Im with you, Bill. We can feed the poor and spiral down into nothingness
or we can continue to grow and explore.
And there WERE a lot of tech offshoots of the moon shots. There have been
tons of discoveries in zero g in various experiments, the latest of which
may be this new way to make custom glass.
This is back to, you can give a man a fish and feed him once or teach him
to fish. The tech is what is going to keep us going. We have already
exceeded the population that this planet can sustain.
---------
Phil Chambers [ptchamb@No-Spam] (S.F. Bay Area - Calif. USA)
On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Bill Arnett wrote:
>
> On Nov 8, 2003, at 6:47 PM, Jason Newquist wrote:
>
> > ...right now, if the curtain
> > closed, and our civilization became ancient history, I think our
> > epitaph would *definitely* be that we put men on the moon.
>
> No, I don't think so. Because we didn't follow thru. Apollo was just
> a side show in the Cold War. If it had really been the beginning of
> mankind's move out into space then yes it would have been a big deal.
> But it wasn't.
>
> When I was a kid I used to look up at the Moon and dream that someday
> we might get there. And after Apollo 11 it never quite looked the
> same. It wasn't just a light in the sky or something out of a science
> fiction novel; it was a real place, a new world, the site of one of our
> greatest achievements. But in the years since my view has darkened.
> Now the Moon is once again unreachable and represents the failure of
> our political system and our will as a nation. We used to be the
> country that did great things. Now we're the country that most of the
> rest of the world wishes would just go away.
>
> > So, yes. Mars is next, and damn the torpedos. Let's go.
>
> And let's to it right this time. Not just a stunt but a real beginning.
>
> --
> Bill Arnett
> bill@No-Spam http://nineplanets.org/
> Emerald Hills CA USA 37 27 N 122 15 W
>
>