Political Support for Space

[DonPMitchell]

I had two recent random experiences with this kind of ignorance.  A man who came to inspect my furnace noticed all my space books, and he started talking about how the Apollo landings had been faked by NASA.

A few months later, a plumber was here to replace a leaking faucet in our kitchen.  Again, he saw the space books.  He started explaining how "Lasers, microelectronics and photonic networks were invented by studying the UFO that crashed at Roswell".

Good lord!  And you don't have to look far on the net to find all manner of ignorance: hollow planets, comets are made of antimatter, Venus popping out of Jupiter, and endless crap about UFO's and aliens and abduction.

Ultimately, I do blame schools for not giving people any kind of base in scientific thinking.

[Satanic Mechanic]

Don't worry, I have plenty of quotes and lists of problems with the education system.  My biggest gripe on the list is how schools are eliminating vocational or what they call now Technology classes from schools.  Scholastic clubs are a thing of the past too.
Six years ago I wrote a paper about the decline of these clubs, specifically Electric Vehicle clubs from schools due to insurance/liability issues.  
Here is a couple paragraphs of it and here is what some of the TLA's stand for:
E.V. = Electric Vehicle
EVTC = Electric Vehicle Technology Competitions - organization that is no longer around.
APS = Arizona Public Service- a Phoenix utility that was a main sponser of EVTC and one of the races was named after them.
E-Meter = popular device at the time to measure battery volts and current.
LNG/PNG = Liquified Natural Gas/ Presurized Natural Gas

Seven weeks ago I was looking at the EVTC web site for information on the Stock
Division and browsed through the High School Stock
Division.  I was surprised to see forty-six participant schools and I was doubly
surprised to see an entry from Rigby High School in Rigby Idaho.  I do not
remember ever seeing an Idaho high school team at APS's 1996-99 and I figured
they were had just formed in 1999.  I was wrong.  They had been formed in 1997.  
This is the sad story of the untimely end of an E.V.
Two weeks ago I looked up the number to Rigby High School, which is in the
eastern part of Idaho near Idaho Falls.  I called up the advisor, Mel Jensen,
and asked about his program.  He told me that his school converted a Volkswagen
Rabbit three years ago.  I was thinking to myself, I don't remember ever seeing
an Idaho high school team in 97', but of course our team was in the paddock area
most of the time working on our car.  Mel told me that his team had never
competed in any of the EVTC events because they did not have enough money for
transportation and lodging.  
The high school would not fund the team to go down and participate in the four-
day APS event.  I told Mel I knew about the costs because it took about $3000-
5000 to send our team (UofI) of twelve people and vehicles, to stay three days
in Phoenix.  Rigby High School did fund their football team to go down to
Australia and stay for one week only to play one game.  "Isn't that typical?" I
said.  A school would send their entire football team half way around the world
to play one game, but not give the gas money for an electric car team to go 1000
miles to Phoenix.  The team discontinued their ties to EVTC, salvaged the motor,
controller, and E-meter, and junked the Volkswagen in a nearby wrecking yard.
They took the motor and E-meter and converted an S-10 which was built for the
school district.  Now the Rigby team focuses on converting vehicles to run on
LNG/PNG.

[spacecat27]

Really!  (we're drifting off topic here, but it's worth discussing.)  I went to a unique 'high school'... it was an orphanage, actually- but through high school (which was grade 8-12 in their system) I had 1/3 year of carpentry, 1/3 year of print shop, 1/3 year of drafting, 1/3 year of typing, 1/3 year of electric shop and 1/3 year of machine shop.... then you picked a specialty (electric, for me) in which you spent the afternoons of your last two years.  It was that background that allowed me to walk into that NASA job so early in college, and assured that I've never had to call a tradesman to my house to do anything I could not do myself.  Now I hear through the alumni that my alma mater has eliminated all that.   

In the name of cost-cutting- many public schools have done away with even basic shop classes; and they're putting individuals out into the world who have never even held a screwdriver let alone used one.  It's pitiful. 

[Simkid]

There is some hope yet for shop classes, I go to a tech high school at the moment (they do still exist, and do have good academic programs), and although tech is underfunded, the courses are very good, and very popular.  At my school, everyone does a four subject rotation (1/4 of the year in each class) in the first year (grade 9), and all but a very few take at least two tech courses for the next three years.  Typically the rotation consists of electrical or wood working, auto mechanics or auto body, computer drafting or computer animation and hospitality (what used to be home ec, but now with a focus commerical kitchens).  The real problem at this school is that there is an extreme lack of qualified teachers, which one year resulted in six monthes of supply teachers in the auto mechanics classes, there is always a scramble at the start of the year to find enough teachers.

I'm not even going to try to summarize my thoughts on education here, since I could probably go on all night, but suffice it to say, I think the education system as it stands is creating huge problems, and abandoning large of numbers of people for no better reason than that only some courses (specifically university bound academic ones) are seen as worthwhile.  Addmitadly, this is as much a social problem as an educational one, but change has to start somewhere.

