From: Dr. Norman J. LaFave <lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Democrat == Loony Left??? (was Re: Christiani
X-Xxdate: Thu, 31 Dec 92 17:16:28 GMT
Organization: Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Company
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 23:20:12 GMT

In article <C057zn.Dnt@unix.portal.com> mike myke schwartz,
mykes@shell.portal.com writes:
>Dr. Norman J. LaFave (lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov) wrote:
>: In article <C03nLM.Fup@unix.portal.com> mike myke schwartz,
>: mykes@shell.portal.com writes:
>: >This is an utterly emotional argument that disregards the most
obvious.
>: >Space is not any kind of frontier.  It has been explored
>: 
>: It has? I'm glad to know that I can stop working because
>: absolutely everything about space is known already....   :-/
>: 
>
>Comparing space to the New World is utter nonsense.  There was already
>life in the new world as soon as we "discovered" that it was here.  Trees
>and people and animals and water and oxygen.  The technology required
>to get there did not need to be invented.

Besides being immaterial to the question of whether it is
worth the cost to explore space, what does this have to do with anything.
So our nearest neighbors in space are not occupied, so we will have
to work to make them habitable, so our launch technology is not
yet adequate..... Using logic like this, we would never have accomplished
anything. You sir do not have a crystal ball and have no more data than
anyone else. This means that you cannot possibly know what we will
achieve or discover because we haven't even performed detailed surveys
yet. The only thing I do know is that we will achieve NOTHING if we
risk NOTHING.

>
>: >and what we know
>: >is that it is not inhabited by life,
>: 
>: Untrue. Space is big and we have no proof either way as yet.
>
>Even if there is life 300 million light years away, it is of ZERO
significance.
>All of space is big, but the fraction of it that can be explored from
space
>is puny and costly.  Ever hear of Bang for your Buck?  We get NO bang
from
>sending humans at many bucks.

Again you are applying an assumption that technology will
stagnate.

>
>: 
>: >uninhabitable by humans without adding
>: >extraordinary cost to the proposition,
>: 
>: The operative words here are "at present".
>
>The operative words are "at present, it is too costly and of little
>value."

In your opinion, but not in the opinion
of anybody who actually has studied the subject.

>
>: 
>: >and incredibly finite due to our
>: >technical inability to go very far.
>: 
>: See operative words above....
>: 
>
>See operative words above... wonderful.

You just don't get it do you. All through history short-sighted,
tight-fisted individuals like yourself have contended that all
kinds of things we presently take for granted couldn't be done...
would never be practical...was not worth the effort. Do you
really want to be the latest of these foolish individuals with
no vision?

>
>: >Exploration of space requires a huge
>: >amount of costly technology,
>: 
>: Same operative words.... I'm beginning to see a pattern here....
>
>Yeah, you have nothing to say, other than "at present" I am right.

Why don't you apply the words to your statements and thinking about
the full ramifications before resorting to shallow interpretations.

>
>: 
>: >while exploration of the new world was possible
>: >using existing technology - sailing ships, canoes, backpacks, sleeping
>: bags,
>: >and rifles.
>: 
>: Here's a clue Mike: Rockets ARE existing technology. Here's another
>: clue: Arguements like yours are inherently flawed because they assume
>: no advances in technology. Do you really think that the shuttle is the
>: be all/end all of all space transportation systems? There are
>: development programs as we speak to make access to space routine
>: and two orders of magnitude cheaper. If it were 100 years earlier, you
>: would probably be spewing similar flawed arguements pertaining to
>: pracical human flight.
>: 
>
>I assume many many advances in technology.  Just done on earth, and done
>cheaply.

Oh you must be one of those timid, visionless individuals who have
reduced our once great technological lead to near zero by refusing
to fund anything but incremental development on existing technology
because it is cheaper.

>You keep using this "2 orders of magnitude cheaper" bullshit
>argument.

Oh I see, by calling the arguement "bull****", you instantly negate
it without any of those bothersome facts getting in the way...   :-/

>Well, sending 100x less humans into space on top of your two
>orders of magnitude is even better.

Go ahead, hoard your money, refuse to see the importance of
pushing the envelope, taking risks, then explain to your children why
their
quality of life is so much less than yours was and why America is
no longer competitive.

>And your emotional and sentimental
>argument about what your closed little mind concludes about what I would
>or wouldn't do 100 years ago is absurd.

Read statements from some of the newspapers at the time. You sound just
like them only your target is different. By the way, since it is a fact
that
these people existed, that they made such statements, and were
summarily proven wrong, I fail to see how you can claim it to be
a purely emotional or sentimental arguement.

>
>: >
>: >That said, I repeat that unmanned space exploration makes a lot of
sense,
>: >is much cheaper, gets a lot more bang to the buck, allows us to look
at
>: >weather patterns, gather intelligence data, look out into space from
>: beyond
>: >the atmosphere, build maps of entire planets, and so on.
>: 
>: And robots still can't accomplish a small fraction of the tasks of a
human
>: being. Robot spacecraft are not as flexible, do not adapt well, have
>: trouble
>: fixing themselves (Galileo, HST), .... Robots have to come a hell of
alot
>: farther
>: technologically before they can match a human being. Admittedly, they
>: have provided us with a spectacular amount of data, but according to
many
>: scientists I have talked to, this data is a teaser and they would have
>: loved
>: to have supplemented it on the fly when a significant
>: phenomenon was observed but were unable to do so
>: because the programming is difficult to alter.
>:  
>
>Figuring out how to program something "on the fly," as you put it, is a
>PERFECT example of the work we can do on Earth at a fraction of the 100x
>cheaper cost that you cling to.  And no matter what the cost of Galileo,
>HST, or whatever failures you want to bring up, all you are arguing is
that
>even non-manned space flight may be too costly.

