Political Support for Space

[Johno]

Oops, I missed an entire page of board.  Conversation has moved on.  Sorry!

[DonPMitchell]

There are a whole collection of scams about selling property on the Moon: The Lunar Embassy, The Lunar Republic, The Lunar Registry, The Lunar Federation.  I know law enforcement has come down on some of these guys for committing fraud.  I'm disgusted by that kind of abuse of people's interest in space.

Martian Bonds would have to be associated with a serious effort to terriform and colonize Mars, with big companies and real engineers.  I couldn't just be some nuts running a website.

[Satanic Mechanic]

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.

Yes, we are better at creating stuff.  The one thing I always hear comments from the engineers from India and China is our analytical thinking, especially our fast troubleshooting, it astounds them.

Just an observation,

SM

[jdbenner]

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 too have had similar experiences.  My church regularly has world religion classes.  Not that we believe that they are right but because we must understand them if we are ever to reach out to them.  Very few people have a consistent world view.  Let alone a good understanding of their surroundings.
 But we have been off topic for some time.  I believe that as long as the justification for space travel is exploration, public support for the program will be lacking.  How do you compete with Star Trek and Star Gate?

[Simkid]

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.

HEY! 

How do you compete with Star Trek and Star Gate?

That really is the question, and I think that the answer is a real public relations effort.  The two main areas of which need to be, what IS actually in it for most people (mostly going to have to be what the space program has actually produced), and why IS this exciting compared to Star Trek etc, this one could result in some very interesting things, how about NASA contribution to a realistic TV show about Mars colonization?

[DonPMitchell]

A good idea about making a show about Mars colonization.  You could do something great with Kim Stanley Robinson's series of books, "Red Mars", etc.

[Bob B.]

On the other hand, have you ever noticed how many of the "Moon Hoax" morons are from the right side of the aisle? It is the CONSERVATIVES (particularly the "religious right") who seem to have an outward hostility toward science in general, and anything that might reveal the mysteries of the universe in particular. Between the fundie Xtians (Bart Sibrel, anyone?) who are afraid that manned exploration of space is somehow contradictory of the Bible, or the twits trying to teach religion in HS biology classes, the anti-intellectuals of the right are no friends to NASA or scientific exploration of any type.

This thread has come a long way since the above quote, but I want to comment on this.  I've had quite a bit of experience with the moon hoax twits and I've found they come from both sides of the aisle.  I've encountered some that belong to the religious right but I've also encountered many that are atheist.  I've actually had far more experience with the latter type.  The moon hoax believers often accuse the moon hoax debunkers of being from the religious right.  Just recently one of them went on a rant and concluded with, "I bet you even believe in God".

I think they tend to equate acceptance of the validity of the moon landings with belief in God because they see both as a blind faith.  They are unable to see that our support for Apollo is fact-based, rather than faith-based, because they don’t understand the scientific method.  They are usually surprised to learn that many Apollo supporters are skeptical of God's existence.

[Simkid]

The single greatest failure of modern society is that with all our technology, and all our acomplishments, there is so much POINTLESS ignorance.

[DonPMitchell]

I'd say that every human being has at least one part of their mind that is completely faith based.  And nothing you could do would convince them to change their mind.  It's just the way people are.  Liberals get frustrated talking to religious zealots, but you can have a completely equivalent wacky converstation with someone about animal rights or Linux or nuclear power or countless other hot-button issues.

It takes discipline to really consider facts and change your mind.  I remember on the old Cosmos series, Sagan made a dramatic point about Kepler.  Kepler was a religious Pythagorist, who believed the planets traveled in circular orbits based on weird geometrical symetries.  When he started working with the measurements of Tycho, many of them were a few minutes of arc off from any possible circular path.  He eventually abandoned his most charished theories and developed the idea of elliptical orbits.  Many a modern scientist would just fudged the numbers to make his theory fit!

[Ottawan]

Which exactly what scares me about the medical profession John.

[Johno]

Should it scare us, though?  I'll admit it is frightening to realise that at its base science is a house of cards, but let's not forget that it works, despite all the problems. 

With regard to the previous comment, Carl Sagan is himself a case in point - like many others, his skepticism regarding God (which is logical and wise) became cynicism (which is not!).

Just my $0.05 worth with inflation . . .

[Ottawan]

Hey Johno . . .

Don't know if you've been following the political mess we have up here in the GWN but it looks like a general election in the middle of winter.

The only good thing about that is . . . if it's 40 below and I don't go to vote(in a riding that's already a foregone conclusion anyway; but I digress), it won't cost me 50 dollars

Back on topic . . .

I agree skepticism is good. It is debatable. Cynicism is not. Reminds me of the Monty Pyton Arguement sketch. Come to think of it, reminds me of HB's as well.

[Johno]

40 below sounds scary to those of us who work in Celcius!

In Australia, general elections are called by the government in power within certain restrictions (i.e. no more than three years for a government term).  Elections are therefore just as likely to be in the middle of Winter as in the blazing summer sun.  They try to avoid putting them on public holidays or major sporting events (!) because it upsets the electorate.

Acronyms: What is the GWN?  What do you mean by HBs?

[Ottawan]

I work in celsius

You call your homeland Oz . . .the GWN is Canada . . .The Great White North.

HB's are Hoax-Believers, those misguided "yutes"(My Cousin Vinny reference for LO) that think the Apollo missions never landed on the moon.

BTW "yutes" are "youths" in case you've never seen the film.

I try to stay on my toes when I am replying to a teacher

[DonPMitchell]

I don't think Sagan was cynical.  First, in connection with my research on Venus (for my book) I've read Sagan's papers, and he was no dummy.  I guess nobody is arguing with that.

I admire the fact that Sagan was willing to take time to stand up to Creationists and followers of Velikovsky and UFO nuts.  Most scientists just ignore that stuff, but then the public ends up only hearing what the wackos have to say.