Political discussion thread

While I am a supporter of continuing space exploration and exploitation, the spin-offs from it are over-stated and often incorrect (like velcro and teflon) - calculators are not a spin off of the space program (unless Blaise Pascal was a secret rocket scientist) but a parallel development that NASA used and may have popularised [electronic pocket calculators], they were not involved in their development nor did the space program provide any impetus for their development. In the 1:10 budget to benefit ratio NASA are counting the wealth created by GPS and comminications satelites as part of their "win" and that is undoubtably a valid correlation up to a point it does not subtract the wealth that alternative non-space solutions would have created or any of the possitive benefits non-space solutions would have provided. If the $180bn per year benefit was the result of a direct funding to those non-space solutions rather then a non-specific, non-preselected, serendipitous winfall from a non-comercial programme then the ratio would have been higher. NASA is not a cost-effective way of funding comercial research and development and that cannot be used as justification for space exploration. I beleive we should fund space exploration for the reasons of space exploration alone - if there are spin-off's then that is a bonus - just as we should fund scientific research programs like CERN and the LHC for reasons of scientific research and not for serendipitous winfall spin-offs such as the Internet and medical scanners (CERN also claim spinoff benefit from the wealth created from GPS satelites).

Which means more debt, more unemployment, more welfare.

The other clown is the same.

Imagine if America stopped caring about "promoting freedom" in other countries through the force of arms!