rec.sport.football.college

You are only coming through in waves, "David V. Loewe, Jr"
... your lips move, but I can't hear what
you're saying...

>On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:02:01 -0500, John Rogers
>wrote:
>
>>You are only coming through in waves, Homer Hickam
>>... your lips move, but I can't hear what you're
>>saying...
>>>On Feb 25, 9:18 pm, John Rogers wrote:
>>>> You are only coming through in waves, Homer Hickam
>>>> ... your lips move, but I can't hear what you're
>>>> saying...
>>>>
>>>> >But this is just a smokescreen to slash NASA to the bone, leaving it
>>>> >with neither a capability to mount serious robotic missions or human
>>>> >spaceflight.
>>>>
>>>> Being an economic/free-market libertarian, I wouldn't mind defunding
>>>> NASA. Personally, I don't think it's constitutional.
>>>>
>>>> But, at the same time, I'd also defund about 50-60% of the rest of the
>>>> unconstitutional federal government, give the money back to the
>>>> people, businesses, and corporations, and loosen the reins, step back,
>>>> and let the free-market get us back to the moon and beyond.
>
>>> There are some things government does best and one of them is funding
>>>"big science" that otherwise has no immediate commercial
>>>applications. Nuclear energy, the South Pole Station, and the Hubble
>>>Space Telescope immediately come to mind but there's lots more. The
>>>pittance NASA receives ( % of the federal budget) helps prime the
>>>technological pump of the nation. It also does not contain what is
>>>typically thought of as your ordinary government employee. NASA
>>>engineers have a passion for their work, pull the longest hours you
>>>can imagine, and are happy to do it. They earn their salaries which
>>>aren't all that great to begin with.
>>
>>I don't disagree with a thing that you've said.
>>
>>Granted all of your statements, that still doesn't make NASA anymore
>>constitutional than the Department of Education, the National Security
>>Administration, or the National Endowment for the Arts.
>>
>>Is the view that "the money is going to be spent anyway, so I might as
>>well support efforts to get the money to the programs that I think are
>>wisest" a defendable view? Probably so these days with non-stop
>>federal spending as far as the eye can see and no politician in sight
>>with the guts to try to step in front of that locomotive.
>
>So...
>
>You would have been against the Lewis & Clark Expedition, eh?

Unless we intend to go to the Moon/Mars/etc. and claim it as official
territory of the United States of America, I don't see where your
argument has any merit.


John Rogers
AU Class of 1985
The Al Del Greco of Atlanta

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very
well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive,
we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build
your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a
gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will
follow ours." (General Sir Charles Napier)