[SCEtoAUX]

I am also a product of a county tech HS, and went through a similar "exploratory" program freshman year. We took 8 different tech electives that year, with my choices being auto mechanics, electrical, carpentry, plumbing, HVAC, machine shop/welding, and printing/graphic arts, as well as electronics, my eventual major for the next 3 years. All the classes have come in handy at least a few times since then, and I only rarely need to take a car into a shop, or call a plumber to the house.

Unfortunately, shortly after I graduated (late '80s), the school was "re-made" into a "magnet school" for computer programming/technology, with the traditional trades being eliminated, or moved to smaller facilities off-campus. The emphasis became high-tech training for the college-bound students, with the former students dumped onto traditional high schools. 

American society seems to be struggling with the illusion that everyone wants or needs a college education, and that in an "information society", nobody needs to actually get their hands dirty anymore. Certainly no self-respecting yuppie parent/soccer mom wants to send their precious one to a "trade school", right? In a few more years, we will have a generation who has to call an electrician to change a lightbulb!

Even for those students who go on to study engineering at the university level, lack of previous exposure to "hands-on" skills is a serious problem. I currently work for a college, and am appalled by the number of EE students who wouldn't know which end of a soldering iron to pick up, or ME students who can't drill and tap a hole. By and large , the only ones who have such skills came out of the few remaining vo-tech schools, or are older students re-entering school after actually working in industry for a few years. Most of the rest of the student body seems to consider themselves "above" learning such mundane tasks, and it is usually amusing to watch them fall on their faces when the time comes for their senior year design/build projects....

[jdbenner]

Whatever came of apprenticeships?  I for one do not believe in one size fits all schooling run by lobbyist and bearcats.  I believe that individual parents or guardians, should both select and pay for their own children’s schooling.  Also it is unnatural for ones pears to be the same age.  Or to only learn to work at 17 when our ancestors were often married by then.

[Simkid]

Aprenticeships certainly still exist, but there is no support for students wishing to enter one.  Even at tech schools, where they are promoted, there is no school assistence with regards to finding or applying for one.  I agree with everything SCEtoAUX said, and would like to add that this is not just to the detriment of the students left behind in the mad dash for college applications, when students with no interest are dumped into university bound courses, it hurts all the students.

[Ottawan]

I remember well being schooled in "tech" classes from grade five to my high school graduation, but I am talking the 60's & 70's here. We still have a "trades" high school here in Ottawa but I still agree with the previous posters. I don't think Canada is any better or worse than the US when it comes to the educational systems. The sad thing is that the students don't realize what they are missing out on. It is the only educational sytem they know, and unfortunately, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Many people my age who have children attending high school & university are apalled at the lack of "learning" their children have.

And it doesn't surprise me. When I look at the lack of basic spelling and grammar skills exhibited by posters at a lot of the boards we frequent I am amazed. I know that comment has nothing to do with "trade" skills but the point is, when the trade skills were lost so were the english and for that matter, math skills.

I am no mathematician, but I learned "readin', ritin', and rithmatic" from the get go. I also learned how to use a screwdriver, how to type, how to use a lathe, how to run a printing press, how to change an oil filter, etc. etc. etc.

Sadly this is not the case today.

I guess it's just the "geezer" in me that laments the lack of "savvy" in the younger generation, but that too is probably a generational thing. We never understood where our parents came from so why should we expect to understand where our children are going?

To each their own I guess . . . . but I am proud to say that I think we had it best.

Sad to think though that our future leaders are coming from this "unedumacted" generation!

Heard GW was in Asia for the summit last week. Visited China, Japan, Korea & Singapore but skipped Viet Nam again


Edit for speeling, of course

[SCEtoAUX]

Sad to think though that our future leaders are coming from this "unedumacted" generation!

Which is just one more reason why a future lunar mission may never get off the launch pad.

Besides, between the selling off of US industrial infrastructure and a lack of qualified men and women to do the work, any future version of Apollo would probably be built in China, with mission control outsourced to a call center in Bangalore...

Hell, Japanese car companies are refusing to open new plants here in the US and going to Canada because the potential US workforce is functionally illiterate:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/8/195036/3146

[Ottawan]

Perhaps the US Gubmint (NASCAR spelling) should outsource NASA to us here in Canada. That way english speaking white males could find work!

The most recent hiring policy of the federal department of Public Works has ordained that until April of 2006 the Canadian Federal Government will only hire french speaking; visible minorities, natives, women, and the handicapped. Is this not "reverse" discrimination?

If my name was "Le Grande Orange" Mohamed Tonto Elizabeth Gimp I could be the fricken' Prime Minister

[DonPMitchell]

I'm not sure I would take dailykos as gospel, any more than redstate.org.

