Of course people do resent the consequences of deficits: Unemployment, inflation, loss of home equity. But these consequences are long-term, and they can also be masked by an otherwise strong economy. I don’t think that we have reached the breaking point yet. As the Japanese example shows, the breaking point (that returns you to government fiscal restraint) comes much later when you have one-party control.

But, to return to space policy, when the breaking point does come, NASA might well be cut by half, or even by 75%, just as “Operation Offset” suggests.

Possibly any method to reduce the deficit right now would lead to too much loss of face for the Republicans. They would have to undo their own work either on the tax side or the spending side. So probably they will make a lot of noise about cutting spending, and maybe go through with a token cut here or there, then in the end they will accept a larger deficit.

I am surrounded by preternaturally clever Chinese people, who are keeping that art inscrutable to me.

<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink”>hyperlink</a>

Please don’t do it again – I promise to follow standard hyperlinks, but know that I tend to skip over your longer posts or those with little content of your own, and I suspect everyone else does too.

Here are the sources for my previous assertions:
The great brew-haha,
History of Silk

“References in the Old Testament indicate that silk was known in biblical times in western Asia, from which it was presumably transplanted to the Greek Islands of the Aegean Sea. One of the first evidence of silk trade is that of an Egyptian mummy of 1070 BC. In the following centuries the silk trade reached as far as Europe, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and North Africa with the help of traders. This trade became so extensive that a major set of trade routes between Europe and Asia was established during the days of the Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC.

The Emperors of China tried to keep the knowledge of sericulture secret from other nations, in order to maintain the Chinese monopoly on its production. This effort at secrecy had mixed success. Sericulture reached Korea around 200 BC with Chinese settlers; by 300 A.D. the practice had been established in India. Although the Roman Empire knew of and traded in silk, the secret was only to reach Europe around A.D. 550, via the Empire of Byzantium.

…

The first direct contact between Rome and China only happend in the second century after the Rome Empire defeated Parthia and controlled the Persian Gulf. In AD 166 the first Roman envoy was sent by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, from the Persian Gulf and successfully arrived China.

Within a couple of decades Chinese silks became a common sight and was widely worn by the rich and noble families of Rome. The Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (AD 218 – 222) for example wore nothing but silk. In the year 380 AD, Marcellinus Ammianus reported, “The use of silk which was once confined to the nobility has now spread to all classes without distinction, even to the lowest.” The demand of silk continued to increase steadily over the centuries. The price of silk was extremely hight in ancient Rome. The best Chinese bark which is a particular kind of silk, costed as much as 300 denarii, that was a Roman soldier’s salary for an entire year!

In 408 AD when Alaric, a Goth, besieged Rome, his price for sparing the city included 5000 pounds of gold, 3000 pounds of pepper, 30,000 pounds of silver and 4000 tunics of silk. In 552 A.D., the Emperor Justinian sent two monks on a mission to Asia, and they came back to Byzantium with silkworm eggs hidden inside their bamboo walking sticks, this is the earliest known example of industrial espionage. From then on, sericulture spread throughout Asia Minor and Greece.”

http://www.unrv.com/economy/silk.php

From the very first item one finds by Googling “tea cultivation british india”:

The Origins of Indian Tea

Ironically, the native plants flourished, while the Chinese seedlings struggled to survive in the intense Assam heat and it was eventually decided to make subsequent plantings with seedlings from the native tea bush. The first twelve chests of manufactured tea to be made from indigenous Assam leaf were shipped to London in 1838 and were sold at the London auctions. The East India Company wrote to Assam to say that the teas had been well received by some “houses of character”, and there was a similar response to the next shipment, some buyers declaring it “excellent”. …

http://www.teamuse.com/article_000803.html

Kevin, the recruitment of “two tea makers from China” — are those the enormous lengths to which you refer?

Fact: Private space industry for the forseeable future will not be much more than a delivery vehicle for low earth orbit, satelites and maybe iss crew swaps. nothing more…

fact: This country needs to quickly move to alternative forms of energy, yes that includes nuclear.
Not building nuclear plants, getting out of fusion reseach and not buiding the super collider where huge mistakes .

fact: ww II alcelerated scientific growth, iraq and other conflicts will not.

opinion: Balancing the budget will not do much good if you dont do something about the underling causes, dependence on foriegn oil and the growing trade gap.

fact: i’m tired of this argument, I am a member of several space advocacy groups, right now I think we will wait and see what congress does, having to replace the shuttle, and the cynical situation of having to depend on russia or china for access to the iss will probably protect most of the funding.

NASA currently intends to use the savings from phasing out the space shuttle in 2016 to fund this program, which will feature an enlarged Soyuz capsule built under license from the Russian Space Authority to transport six astronauts to the Moon atop a four stage, all Solid Socket Booster launch missile.