The greatness of our nation cannot be measured by our trips into outer space. I have studied it all, read it all, and seen it all when it comes to the touting of going into space by our nation, and it is all simply rhetoric that does not add up.
By far, the promotion and overblown benefits of space travel has the age old hidden agenda that no one wants to mention: the financial benefits to those people and companies who profit by what is otherwise a huge waste of resources, both human and financial. The returns for the tax payers' dollars by continuing this nonsense is simply not justifiable in "keeping up with the Russians."
If you truly calculate all of the efforts that, in this day and age, would constitute a nations greatness, then space travel would be about number 1 billion down the scale. Also, walking on the moon was a great novelty, not a great achievement.
The mindset of our nation financially has become simply this: "I know that I still have money in the bank, because I still have checks in the check book."
When will the nonsense stop and common sense and intelligence begin?
Michael Helton
michael37419@gmail.com
Chattanooga
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I would ask Mr. Helton and all of those opposed to exploration, scientific discovery and research to take a moment and look around your living space and/or working space and look for some of these items:
digital alarm clocks, quartz watches,
satellite dish television receivers,
cell phones, laptop computers,
desktop computers, flame-retardant clothes, clean diapers, athletic shoes, magnetic resonance imaging and computer-aided tomography (scans analyze bone and tissue to see inside the body without invasive surgery),
liquid-cooled garments (used by hospitals to regulate patients’ body heat), solar cells, bulletproof vests, flat screen TVs and
battery-powered cordless tools.
These are but a few items developed during the ‘Space Race’ that people use everyday.
By the way - NASA has been issued over 6,300 patents, nearly one in a thousand of all patents ever issued by the U.S. Patent Office (since 1790).
Brian Perchalski
Hixson, TN