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From: bsa@ncoast.UUCP (The WITNESS)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Why Space? -- Your Answers
Message-ID: <266@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Aug-84 15:01:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncoast.266
Posted: Fri Aug 17 15:01:10 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Aug-84 03:47:19 EDT
References: <2035@pur-ee.UUCP>
Organization: North Coast XENIX, Cleveland
Lines: 31

[The world is a Klein bottle]

I justify space in two major ways:  (1) if Ragnarok (WWIII, the Nightfall War,
etc.) ever occurs, we'll survive as a species; and (2) if we do NOT try, we are
admitting that the universe is too much for us.  Historically speaking, this is
equivalent to racial suicide even without war -- we would stagnate into obli-
vion.  I will not accept this fate; I am a wolf, not a sheep (cf. BEYOND THIS
HORIZON).

Same author, different note:  The afterword to "Spinoff" in EXPANDED UNIVERSE
says this about funding attempts:

       "No, to most citizens of the United States the entire space
	program plus all its spinoffs is not worth even 5c per day;
	the polls (and letters to Congress) plainly show it.  And
	they won't believe that 5c figure even if you do the arith-
	metic right in front of their eyes.  They will still think
	of it as 'all that money' being 'wasted' on 'a few rocks'."

Sometimes I grow weary of public ignorance.  It takes a dream to escape this;
perhaps this explains the popularity of the biggest argument I know for space
exploration, dating from September 8, 1966:  an argument that begins with the
phrase "SPACE:  The Final Frontier"...

--bsa
-- 
  Brandon Allbery: decvax!cwruecmp{!atvax}!ncoast!bsa: R0176@CSUOHIO.BITNET
   					       ^ Note name change!
	 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131 <> (216) 524-1416

"The more they overthink the plumbin', the easier 'tis tae stop up the drain."