I think every generation has thought the next generation was inferior.  In fact, I think in every country there has been a small portion of the population that became engineers and scientists.  You can find bumpkins in America, but you can find people in Germany or France who are anti-semetic and superstitious too.

Having worked in industrial research, let me also say that America is still the origin of most fundamentally new innovation.  Certainly far more than Asia and more than Europe, despite its population and fine educational system.  There are just certain cultures that produce good rock music, good programmers, and good inventors.  These seem to be Britain and America, for reasons I can only speculate on.

If China becomes the leader in the space race, it would only be by copying someone else.  My policially incorrect observation has been that their scientists work hard but do not think out of the box, ever.  And in their extremely hierarchical society, it is not unusual for someone politically skilled but not technically competant to rise in organizations, and no one below him can question or subvert any bad decision me makes.

Having said all that, I still wish there was more emphasis on science and engineering in American education.  The lore has always been that America produces incompetant 18 year olds, and brilliant 30 year olds.  Our high schools suck, but people still come here form all over the world to attend our best universities and institutes of technology, or to work in our industrial research labs.

America is also, unlike Europe, a fairly classless culture.  You don't get shunted into a trade school at age 14 or 16 if you don't pass the right test or come from the right family.  Take for example John Carmack, the author of DOOM and Quake games.  His work was technically very original, and he has only a high-school education.  Our free-market culture allowed someone, with no credentials or hereditary-class advantage, to have a good idea and make it happen.  That is very difficult in other cultures.  For that matter, the very idea of the internet and personal computer come out of that culture.  So what we lack in uniform educational quality we make up for in opportunity.

[Ottawan]

Good points all Don . . . but!

How does this provide the infrastructure or even the fricken' desire to take us beyond LEO?

Education system aside, which is where this thread has "Tomcatted" to what is the "Political System" that will get us back to the moon.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that was Johno's original intention with his first post.

I'm one to talk with my diatribe re: hiring policies in the Canadian Federal Government . . .

The only system that can maintain a space program is one that is not subject to elections. Therefore, the only government that can maintain a space program is China.

Any "space initiative" of a Republican administration will be kiboshed once the Demorcrats get into power.

You can't go to Mars in 8 years.

I have said it here before and I will continue to say it . . . much to my chagrin NASA may be toast. A Government Agency is subject to the budget it is provided by whatever current "Administration" is in charge.

The NASA of the 60's & early 70"s can never exist again. The will of the people is just not there to sustain it.

The future lies now, and pretty much always has, with private industry. It is NASA's job to show them how to make a profit. And then provide "consultants"!

Profit all round.

God bless America

[DonPMitchell]

Agreed, private space ventures will be all important.  Any of the modern heavy lift vehicles could do at least an Apollo-8 style mission (Proton, Delta IV, etc).

Here's how I view the problem with Mars.  Terriforming Mars would produce a whole new world, a priceless treasure.  But it will require a huge investment and take centuries to complete.  We need an economic instrument that can pay investors _now_ for the Martian real estate in the future.  Basically we need Martian Bonds, and people have to really believe they will be worth something someday!

[Ottawan]

That's a good idea Don.

You did see, this week, that China shut down a website that was selling acreage on the moon.

The problem with all of this is that the public will not buy into something that is in the future. "The Public" being John and Jane Q Voter. If it does not put money into their pockets in the next "15 minutes of fame" it will not fly.

Back in the 60's, during the "Cold War and the "Space Race" the public got behind the space program because we had to beat those damn Russkies to the moon. Once it happened, the public turned to crap like "Gilligan's Island" and "I Dream of Jeannie".

That public "will" will never return again I am sad to say. The era of "Buck Rogers" has passed. The era of "What's in it for me?" is now, unfortunately, permanent. No one born after the ASTP mission (LO excepted ) has a clue about manned spaceflight and it's history. All they know about now are the deaths of fourteen astronauts aboard Challenger and Columbia.

Most of the hoax believers I have watched on various boards didn't even know there were landings AFTER Apollo 11. How fricken' dumb is THAT?

When private industry actually takes the lead in spaceflight and exploration THEN we will, excuse then plagiarism, boldly go where no one has gone before

[Johno]

Interestingly enough, many Christians who are of an intellectual bent (of which I am one) are concerned about this too.  Whether you agree with the factual basis of any religion or system of beliefs or not, it is important that you understand the basic logic needed to argue for and against.  To make an intelligent decision, it is necessary to sift through and weigh evidence.  I have found that this ability appears to be being lost. 

I love debating.  My favourite topic is the existence (or otherwise) of God, but Politics, Science, Literature or almost anything else are also fair game.  At university I found that all too often I won debates amongst my friends, not because my arguments were stronger or that theirs were weaker, but because I knew how to argue, and too many others didn't.

I am trying to teach my students logic, but ironically I don't get much time because we have to get through the Science syllabus.  It's so much more important for them to know the history of the great scientists . .