Well... this might be like another of those Bush ventures - done for the wrong reasons, done badly, but in the end how can you critise the goal of going to Mars, putting a man on another planet for the first time in history, uniting the world if only briefly in dreams of da trek.
Well because of course the obscene amounts projected (a trillion dollars??) could be spent on better things - Aids, clean water for all, removing 3rd world debt and on - but if we're honest it's not like the money for space exploration is being diverted from some 'good deeds' fund, this is money that wouldn't have gone to help those that need it. And I suppose... if one were to look at it mre abstractly, one could say that an unwillingness to sort out a problem directly is being met by a solution on a higher level of er process. or consciousness. Hey, it's like tax breaks for the rich, it all filters down right? - or like walking by the homeless - don't we have shelters for those sorts of ppl?
I'm pretty sure the real reason we're going to Mars, or going via the moon, is because the Chinese have aspirations to go to the moon - and then who knows what they might do when they get there, set up some Commie lunar utopia or something/ So this is basc a space race, or rather a declaration of intent... 20, 30 years - Bush is saying 'don't even bother China, it's not worth it', and perhaps he's right. In the meantime, hoary old fake or no, it's pretty exciting following what's going on over at this place: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/
Posted on Jan 15, 2004, 1:41 AM from IP address 62.64.224.55