Friday, April 11, 2008

Obama Wants to Kill Space Exploration

It's official (check out this article for a good commentary) -- and sad. It doesn't stop me from supporting him for President (which I do), and i certainly agree that the current state of the space program isn't very inspiring, but putting space exploration completely on hold until "the mission is clearer" makes absolutely no sense -- he's basically arguing that we should stop working on the problem because we don't have a good solution yet. That makes no sense. Space and space exploration is one of the hottest topics in science today, and relegating it to the "not inspiring" category -- by someone who says he's all about inspiration -- seems completely myopic. If he wants inspiration and change in the status quo, he should see NASA and the whole space exploration effort as the perfect opportunity for re-invigoration, not cancellation.

And pitting it against pre-K education programs?? Of course it's going to lose -- another victim of a standard Washington budgeting ploy, by someone who says he wants to change the system. If he compared the budget of the space program with other long-term exploration science goals (things like particle colliders, deep sea exploration, etc.), and then justified his position based on a clear ranking of each of these goals and the overall budget plan for exploration science in general, I would at least respect his decision. Instead, by weaseling out he looks like he's trying to sweep it under the rug like any other politician. And that's just sad.

3 comments:

shawndgoldman said...

Wow. That is uncharacteristically bad logic from Obama. One could just as easily justify the opposite move - taking money away from education and putting it into space exploration - because the "No Child Left Behind Act" isn't doing a good job of educating today's youth.

The "upside" here is that:
a.) This does seem to be election-year posturing. Most of the evidence on Obama's anti-exploration policy comes from stump speeches.
b.) Obama is a politician that seems to respond to grass-roots pressure well. If we have a reasoned argument to make, and make it as concerned citizens, I like our chances changing his mind more than I do the other candidates.

shawndgoldman said...

Um, that last comment was from me... Apparently, my google account nickname was set to a google group I joined (and unsubscribed from) years ago. Weird.

Crytal Dragon said...

Hãy đến với Lâm phong china, chúng tôi chuyên cung cấp dịch vụ vận chuyển hàng trung quốc về việt nam. Đến với chúng tôi thì đảm bảo yêu cầu dịch vụ mua hộ hàng trung quốc hay order hàng taobao giá rẻ của bạn sẽ được chúng tôi đáp ứng đầy đủ và hoàn hảo tuyệt đối. Bởi vì chúng tôi là công ty chuyên cung cấp dịch vụ vận chuyển hàng Trung Quốc hàng đầu tại Việt Nam hiện nay. Khi bạn sử dụng dịch vụ của chúng tôi bạn sẽ được tận hưởng sự phục vụ tuyệt vời theo quy trình mà chúng tôi đã đưa ra. Nếu bạn là người cần dịch vụ đặt hàng taobao giá rẻ, hay nhận mua hàng trên aliexpress hãy sử dụng dịch vụ order hàng Trung Quốc, Nhập hàng Quảng Châu giá rẻ... Đảm bảo chúng tôi sẽ giúp bạn mua được hàng với giá rẻ hơn nếu bạn tự đi mua. Còn chờ gì nữa mà không liên hệ với chúng tôi nếu như bạn có nhu cầu đặt hàng trung quốc giá rẻ, hay cần giải đáp thắc mắc.

Có thể bạn quan tâm đến: Gmail là gì