We Stopped Dreaming

Edited by Mack - 29 March 2012 at 10:42pm

oldpbnoob wrote: GroupB wrote: oldpbnoob wrote: Rofl_Mao wrote: Extreme opbn is extreme. I never said all military spending is wasteful, I believe in strong national defence, but not to extreme lengths. A small-ER military that is expertly trained can be just as effective (in some cases more) as a huge military. Just setting my case straight here - I know you're not changing your mind. And I never said all NASA spending was wasteful either. I beleive there is wasteful spending in nearly every government program out there TBH.   And to clarify, I do not beleive I ever endorsed cutting corporate taxation. Think you are getting your old farts mixed up Group B.     That's likely, there are too many of them running around here.   I will say one last thing though.  Just like war is the necessary evil that drives military innovation spinoffs, space exploration is the necessary "evil" that drives NASAs innovation spinoffs.  If it weren't for space exploration (or some other lofty* goal), NASA would have nothing to develop for.    * See what i did there? And I guess thats the crux of it. I feel military innovation is considerably more necessary than trying to figure out how to travel to some unknown or maybe non-existent planet for a scenario that may or may not ever happen with technology that most likely will never exist. Which is back to my original point that people have not stopped dreaming, a lot of us just realized the dream is exactly that, a dream. It most likely will never become a reality as we have imagined it.

It is entirely impossible for man to rise into the air and float there. For this you would need wings of tremendous dimensions and they would have to be moved at three feet per second. Only a fool would expect such a thing to be realized.

— Joseph de Lalande, member of the French Academy, 'Journal de Paris,' 18 May 1782.

Not with that attitude.

oldpbnoob wrote: Rofl_Mao wrote: Extreme opbn is extreme. I never said all military spending is wasteful, I believe in strong national defence, but not to extreme lengths. A small-ER military that is expertly trained can be just as effective (in some cases more) as a huge military. Just setting my case straight here - I know you're not changing your mind. And I never said all NASA spending was wasteful either. I beleive there is wasteful spending in nearly every government program out there TBH.   And to clarify, I do not beleive I ever endorsed cutting corporate taxation. Think you are getting your old farts mixed up Group B.

Rofl_Mao wrote: Extreme opbn is extreme. I never said all military spending is wasteful, I believe in strong national defence, but not to extreme lengths. A small-ER military that is expertly trained can be just as effective (in some cases more) as a huge military. Just setting my case straight here - I know you're not changing your mind.

And I never said all NASA spending was wasteful either. I beleive there is wasteful spending in nearly every government program out there TBH.

Edited by oldpbnoob - 28 March 2012 at 11:36am

Extreme opbn is extreme. I never said all military spending is wasteful, I believe in strong national defence, but not to extreme lengths. A small-ER military that is expertly trained can be just as effective (in some cases more) as a huge military.

Just setting my case straight here - I know you're not changing your mind.

Clearly opbn prefers profit over progress. Talk about short sighted.

Even if you don't agree with the products themselves, how can you argue against the jobs and economic growth created by them?

oldpbnoob wrote: Seems that with all of these wonderful inventions that NASA could be a little more self supporting. Wonder how many businesses invest billions into research and then let everyone else use the technology without proper compensation? What an awesome business model.  Yeah, I know, "the government isnt a business". Maybe it should be run a little bit more like one in this instance.

Seeing as how the government is forbidden from owning patents, they really can't demand compensation. Furthermore, companies outside of NASA actually made all of the components and worked hand-in-hand on the research. The reality is that NASA provided the impetus to move forward with all of the technological advances that you've been turning a blind eye to so willfully. NASA has done more to produce jobs for Americans in sustainable high-tech fields than any other organization. Period. Without the need to miniaturize computers, radios, and other components, for weight and space savings, that you'd be seeing the kind of tech we do today? We simply wouldn't. Look at consumer driven parallels from the same time. Cars are a fantastic example. Cars didn't get any smaller or fuel efficient despite better products and technologies being available in the 60's and 70's. Automobiles are perhaps one of the few areas of consumer goods which didn't take what was developed for NASA and run with it. The result was the stagnation of design over two decades. Meanwhile the consumer products closely tied to the NASA programs of the time steadily got better, smaller, more efficient. Computers went from being monstrous machines only companies could afford to models which fit the desktop and more importantly, the budget of the average family. The same can be said about TV's, radios, phones, even things like refrigerators and microwave ovens. There really wasn't a demand for a home computer, and I don't know if we'd ever have gotten one if NASA hadn't forced innovation which made the PCB and micro processor possible. We'd probably only now be getting to the point we were 30 years ago. I don't really think you'd want to see how this forum would look on an 80 baud modem and a Tandy.

The reality is that NASA doesn't build things themselves, they contract out. And without them making these demands of said contractors, we wouldn't have seen the kind of innovation we have in all those fields. Again, look the fields that weren't as affected. They stagnated and are now considered by most to be 3rd place at best, and usually a whole lot worse.