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From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.tv.da
Subject: Re: Re: High-Frontier, What Scientists Can Do
Message-ID: <2889@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Dec-83 14:45:33 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2889
Posted: Sun Dec  4 14:45:33 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 15:40:33 EST
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 38

People who use phrases like "fools" and "utter
and total nonsense" should be very careful to read that which they
object to.  Had Mr. Spencer done so and read "High Frontier, What
Scientists Can Do" carefully, he would have seen TWO resource-oriented
objections to the program (he picked the minor one to comment on) and he
wouldn't have submitted his rather myopic response.  Consider:
   - the monetary cost
	I agree that planetary research funding is largely indepen-
	dent of defence spending.  But this is *not* a major point.
   - the human resources costs
	high-frontier research programs will take large number of highly
	skilled scientists that would otherwise work on other scientific
	pursuits.  There would be an INEVITABLE drain on other programs,
	a drain not subject to the whims of appropriations as you can't
	create scientific manpower instantly from higher taxes.

Of course, pro-science organizations are bound to decry the money spent
on it also, in order to increase the chances that they will get money
for their own interests-- that is what special interest groups do.

But from a more neutral viewpoint, one sees that the high-frontier
program, apart from being a blatant provocation (How would you like it if
the USSR built space-based lasers to negate the US strategic force?),
will inevitably consume a good deal of scientific manpower, a resource
that is claimed to be in short supply (and NOT something that can be
given back to taxpayers or used to reduce the deficit).

It is time that we realized that in terms of nuclear arms, the technology
is the problem and not the solution.  We have weapons too hot to handle
and they have to be controlled.  The answer is not to build more powerful
weapons but to attempt to solve the social problems that created the need
for those weapons.  Would that Reagan had a "let's have a Manhattan project"
attitude to diplomatic pursuits (as can be done, witness the Camp David
agreements, imperfect as they are).

peter rowley,  University of Toronto Department of C.S., Ontario Canada M5S 1A4
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