Hi Ric, Don't get me wrong. Never was there a bigger enthusiast for space exploration than is typing this email right now! I remember very vividly watching Neal Armstrong set foot on the moon in June of '69, when I was 8 yr old. Wow! I thought just a bit bigger during the Apollo missions, and I think that's partly to blame for my having been suckered into becoming a scientist! ;-) BUT.... There is absolutely no reason to return there!! Returning to the moon is already sucking every penny out of NASA's budget. Bush nailed them with an approx. $100B directive and only gave them $1B to do it, meaning that they're instantly approx. $99B in the hole, just to play a few rounds of golf and hop about like a kangaroo. Yes, more funding will probably be appropriated, but I bet it won't be nearly enough. NASA is already doing some *serious* belt tightening. For instance, refueling missions to the Hubble telescope have been scrubbed, and the Earth's most powerful observatory will soon burn up on reentry. How stupid is that?! Now, sending men and women to Mars??? I'm 500% on board with that one! I would be very surprised if Mars didn't once support life, and in fact I think there's a slim chance it may still have microbial life. (Remember, the Viking's assays for organic materials were ambiguous, but not negative.) I fully expect we will find fossil records on Mars some day -- perhaps nothing very advanced, but perhaps every bit as impressive and diverse as what we have here on Earth. We may even find genetic material and learn some very important things about the essential biochemical underpinnings of life . I suspect our setting foot on Martian soil will mark the onset of an era of biological and evolutionary discovery such as we have not known. What a brilliant age to be a scientist! Just imagine! In all this, I wonder what the *real* reason is that we are returning to the moon. It's surely not to stage a mission to Mars. It would be nonsense to launch equipment, materials and fuel from the Earth, land them on the moon (difficult/risky, without an atmosphere), at a cost of 1000 lb of fuel for every lb of payload, reassemble them in a rather hostile environment, with gravity (requiring lots of really big machinery -- even at 1/6g), and then blast them off again, en route to Mars. Instead, why not do it all in microgravity, in orbit around the Earth, as originally planned? Makes a whole lot more sense. Less fuel, better support, greater ease of assembly, less wear and tear on the equipment, easier to exchange out personnel. Duh! But alas, there must be military importance to the moon. That's what drives the folks in the Whitehouse. Right? <yawn> Time for bed.... 'Nite... Peace, Sarah Sorry for the political rant, folks, but this little moon folly has me kinda steamed -- and my personal, per-citizen share of the bill will be something like $300 or $400, which makes it hurt all the more. I'm also steamed that we didn't stick by our original plans to land on Mars by '95. But hey, the iron curtain fell, and so why bother? Right? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 2:05 AM Subject: Re: OT: Kevorkian who? > Hi Sarah > > While politics is strictly forbidden on this list, (at least since about > 3 and a half years ago when the cigar theme disapeared) I have to agree > with the basic sentiment and take issue with the moon bit. Yes... the > cigarless have mangage to take a balanced budget and turned it into the > most phenomenal deficit thinkable... hard time figureing republicans > sometime... what was that robot for a governor in California said.... > Dont spend money you dont have ??... oh well... BUT... we havent spent a > dime on the moon for a long time. Heck the last pizza joint closed down > up there 25 years ago. No... we have other "moon - like activities" they > are spending money on. > > Just think of the piano research we could do if we got 1 promile of 1 > percent of THAT money !! > > grin... > > Now... Back to non Kvakorkial thematic type materials... at least for my > part :) > > Cheers > RicB > > Sarah Fox wrote: > > >Hi Horace, > > > > > > > >>Actually, it's: > >> > >>Kevorkian > >> > >> > > > >Noted! :-) > > > >It's funny the importance of a name. If his name were John Smith, nobody > >would remember him or his cause. But "Kevorkian" is a name people remember. > > > > > > > >>And, in addition to being structured around earning money and avoiding > >>lawsuits, it is doing a simply appalling job of dealing with two epidemics > >>which are engulfing the health care "system": AIDS and Addiction. > >> > >>Wait 'til folks figure out that AIDS has entered the general population. > >>Last year 49% of all persons newly-diagnosed with HIV/AIDS were > >>heterosexual. > >> > >> > > > >More alarming still: Around 1990, as I recall, when I was doing my graduate > >work at the University of Texas, the university health service randomly and > >anonymously tested blood samples from the student population. For instance, > >if some kid were having his blood drawn to measure liver enzymes, they would > >tap a bit of blood, anonymously code it, and test for HIV, along with a > >bizillion other anonymously coded samples. The result: About 20% of the > >student population (in 1990) was HIV+. Kinda makes ya' think! > > > >Now more than a decade later, we're bound and determined to throw lots of > >the taxpayers' spare money (not much of it left, in the wake of Cheney's > >Enron and the market collapse) towards fighting HIV in Africa (old news) -- > >but not here in the US, of course, where it might benefit a few of our own. > >Why? I guess it's because we'd be helping some gay folks here in the US, > >while the folks we are helping in Africa are straight (of course!) and > >therefore have more right to live HIV-free. But this is all hot air anyway, > >since what Bush really meant was that we would launch a campaign to tell > >those Africans to "just say no" to sex. I guess we won't be handing out any > >balloons. > > > >Optimistically, maybe there's a cure to HIV somewhere on the moon. :-) > >That giant rock must be useful for *something*. > > > >Even more alarming still: The Bush Administration now proposes that the > >Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will disqualify the lion's share of > >independent scientists in the academic sector (those receiving or having > >received federal research grant money) from reviewing the research grant > >proposals of their peers. What this means is that politicians and hired-gun > >corporate scientists will be deciding which research gets funding. That's a > >bit like having saxophonists and politicians decide which piano you are > >going to buy, based on their abundant knowledge of the instrument. Now, > >care to guess how much attention HIV will get? Mind you, Congress has > >already tried (and failed) to micromanage NIH's budget to exclude funding > >for specific research projects having to do with HIV. Perhaps this time > >they will be more successful. > > > >... and the United States of America, once the shining star of progress in > >the sciences -- and our financially and politically crippled community of > >keen minds, produced from what I *do* humbly regard as the best system of > >higher education in the world -- will look to other countries to lead the > >way towards further scientific progress. > > > >... while we impress the world by playing a few more rounds of golf on the > >moon and maybe opening a pro shop there... > > > ><sigh> > > > >Peace, > >Sarah, > >who's amazed at just how fast those Republicans can spend away our borrowed > >money > > > >_______________________________________________ > >pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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