From: Dr. Norman J. LaFave <lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Democrat == Loony Left??? (was Re: Christiani
X-Xxdate: Thu, 17 Dec 92 15:35:15 GMT
Organization: Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Company
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:38:53 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.172656.27110@technology.com> Judy McMillin,
judy@technology.com writes:
> 	Can any of you think of any moral or philosophical justification
>	for using huge amounts of taxpayer money to fund the "space
>	program" at all?  Not counting, of course, it provides high-
>	pay, high-tech jobs for a bunch of us.

I think I can Judy:

The act of exploration has historically been important to the health
of many societies. Small countries like Portugal achieved power and
wealth beyond their imagination because they were willing to take
risks and venture into the unknown. Early explorers had only
a small idea of the influence they would have on their countries
futures. Societies that are too timid and closed are doomed to die.
Space and the ocean floor are the last two frontiers left for us
to explore. The benefits to the societies which accept these
challenges will be bigger than anything we can imagine.
If this nation could achieve regular and cheap access to space,
we could capture the lucrative commercial launch business, mine
the moon and the asteroids for new resources, reduce the pollution
of our planet by doing some manufacturing on the moon or in space,
manufacture materials of the purest quality in microgravity,
provide a potential place for our growing population to grow into,
learn about the dynamics of the planet we live on, expand our
knowledge base, achieve break-through spin-off technologies, and
accrue many unforeseen benefits as well.

Secondly, this country is losing many of its major industries to
other countries. Aerospace is one of the few left where we are
still the leader. To give away this advantage would be foolish.
We should broaden our advantage so that we can protect this
industry from the fate of so many others.


Societies that do not invest in
state-of-the-art science and technology will be unable to compete.
Science, although it is hard for nontechnical people to understand,
is the foundation on which all technology develops. A stagnant
science community leads to stagnant technology development. It is
most difficult to foresee which sciences will provide the data, theory,
or new principle which will lead to the next great technological
breakthrough. Recently, the seemingly esoteric field of Lattice
Gauge Theories has provided us with a whole new set of computational
tools which will greatly improve our abilities to do compuational
fluid dynamics calculations. Astronomy has developed new, sensitive,
optical sensors for their work which may be used in hundreds of other
applications. Therefore, it is most important that we aggressively
support a wide variety of scientific endeavours, regardless of whether
they "appear" to lead to a "product". Corporations are loathe to fund
such research because they cannot justify it to investors on their
quarterly reports. Most investors are only concerned about their
dividends and the short-term health of their company. Therefore,
they will only support short-term, relatively-straightforward
technology development. It is up to the government, to provide
the foresight the corporations cannot produce and to fill in the
gap. Space exploration is one of these endeavours at present
which is deemed to risky and expensive for corporations to
fund themselves. However, the potential from this endeavour
is so great that we would be foolish to not proceed with it.

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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