[Spridgets] No LBC - plastic fittings

[Dean Hedin]

"Now I am in trouble ;-)"

No you're not.  This is something worth arguing about.
It sure beats arguing about abortion or gun control.

I'm not going to dispute that the moonshots had some
off-shoot technologies that benefited the rest of society.
But I think you could have invested directly in these technologies
without going to the moon, and have saved a lot of money.

I think business today (in the post big space program era)
is a bit more savvy regarding research and development.

You can say that DARPA started the Internet, but you can't
neglect what private enterprise has done to improve it since
that time, turning it into the better internet we have today.
In fact, I would argue if the internet was still left into the hands
of the government it would not nearly be as good as it is today.

The reason you're not on the Moon or Mars today is that it's 
too dang expensive and not economically viable, period.  
And I'm glad we are not funding such things.

I'm totally cool on sending probes. That makes sense and it doesn't
cost a lot. 

One more thing.  It's easy to look at the space program of the sixties
and get the idea that if we throw enough money at a problem we can solve it.
Bullsh$t. Just look at the electric car for example. People have been trying
for years to invent a battery to make it work and we are still not there.
And you know what? I don't want our government funding some super battery
Research project.  It would be like the Solyndra Solar cell thing. Our
tax dollars flushed down the toilet. 

You can't take a senior's medicad or a child's school lunch just because
Larry wants to live on Mars.  

So for now we are just going to have to wait and see how Virgin Galactic
pulls off the space tourism business model OR wait for a physics
breakthrough.

May I suggest we all start reading Feynman's Lectures?