40 Years Ago Today…
Cool Things, Space, The Human Future July 15th. 2009, 6:41pmWe went to the Moon. (If you disagree, don’t bother to post your ‘argument’. Buzz is an old man, he doesn’t have the energy to go around punching *everybody*.)
It’s time to go back, although not in the same way. We’ve done the Christopher Columbus thing – now it’s time to do the John Smith thing.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Cool. How much are you willing to pay in increased taxes to get it done? (Or, alternately, what do you want to cut to pay for it?)
July 24th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
The Department of Education has some nice funding.
July 25th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Two problems. 1. The Dept of Ed’s budget is only $60 billion or so. Given that a single shuttle launch (to low earth orbit) is $1 billion, I think you’re underestimating the amount needed. 2. We’ll need someone who understands Newtonian mechanics to make this work so education may not be the best thing to eliminate.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
I didn’t say we should eliminate education. I said we could eliminate the Department of Education, or at the least siphon money away from them. If you believe that the federal DOE provides some signal service, I invite you to list some of its accomplishments which could not have been achieved by state and local education-related government bodies.
DOE’s budget was about $70B in 2006, while NASA got $17 billion last year. I’d be happy to reverse those numbers, at least in terms of absolute spending; I wouldn’t want NASA to actually get the money. It should be done via private enterprise.
July 26th, 2009 at 11:49 am
One problem with private enterprise: it has to be able to offer a hope of profit in the shareholders’ lifetimes. What profit is there in going to the moon apart from maybe tourist industry? In the next 50 years at least.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
HE3 mining in the middle run. The moon is a natural site for industrialization in the short, middle, and long runs. Land sales. It’s a planet, maybe not a very good one, but handy to the shops.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Good luck pitching the idea to…any company at all. I have serious doubts about your success, but isn’t the US built on people with crazy ideas that they manage to sell to someone?