Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!buell%lsu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa From: buell%lsu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Newsgroups: net.space Subject: none Message-ID: <12212@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 19:37:10 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12212 Posted: Tue Aug 7 19:37:10 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 08:12:40 EDT Lines: 41 From: Duncan A. BuellThe space program--how do we justify it to Congress? Beats the hell out of me, and I have been close to the space program since my father learned rocketry in Huntsville in 1951. How does Congress justify spending money on the arts? on public TV? How did the Duke of Brunswick justify subsi- dizing Gauss? Apart from the obvious (justified or unjustified) desires of the military for space ability, the people who want to explore space do it, I suppose, because it's there, because it would be a denial of some of our more fundamental lusts to have the technology to "look beyond the ranges" and not do so. And Congress pays for it because they can be sucked in by the same urges. That, I think, is all there is to it. That certainly does not suggest practical approaches to going after continued funding. Should the turkeys outnumber the visionaries in Congress, the space program can expect lean years--and has seen some of them. On the other hand, maybe this does suggest funding approaches. Don't try to show that it's centsible to go into space. Just sell the dream. Rational arguments are always in danger of being refuted by better rational argu- ments. A good irrational hunger is a much better bet. No flames in response to this, please. I really don't know any sure-fire justifications for going into space that aren't military. I do know that we'd be less as a species if we didn't succumb to some of the urges we have, like pointing up and wanting to go there.