[FPSPACE] Griffin fed up

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Dave - 

Yeah, funny how few manned Mars enthusiasts remember the Vietnem War and the end of Apollo.
>The fundamental problem is that we have two wars on, 

I'd say 3: Iraq, Afghanistinan, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which drives the other two, but everyone tries to ignore.

>a rapidly growing deficit, 

Financing a war with deficit spending, which is absorbed overseas. And we all know what happened the last time:
stagflation.

>a recessionary economy, 

You don't trash your manufacturing sector to break your unions.

You left out our oil dependence and dependence on fossil fuels.

>and very little support anywhere for big ventures of any kind. 

HOLD IT: Anywhere here in the US. Many other nations are doing fine. And a lot of this depends on scales, which depend on architectures.

>It has little to do with Mars missions 

Here in the US it has a whole lot to do with the Mars Cult, and their fixation with their fantasies. Its funny how the public supports working with other nations, while the Mars Cultists keep on trying to revive the go it alone path of their childhoods. It's also funny how the Mars Cultists keep on trying to imagine away the physics and engineering of launch vehicles. And so much more...

>or, indeed, anything else that space fans want or don't want. 

"Space fans" (Mars Cultists) can't drive our space program alone. You may have noticed internationally the drive for independent weather, communication, recon sat ability.

Someday soon planetary defense will be added to that list.

>We have to propose space objectives that take into account available resources and the political environment, always mindful of the fact that they might get nowhere.


Either we build the best planetary defense system we can, or mankind does not make it, or at least a large number of people needlessly die. I can't accept options 2 or 3.

IN any case, what is being worked on is not simply a return to the Moon, as our Mars Cultists try to frame it, but rather the development of the Moon.

David


Ed
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas



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