Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-larry!szabonj
From: szabonj@uw-larry (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NSS Board membership
Message-ID: <97@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 23 Jan 89 03:04:15 GMT
References: <6145@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <1989Jan15.095906.18357@utzoo.uucp> <92@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1989Jan18.043708.27547@utzoo.uucp> <1989Jan18.102436.12838@cs.rochester.edu> <7199@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
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Reply-To: szabonj@uw-larry.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Organization: U of Washington, CSCI, Seattle
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In article <7199@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (THE VIKING) writes:
> As to the perennial question of whether we should spend money on manned or
>unmanned space research....
>...it's clear that manned space research is by its nature much more expensive
>than unmanned.
>... Given this, unless you're part of the small minority that
>rejects one type of research, I think current spending priorities are close
>to what they should be.

Come again?  We should spend more on manned spaceflight *because* it's
more expensive?  I suppose, too, that we should send men to Pluto instead
of Mars, because it's more expensive.  We should build the English Channel
Tunnel from Paris underneath Germany, Russia, America and thence to London,
because it's more expensive, and would make for a more interesting commute.
After all, we don't want to be narrow-minded and reject fun ways of doing 
things, simply because they're expensive...
   ;-)


Nick Szabo              szabonj@fred.cs.washington.edu