Why does anyone have the right to change other planets to suit the needs of humans? Who decides what Martian land you get and what you don't?
Most people in the world are having serious problems dealing with the fact the rich nations want to spend billions on space research when people have no running water or electricity. If anything says "I've got mine and don't give a ◊◊◊◊ about the poor" that pretty much does it.
Dear jay gw,
I honestly don't know where you're coming from. Some of your posts sparkle with political sanity, and then you present us with madness like this.
Humans are supreme in the universe, by virtue of our individual faculties of cognition that allow us to discover truths about physics, life, and mind, that we in turn use to reorganise our technological and social practice, on an infinite journey of progress toward perfection. Part of that progress is expansion and development of new resource bases, including an eventual Mars base, and in the further future, interstellar travel.
This universe exists for the benefit of /us/, as beings made in the mental image of the same creative power - name not necessary - that generated the universe. Animals, plants, fungi, microbes, rocks, and plasma are not made in the mental image of this power, /we/ are. This gives us the right to do with the universe what we please, for the sake of the advancement of the development of said universe for our benefit.
If you deny this, which is an understandable position, then we are back to Alligator Al - humans as animals. And if we are animals, then there is only one possible true concept of morality and source of all rights: Force.
But this is actually a false dichotomy, from the perspective of the poor people who are supposedly suffering because the West bothers to pursue a space program based on higher ideals (and certain military considerations). That is that opposing the space program is opposing something that is one of the biggest economic drivers of all.
The /more/ we recognise the worth of space travel, the more we'll be willing and able to better reorganise our social practise on Earth, in the face of compelling evils. The less, the more we will revert to Alligator politics, as the past forty years of ongoing social and economic collapse have shown.
The Mars Society
http://www.marssociety.org/
The Human Explorer
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/4/zubrin.htm
Terraforming Mars
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/terraforming.html
NSS Letters On Space Exploration: January 2004 Archives
http://chapters.nss.org/letters/archives/2004/01/
"Here are $976.3 billion dollars - almost a trillion - spent every year in the US on pets, toys, gambling, alcohol and tobacco. It is 63 times the amount spent on space exploration - with the difference that NASA has not destroyed lives as the alcohol, tobacco and gambling did. It is not the exploration spirit that Americans need to give up in order to alleviate poverty. It is the consumerist spirit. "
Also:
"The President of the National Space Society of Australia, Tim McEgan, said that President Bush's statement may be the single largest policy announcement on space since Kennedy's famous words "We choose to go to the moon" in 1961 that eventually landed men on the moon in 1969.
"Mr McEgan says the 1% of US federal funds that goes to NASA is not a waste of taxpayer dollars. "During the Apollo program, for example, the economic return to America was 7 to 1. That means for every one dollar spent on space, seven dollars was created for the economy through jobs, new products and export income. Besides NASA research creates several thousand commercial spin-offs every year that are used to enhance our lives here on earth.
"Alan Shepard, Commander of Apollo 14 once said "When I was on the moon I didn't see one dollar up there. It all went into the pay packets of some 400,000 people who worked on the program."
"Here in Australia we don't build rockets or space shuttles, but these vehicles can't fly without new technology and scientific research that are areas we have a world class reputation in. All this research potentially creates new products or enhances our knowledge base which is then valued by overseas organisations. All these new inventions and technological developments improve the nations' knowledge base, creating jobs and export income among other things.
"Mr McEgan says that "Most economically developed countries are experiencing a decline in science and technology students. If proposed plans in the US can reinvigorate future students' interest in these areas, it will eventually result in an improved knowledge base in the workforce and hence have a positive flow on effect for the country's economy."
And:
"While we may be excited about the possibilities of a new space program many people in the US are not. That is too bad. Because many people don't get it. They talk about jobs and other problems. But a new space program will create many more new jobs than any social program could dream of creating. And these are high paying jobs. The Government Accounting Organization (GAO) states that for every dollar spent on the space program 8 dollars are returned to the economy. NO OTHER GOVERNMENT program does this. So hopefully people begin to realize this."
End Of An Era
http://www.vectorsite.net/tamrc_24.html#m3
"In contemporary dollars, Apollo cost $25 billion USD, and at its peak it accounted for almost one cent on every dollar of US economic output. Apollo funds similarly totaled about 20% of all US public and private research money at that time. In 1971, NASA commissioned a study that claimed the Apollo program generated a $7 USD return for every dollar spent. The impartiality of such a study was suspect, since NASA used it to justify their funding requests, and the Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO), never much of a friend to the agency, was highly critical."
Chinese Astronauts Compete For Final Frontier
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=1177
From above:
"Economically, the benefits for the United States of the space race generally and the Apollo program specifically were far reaching, both direct and indirect. Education and on-the-job experience for the Apollo scientists and engineers created a generation of highly trained technical personnel. Academic engineering programs were specifically created to meet the need for new and specialized aerospace skills. In China, student interest in space is said to have exploded.
"Another economic payoff comes through jobs. US government money spent on the Apollo program was expected not only to get a man to the moon but to employ a great many people in the process. In China today, programs that bolster technical education and create technical jobs are of considerable interest; the lessons of Apollo have not been lost on the Chinese leadership.
...Space, it was felt, engendered technology, technology led to industrialization, and industrialization fostered economic growth. China is keenly aware of these established relationships."
Cpl Ferro
