Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS](and SCIENCE) NASA Plans Lunar Outpost

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 12/5/06, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Jonathan King wrote:
[snip]
> I agree with your main point, but how do we begin to crack the
> military-industrial-congressional complex?  That is **massive** entrenched
> power.  It can be defeated, or diverted, in time, but we need a strategy.
> What is a good strategy?

I'm not sure, but the fallacy at work in Sagan's thinking was that
some big space boondoggle was going to divert anything. As cynical as
I am, I am not so cynical as to think it's a good idea to promote a
stupid idea that costs a ton of money just in case it might prevent
somebody else from spending another ton of money.

> I would say that you are wrong about manned space flight and wars in Asia
> only because such wars kill many thousands of good people and manned space
> flights will only kill a few dozen people.

You are *so* wrong. In both cases, the answer to the question of how
many people needlessly die is hundreds of thousands or millions. Money
can be spent usefully to save lives and improve the world. For
probably 10 percent of what we're spending in Iraq, we could probably
finally irradicate every remaining "childhood" disease. For another 10
percent or so, we could vastly upgrade the infrastructure for
providing clean drinking water. Wasting money on manned space projects
is truly a perverse thing to do. The direct kills of our course of
action today is just a tiny proportion of the correctly imputed cost.
Opportunity costs are staggeringly huge.

> The same money is being spent
> either way,

Only if there's a budget constraint. You may have noticed that, at
least recently, there isn't.

jking

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