Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!dietz
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NSS and space settlement
Message-ID: <1989Feb3.115543.15693@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 89 16:55:42 GMT
References: <3225@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> <258@corpane.UUCP> <1989Jan27.075350.2215@cs.rochester.edu> <293@corpane.UUCP>
Reply-To: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 41

In article <293@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:

>Wake up Paul! you aren't going into space, I doubt if I ever will.

I *know* I'm not going into space -- for god's sake, why should I *want*
to?  To spend my children's inheritance on an orbital vacation in my
old age (I'm now 29)?

> especially if people keep thinking like you!!!!!!!! 

Are you saying I should tailor my beliefs according to whether you
like the implications?  Do your own wishful thinking.

>The spinoff is not bogus. sure we probably would have had all these things
>eventually. but to deny that they were invented sooner because of space
>travel is bogus also. When you have  hundreds of engineers with a set goal
>to reach and obsticles in the way, they tend to discover/invent new 
>technology to tear away these obsticles. hardly anything gets invented
>until it needs to be. but once it is here you can be sure that there will
>be lots of other uses for it, spinoffs and such.

I have not heard a good argument that computers, ICs, etc. were
advanced by the space program.  All I've heard is handwaving about
space R&D somehow being special in posing hard problems.  Considering
the remoteness of space from everyday life, the argument could be made
that space technology is likely to have few spinoffs.  What I've seen
in NASA "Spinoff" publications is rather pathetic.

I can make a plausible, if not convincing, argument that spending on
space has slowed the development of technology.  Spending on NASA has
helped increase government spending, in several ways.  First, it
directly consumed funds.  Secondly, congressional supporters of NASA
have to buy votes by supporting the pet projects of other congressmen
-- "go along to get along."  Third, the apparent success of Apollo led
to a better environment for other large government programs.
Increased budgets ==> increased deficits or taxes ==> suppression of
investment (through increases in effective interest rates) ==> slowing
down the development of technology.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu