NASA's unmanned spacecraft Mars Curiosity Rover is scheduled to land on Mars August 6th where it will perform chemical experiments paving the way for a manned mission to the Red Planet in the 2030's. And as a warm-up for that mission we're planning to land a man on an asteroid in 2025.
Lemme get this straight....we have a 15 TRILLION dollar national debt, we're tacking on another trillion or so a year, we're trying to decide what we can live without (fix the bridges?...cut Medicare?...delay the Social Security retirement age?...keep the post office open?...) yet we're gonna spend billions to plant a flag on Mars? Really? A flag? Big f__king whoop!
If you were broke, couldn't pay your mortgage, only had a few cans of beans in the pantry, couldn't get mama the operation she needs, and couldn't buy new school shoes for your growing kids, would you sell your blood in order to get a few bucks so you could buy a dirt bike?
Going to Mars would be cool, just like riding a dirt bike would be fun*, IF we had our fiscal house in order and had some fun money to spare. But we don't. This is insane!
S
*so I'm told
That sign? Is it addressed to somebody with the last name Morans? Because Moron is spelled
ReplyDeleteM O R O N . Maybe his Marks-a-bunch didn't have spell check.
Funny....I thought "brain" was wrong. Isn't it BRANE? ;)
ReplyDeleteS
but I like dirt bikes.
ReplyDeleteIt's necessary to think ahead on projects of this magnitude and space research often generates new industries and jobs, but we need to get our financial house in order before we invest in these adventures.
ReplyDeleteI'd much rather fund space flight than the pentagon but we do really need to fix things on this planet first.
ReplyDeleteThe funny part is the American flag we plant will probably be made in China. As much as I like Star Trek and Star Wars real "exploration" is so lame. Let's take 20 years to land some guy on an asteroid. Big whoop. I was glad when they stopped the space shuttle flights because by then most of them seemed to be doing "will it float" type experiments.
ReplyDeleteReally the way to get space exploration going is to privatize it. If corporations thought there was money to be made mining asteroids or whatnot, then we'd be landing guys on asteroids in six months. Those guys would probably be Chinese or Mexicans or Indians working for 30 cents an hour with shoddy equipment.
Anyway, if NASA really wants to encourage space exploration they need to plant some "evidence" there's oil or gold on Titan or something like that.
Ha, good points PT.
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