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Did you hear George W. wants to build a restaraunt On Mars?
...He said the food would be good but he's worried about the atmosphere.


Jonah Cohen wrote:

>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
>*****************************************************************************
>
>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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