missions to
Mars) is just outright nuts. Has he been watching too much Star Trek?
I mean, we have a difficult enough time maintaining the ISS. And it's
scientific benefits are debatable (Time Magazine lavbeled it "space
pork"; see also Bob Park's excellent book "Voodoo Science"). And when you
compare it's cost/benefit ratio to unmanned exploration, like Hubble or
the Spirit rover now cruising around Mars, it seems especially dubious.
So imagine how much more difficult it would be to construct and maintain
and operate and if need be evacuate such a station that's 160,000 (am I
right?) miles away, not just 125. I've seen the Apollo crafts at the
Smithsonian, and they don't look like they carry lots of cargo.
Bush also thinks the manned missions to Mars could be launched from the
moon. I'm no rocket scientist, but I do know that launching a human into
space in any way (never mind 140,000,000 miles to Mars - and that's just
1 way!) requires lots and lots of people, lots of safety checks and lots
of fancy equipment. How are you going to manage to construct and operate
Cape Canaveral 2 on THE MOON?
And aside from the technological difficulties, what's the reward for all
this? My favorite laugher was when Bush said his plan would let us
harvest the moon's abundant natural resources. Say what?!?!? I know of no
valuable resources there - and even if there are some, how could they
possibly be so valuable that spending billions of dollars to recover
small quantities of them makes any economic sense?
So please tell me: am I a space moron? Am I missing the obvious? Or is
the mainstream media in serious derelect of duty in not pointing out the
scientific illogic of this plan?
Scratching my head,
Jonah Cohen
Outreach & Public Programs Manager
Science Center of Connecticut
"Too many whites are getting away with drug use.
The answer is to... find the ones who are getting away with it, convict
them,
and send them up the river."
-Rush Limbaugh
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