At what cost?

[thistlechaser]

This has been bothering me ever since little Georgie announced our grandiose plans to make a super high-tech nifty Moon Base to venture further into space from: How can he, or anyone who has thought this through, support this idea? Sure having base on the moon would be cool, and oh boy! Another thing we do first! And as a Star Trek fan, how could I not dream about being on some Enterprise-like ship flying way far away? But putting down the crack pipe, how about the money behind this dream?

There are kids, American kids, go to bed hungry every night. People in America starve to death. They die of lack of medical care. Our very same government is cutting funding to nursing homes (so many of which are already lacking in staff and funding). Women and children are beaten, and there aren't enough outreach programs to save them all. Sexual predators can sign up on the offenders list or not as they choose -- there is no one to force them to do it! They'll only get in trouble for not signing up if they're caught doing something else.

I'm not disagreeing that a base on the moon would be an oh-so-cool idea, but how in the world can anyone put it before correcting the on-going suffering and loss of life? The lack of a minimal standard of living for everyone?

Until every single American is living above poverty level, until random wandering homeless mental patients are off the streets and in some sort of organized, supervised place, we should be focusing our attention and money towards fixing our current problems, not allowing Mr. Georgie President to distract us with the idea of a shiny new toy that we might be able to one day get.

Bah.

Comments

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Thanks- I was afraid I was the only one with these feelings. And I'm not even looking at it from ground level (i.e. from the standpoint of all the hungry people in the US)- I'm looking at it like, "Yeah, that's really cool. Too bad my kids aren't going to be able to study the shiny new Mars stuff in school because our district is so impoverished that they're going to lay off our science teachers next year.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I've been sitting on posting this for a few days now, because I knew some people on my flist will fully and outright (and loudly) disagree with this, and I'm not too comfortable with having to defend myself... but the more I thought about it, the more I felt I had to post (even if it really won't make much difference to anyone but me).

"Yeah, that's really cool. Too bad my kids aren't going to be able to study the shiny new Mars stuff in school because our district is so impoverished that they're going to lay off our science teachers next year.

I really, really just can't comprehend people getting behind the Mars/Moon stuff at all. Are they so easily fooled into forgetting that we need more social workers? Teachers? Doctors for poor people? Help for the eldery?

It depresses me even more about us as a country.

[metron-ariston.livejournal.com]

On the one hand I agree with you. On the other the space nerd in me doesn't care. I think I'm too much of a selective misanthrope sometimes. I also think we'll probably figure out cold fusion before creating a fair balance between "No child left behind" and "Why am I paying for someone else's mistake?"

But this post did remind me that last night I dreamt I fell in love with a homeless man who lived on the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. Which is kind of the main intersection of gay in all of Houston. But he was straight, had weird burn marks on his back that were the remnants of angelic wings, and he let me be on his homeless people television show even though I wasn't. Homeless that is. This was probably precipitated by a story I heard on the Jim Rome Show about a homeless man who'd lived on a golf course for forty years, made a living by selling scavenged golf balls, and had even gotten married. He'd just recently gotten kicked off by management because they're trying to yuppify the place. (They offered him a maintenance job but he refused, saying he wanted to remain self-employed. He now lives under a nearby bridge with his wife. I should have probably just made this a separate entry.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I agree with both parts of that: That I'd like to go to space and that I'd rather not pay for someone else's mistakes/choice to have 894825093285432758175 babies... But the thing is, the kids didn't ask to be born, and how can we make a choice which will allow people to suffer? (Plus there's all the mentally ill people and the abused folks and all that.) Not even just a choice, but a selfish one. (Yes, yes, there's a tiny chance that we might find some cure for cancer on Mars, but if we spend that money on programs to help people, we know for certain it will help.) -- This is just my opinion though, and I know others will disagree or only partially agree.

Wow, that sounds like a really interesting dream!

[metron-ariston.livejournal.com]

Whee, late replying!

Of course I would like to see the sprogs and crazy folk taken care of. The thing is, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I have far greater faith in the government's ability to give scientists money to build neato spaceships than in their ability to design anything approaching universal healthcare.

Just because we have one huge social problem doesn't mean other things can't be or shouldn't be funded until it's fixed.

Been having lots of interesting dreams lately.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I have far greater faith in the government's ability to give scientists money to build neato spaceships than in their ability to design anything approaching universal healthcare.

Agreed, which is a sad thing.

Just because we have one huge social problem doesn't mean other things can't be or shouldn't be funded until it's fixed.

Within reason, I'd agree -- but only within reason. Spending billions of dollars on a wild attempt to set up a Moon Base doesn't count as "within reason" to me. :)

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

I could get behind something like this if it were anything other than a desperate attempt at distraction. If it were, you know, an honest attempt to reclaim the lost momentum of our space program. An utterly astonishing number of our current technological advances, many of them things we completely take for granted, we have because of the space program. There was, in fact, almost limitless potential to solve, or at least combat problems of energy, flagging resources, and various other environmental issues, not to mention social ills...And these aren't just starry-eyed pipe dreams, these were perfectly legitmate and scientifically verified possibilities. But we dropped the ball. The greed of massive corporations and the apathy and self-serving nature of the public all but killed the space program. And no matter how much our esteemed president digs up its mouldering bones and waves it around in a bid to up his approval rating, it doesn't change the fact that he and his ilk were some of the very ones to do it in.

Personally, I think that it shows remarkably poor taste to exploit the hope you helped kill in such a blatant fashion.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Agreed. And I do know that good has come from the space program in the past, but nothing good is Bush's current aim with this. Honestly, even if he had no ulterior motives, I'd still be against it. It's important to make technological advances, but IMO it's more important that everyone is brought up to some minimum standard of living first, then we can move towards other advancements together.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

I simply can't agree with that. I'm opposed to the massive financial discrepancy between the classes, yes, but if we wait for everyone to catch up before moving forward, it'll simply never happen. And 'we can't move forward until we're all on equal footing', noble an ideal as it may be in your case, is often nothing more than an excuse to maintain the status quo. Sometimes, progress is necessary to help people, whether they want to be helped or not.

For the record, I'm all about a barter system, but hey.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I wasn't trying to say that everyone has to become equal or that everyone needs to become middle class before we start moving forward, just that people stop starving to death and suffering from things we're giving/lending money to other countries to fix.

For the record, I'm all about a barter system, but hey.

Many years back, there was a system around to make that happen. Different companies joined that system, and so could barder with other companies within it. Joe Auto Fix-It Guy could go to fellow member Jane Dentist and trade a transmission fix for a toothy fix. I don't know what ever came of that, though since I've not heard anything in years it probably ended.

Not really related to my initial post, I'd like to see the end of paper/coin money. I'd love for it all to be on some type of credit card (not Mastercard/Visa, generic cards that hold your balance and such). It'd be nice if bartering could be worked into that system.

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

What pisses me off is:

Bush is going to spend $1.5 billion this year on a marriage protection campaign, but Bush only wants to give NASA an additional $1 billion for this moon base project.

Bush is spending $20 billion to reconstruct Iraq this year, but NASA's annual budget is only $11 billion. He wants NASA to cut as many of its programs as possible to devote to the moon base.

The moon base is not possible with the current level of NASA funding. So, basically, it is going to be a waste of money that could have been spend on protecting the environment or social programs or preventing us from having the biggest deficit in American history.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I was thinking about this earlier this morning. ... Wow, work sucks today. I've been interrupted three times in that one sentence, so we'll just leave this with a big: Agreed.