Comments on: Conservative opposition to Bush space plan

By: Anonymous Individual

Anonymous Individual — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 08:45:16 +0000

Are you kidding me? 16.2 billion dollars for what? One would think we might catch on after years and years, billions and billions of dollars, that we are not meant to live on another planet. Please give it up, not completely, but enough to feed the starving children and sick men and women of less fortunate countries. After these problems are solved then I will not object to the billions spent on another planet, or an attempt to reach another planet.

By: Anonymous Individual

Anonymous Individual — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 08:45:12 +0000

By: Stargazer

Stargazer — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:30:36 +0000

Who is this NASAWatch.INFO person? Have you seen his website? What a lunatic!

By: NASAWatch.INFO

NASAWatch.INFO — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:05:47 +0000

Admittedly, political currents may change quite a bit between now and November 2nd. Nevertheless, it’s worth viewing Bush’s rather anti-entrepreneurial favoring of Boeing & Lockheed (and especially USA) regarding space through the following electoral prism:

Newsweek poll: most want Bush to LOSE this November…

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040124/nysa010a_1.html

By: Russ Husted

Russ Husted — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 18:43:10 +0000

Space politics run in deeper waters than the stuff you see being spoken by Democrats (who oppose everything Bush) or in the media (who might hate everything Bush, or just need to get a story out to market). So they exaggerate the cost, who really cares? Dem. Pres. candidates will oppose Bush’s “go-there” proposal whether it costs a trillion, or a billion. Even a million will be too much, victimizing some kids somewhere. Notice how we always build a pc case on cost and on children? Doesn’t anyone care about old men?

If you want to understand the pro/con positions of real people (aka “the public”) you need to get deeper into the values and belief systems that create each person’s agendas. Presidential candidates can play the party and cost cards because most voters will accept them as the easy way out, too. First polls on the Bush space proposal showed a 48% to 48% split. That’s amazing. I don’t think the party affiliation (more a 50 to 30 split by registration), or the price (billion, trillion, way beyond my understanding) made that! Talk about education or health, and party and cost factors go out the window. No, the positions stem from deeper roots. Drop into the café if you want my ruminations about those.

Good blog, though. Glad I found you

By: Kirsten Tynan

Kirsten Tynan — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:59:39 +0000

I love this- “only an additional $1 billion”.

$1 billion dollars is almost never called ONLY $1 billion except when it is someone else’s money.

By: Bill Turner

Bill Turner — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:36:48 +0000

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4031857/
Bringing space costs back down to Earth
A trillion dollars? NASA initiative won’t cost near that much
By James Oberg
NBC News space analyst
Special to MSNBC
Updated: 1:39 a.m. ET Jan. 23, 2004

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=11605
“New Space Exploration Vision” Distributed to NASA Employees 16 Jan 2004
(Click on image to download 264 kb PDF file)

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:11:44 +0000

I’ve listened to two call in shows, originating on Wisconsin Public Radio, on the topic of ‘space’ in the past week. This was remarkable for two things;

The topic was done on two different shows in one week – I don’t think that’s done very often on WPR.

The WPR call-in shows attract an educated, liberal audience. I heard part of one, and all of the other; not one caller that I can recall spoke _against_ spending money on ‘space'; I expected to hear the usual “we can’t spend money _there_ while there are so many problems _here_” argument.

I heard callers discuss manned vs. robotic missions, but no strident voices against. Does this indicate that The People realize the importance of space?

By: Anaxagoras@sbcglobal.net

Anaxagoras@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:06:37 +0000

Mark,

You’re quite right when you point out that later opposition was spearheaded by many liberal members of Congress, but I was refering to the opposition to the initial funding proposals. JFK’s time, not LBJ’s.

If you think I’m ill-informed, please check the voting records.

By: Mark R. Whittington

Mark R. Whittington — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:01:21 +0000

Keith Cowing of NASA Watch is saying that the rumor of conservative discontent against the new space policy is a false one.

Also, the previous poster is somewhat misinformed about the politics of Apollo. While Goldwater was uncomfortable about Apollo, wanting more spending for military space projects, the main opposition, when one looks at attempts to cut funding, came from the far left, Senators Fulbright and Proxmire leading the effort. They were joined in the late sixties by Senators Mondale, Teddy Kennedy, and McGovern.