mlorrey - 4/8/2006 11:43 AMAt about the same time, then-Senator Walter Mondale (D-Luddite), spoke in opposition to shuttle and space stations, in the Senate against "spending billions in space, when there are many social ills here on earth they could be spent on," as if there are malls in space that astronauts go on massive shopping sprees in....
Austin - 4/8/2006 3:12 PMAlthough this board is not likely to yield unbiased responses, I am curious to hear other peoples' thoughts as to why you (fellow space enthusiasts) believe that the space program is important in the face of so many problems here at "home."
"We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way."
Buzz Aldrin
Personally, my answer would involve the long, LOOONG-term future: This planet is gonna be swallowed up by the Sun within 5 billion years...and we can either be incinerated along with this rock...or begin the steps of moving out to space and continuing the survival of our species now (you know something's wrong when a billion years have passed and we STILL haven't been to Mars, haha). What's the point of helping people if we're all screwed over at the end, anyway?
'Kay, that's my sick, twisted answer to "why fly".
hyper_snyper - 4/8/2006 6:37 PMNeil deGrasse Tyson's keynote address at the Goddard Memorial Dinner back in April of 2005 gave some specific examples as to how our investment in space exploration has really paid off. It was the best such rationale I've ever heard. It's on this page if you want to see it.