Do you really think that learning to program on the fly will
be a major breakthrough? We can do that now using programs
like Labview and Excel...

>
>And no matter what your scientific friends say, it is simple propaganda.
>With unmanned space flight, we proved your friends wrong about the
planetary
>conditions on Venus, found water on moons, found the first active
volcanoes
>(not on earth) in the solar system, got to see almost every planet and
moon
>in the solar system up close...

And we will learn even more when we send our most adaptable, flexible
robots to study the same effects----humans. They can even be programmed
on the fly.... Do you really believe these missions closed the books or
even
scratched the surface? I can tell you from talking to the people who
run these programs that they did not.

>
>: >
>: >I also repeat that Star Trek is a fantasy.  We have no ability to
travel 
>: >at 9x the speed of light, and all scientific evidence is that it is
>: simply
>: >impossible.
>: 
>: I am a Relativist and I don't make statements
>: like this because it is foolish to do so.
>: 
>
>I'll wait until Einstein is proven wrong.

This shows how little you understand science or GR. Einstein doesn't have
to be wrong. Already there are solutions in GR which allow connections
between causally disconected region of spacetime and we haven't even
scratched the surface of the possible solutions yet.

>Or are you going to suggest that
>science isn't as suitable a replacement for God as a fundamentalist would
>claim?  I'm no fundamentalist, but I am a realist.  Prove it first, then
>we spend the money.
>
>: >
>: >: Also, there will be poor always.  I see no reason why we must
>: subordinate our
>: >: need to achieve human excellence or our scientific curiousity to the
>: plight
>: >: of the poor.  First of all, utopianism is unrealistic (curing
poverty)
>: and,
>: >: secondly, we have a right (and a duty to our children) to make our
>: society
>: >: succede.
>: >: 
>: >
>: >This is incredibly pessimistic.  Poor is a relative term, and the
>: quality of
>: >life for the "poor" is clearly something we can and have been
>: continuously
>: >are improving...
>: 
>: Have you seen Somalia or Bangla Desh lately? Improving....  :-/
>: 
>: We will have much better luck achieving  a healthy, growing,
>: dynamic society and eliminating poverty if we stop being
>: a bunch of panty-waists, hording
>: our precious pennies while our world collapses around us. To
>: achieve this, we need to push the scientific and
>: technical envelope....to challenge ourselves....to make sacrifices in
>: order
>: to meet ambitious goals. Space exploration and exploitation is the most
>: promising frontier to direct our efforts in this regard. This society
>: became great because the dreamers ignored the naysayers like
>: yourself and pushed on. You may be happy making incremental
>: improvements to existing technology, playing leap frog with
>: our foreign competitors, watching sitcoms while we decline as
>: a nation, but I am not.
>: 
>
>
>I've seen somalia, and it is improving.  To quote Bush (paraphrased)
>"we must look outward, not inward."  He was talking about improving the
>world, not looking into space.

The great George Bush, he and Ronny did more to destroy cutting-edge
research in this country than anybody by diverting funds to their
ridiculous "war against communism".

> What do you think the "New World Order"
>means?

Absolutely nothing. It means large nations with internal problems
have become lots of little nations beating the hell out of eachother.

>To me, it means treating the Somalians and (whatever you call
>a person from Bangla Desh) as if we were all part of the same World
>community instead of hording our pennies as you put it.

There is more than enough money to do space exploration at healthy levels
and help our neighbors and improve our societal problems. What is
lacking is will.

>To let a poor
>person from one of those two countries (or many others) live as well
>as our drug infested, tv watching, car driving, air conditioned, nintendo
>playing "poor" is something we can indeed do - and likely long before
>we might break the speed of light barrier (if possible).

You have much more faith in the inherent goodness of the world than I
do. Humans has an uncanny nack of kicking others when they are down and
justifying it using the flimsy of arguements. Still I too would like to
see this
happen only funded with defense cuts, not the measely R&D budget.

>In this sense,
>the world should indeed be hording its pennies and making it possible to
>deliver food, medecine, information, technology, goods, and even your
>fantasy driven ideas anywhere in the world is where I'd put the money
>NOW.

Again, this country produces a bumper crop of food which rots in silos
every year. We don't have to hoard pennies to do this task. The means
are there already. We spend aound 1% of our tax dollar on the whole
space program. How far do you think this measly % would go in your
scheme?

>
>You accuse me of being happy with incremental improvements to existing
>technology, while you are much moreso guilty of exactly that.  100x the
>speed of point to point communications from any spot on the earth to
>any other is a much bigger gain for humanity than a 100x cheaper space
>access medium.

You must be kidding me. Not only will this happen without government
intervention, it won't even be that difficult or challenging. It is an
incremental improvement to a technology which has been growing on its
own for two decades. What do you think the ethernet is?

>And YOU are the one who says we should look at space
>investment as a % of GNP (or whatever).  Consider that cutting the %
>by 100 and increasing GNP by 1000 makes your fantasy research budget
>increase by 10x.  That's MY vision.

You really think that effortless, spineless, riskless goals like your
communication network will achieve this? How may I ask will it
regain our technological lead over our foreign competitors?

>
>: "You will pay for your lack of vision"
>
>We're paying dearly for your presence of "vision"

You better look again because in real terms we are not spending
squat on any kind of long-term R&D. We better start or there
will be hell to pay in the future. If you want money for your
"New World Order" program there are plenty of wasteful programs
with larger budgets to go after. You won't feed the world with
the after-dinner mints.

Norman

Dr. Norman J. LaFave
Senior Engineer
Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Company




When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
                               Hunter Thompson
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