Bush's bucking of the Shuttle Program

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I think the efficiency of a Bussard ramjet increases with speed. Go fast enough, and you're actually collecting enough hydrogen to make it work. The trick is to go fast enough.

Actually, the only fuel that generates enough speed to achieve escape velocity; if the Earth was a substantial size larger, the space program would have to wait for antigravity or something...

The Earth is the cradle of mankind; but man should not live in the cradle forever...

The problem with our space program is that it was a race; after we got there, how many victory laps did we need? That hurt the space program as much as it helped it, in the end.

We do not do these things because they're easy, we do them because they are hard. If you remove all challenges from your civilization, progress stops. I hope the Space program continues before we get locked out of Space. Aside from the ESA, most of the space programs are more interested in competition rather than cooperation. Heck, the Iranians have sent a rocket (thankfully only straight up) into space.

For one thing, going back to the moon would prevent it from becoming a harsh Mistress. You could just sit on the moon, hurling metal-covered rocks at the Earth, taking out the Taj Mahal, major cities, etc? Who needs nukes?

brain fart from last post - the fuel is liquid hydrogen and oxygen...my bad...

it's the best way to make sure our reach doesn't exceed our grasp...such is the way of progress...

The USA is about to embark on the greatest depression since 1929. An article in the NY Times yesterday indicates that a college education will soon be priced out of the means of the average student. The general US infrastructure is in a shambles with roads, bridges, electric grid etc soon to be inadequate for the whole country. Thousands of jobs are disappearing overseas. Hundreds of thousands are going into bankruptcy from mortgages and credit cards. It takes millions of dollars to buy a few days in close Earth orbit. Whether Mars has water or not it is still a horrible place to try to exist compared to Antarctica or the worst parts of the Sahara desert which are basically unpopulated. I don't see enthusiastic crowds rushing to build homes there where there is plenty of air to breathe, unlike the Moon or Mars and the carfare is infinitely more affordable and the trip fairly safe.

If there is a depression in the US, believe me, it will not be limited to that country. The recession is already worldwide in scope.

I was born Manhattan, raised in Brooklyn, lived in the USA for many years and believed in its stated ideals. I served in the US Army in WWII and did my best to educate myself and try to earn a decent living in the country. As I grew older I could see that the country was oriented to preserve the power of the financially well off and prevent the welfare of the country as a whole. Workers today take little if any benefit from the technological advances since the advent of the computer. And when the US workers needed higher wages to merely maintain their status in the economy the industries moved overseas to where the workers could be paid substandard wages. The raw fact is that if the workers cannot be paid decent wages they went to borrowing to maintain their living standards and finally when repayment on loans came due the whole system collapsed. The health, legal, infrastructure, educational and ecological systems have been totally plundered to the disaster of the country. When my son who was a US citizen was rendered quadriplegic by a reckless Israeli driver as I served with the UN in Israel nobody in the USA would help him to stay alive and Finland offered to keep him alive in the Finnish health system because my wife is Finnish. I can never express my huge gratitude to Finland for this sufficiently nor rid myself of the feelings for my country, the USA, for disdaining my pleas for help when I was in a desperate situation. I tried to return to New York in the beginning of this century to find work and discovered no one would employ me at my profession and ended doing manual labor at a wage which would not pay my food or rent so since I was not particularly fond of living in a cardboard box in an alleyway I returned to Helsinki where I can get by. A clear look at US history reveals that it has never lived up to it's ideals but that there were flexibilities in its system which could have permitted people to improve their lives. The last few decades has seen these opportunities shrink and disappear. I take no joy in this and do not look with any pleasure on the self inflicted demise of the basic rights and opportunities which once flourished in the country. It is a tremendous tragedy for the USA and the world and humanity in general and the new president, at this point, seems to me to be merely participating in the decline. Of course the whole world will suffer and Finland will feel this too. The huge Nokia industry is moving out of the country to cheaper labor areas and people here will suffer. But I am sorry to say for the USA that the people in Finland seem to me to be better cared for by their government and the people here seem much more rational and intelligent in the way they conduct themselves. This does not make me happy about the USA since it is full of creative intelligent and hardworking people but they have done terrible things to themselves and I cannot help them.

Sand: I am not going to pretend that the American economic situation right now is anything other than very serious but I still remain skeptical that there is Nothing that can be done about it. The worst course of action IMHO is for the government to stand idle and "let the free market come up with a solution". THAT is what caused the Great Depression in the first place and thats one of the reasons why the Republicans LOST the most recent federal election...not just the presidency but Congress as well. Now as far as ecological standards go, if you think the US is so terrible, go see what its like in Russia! I dont know what the economic situation is in Finland but it seems quite clear that socialist europe's economic miracle will be coming to an end very soon if major changes arent made. Though if the US really starts falling apart, Canada is only 120 miles away from where I live.