Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!violet!sccowan
From: sccowan@violet.waterloo.edu (S. Crispin Cowan)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NSS Board membership
Message-ID: <11188@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 89 22:36:09 GMT
References: <1989Jan22.124441.6014@cs.rochester.edu> <7427@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> <107@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: sccowan@violet.waterloo.edu (S. Crispin Cowan)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 37

In article <107@beaver.cs.washington.edu> szabonj@minke.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>
>>szabonj@uw-larry.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: [in response to my previous posting]
>>>Come again?  We should spend more on manned spaceflight *because* it's
>>>more expensive?  
>>
[stuff about how manned space exploration is important]
>Anybody who thinks we have an infinite budget to work with, please make
>yourself known so that I know where not to invest my hard-earned money.
>It's not a question of "believing" in anything, since presumably we are not
>discussing religion.  It's a question of X dollars divided between manned and
	    ^^^^^^^^
I take it as a religious principle that a permanent staffed presence
in space is the principle goal.
>unmanned programs.  What allocation is best for our future?   Spending all
>or most of the money on one or two large, risky projects, which go nowhere 
>but LEO, is the poorest allocation.   Sending out a few probes, while
>still spending half the money on thread-bare manned projects, is still poor.
>The only reasonable allocation is to spend the money on unmanned projects
>(and research), and forego manned projects until they are affordable,
>and/or discoveries provide the incentive to substantially increase the
>budget X which the government provides.
If manned exploration is done, then no research will be done on manned
exploration technology, and as a consequence it will never be
developed and become cheaper.  Deferring manned space exploration now
because it is too expensive recursively results in never doing any
manned space exploration at all.
>Nick Szabo              szabonj@fred.cs.washington.edu

Crispin
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