Uglysasquatch, Mercenary Major wrote:
Elinda wrote:
I just can't help thinking where we'd now if, in the 60's, we'd required the Apollo missions to show profit or benefit before expending tax-payer dollars, or scarier yet, if we'd urged some multi-national corporation to do make the journeys to the moon.
In less debt. That shouldn't be all that hard to envision.
And likely with less nuclear proliferation, to boot.
Yeah, I'd trade that for some grainy video of guys landing on a gray rock and the Memory Foam Mattress straight up.
Too much of the impetus for proponents of the shuttle program comes from fanboyism and romanticism, IMHO.
Again, that's not to say that I'm against space exploration. If they put together a comprehensive program for it that laid out some step-by-step progress towards a distant goal, then I'd hop right on board again. Doesn't even have to be a goal that we can financially profit from, either.
Personally, I'm in favor of attempting to build a serious orbiting hub. Something to serve as a launching point for further goals, both literally and figuratively.
Edited, Jul 8th 2011 11:51am by Eske