Asri-unix.642 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!mhtsa!ihnss!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!DIETZ@USC-ECL Mon Jan 25 12:54:18 1982 Cage Shaking From: Paul Dietz All this talk of cage shaking has prompted me to do a little of my own... My question is: why should the government be spending anything on space? (This is an instance of the more general question "why should the government be spending money on anything?") A common argumnt is "It's good for the country/world". Really? If it was so good, why wouldn't those with the money invest in it? National security: I fail to see how sending billion dollar robots out of the solar system helps national security. If this is the purpose of NASA, why isn't NASA part of DOD? Scientific Research: Research is good, @i(all else being equal). What do you give up when you send a Voyager out there? Preserving the species: If a group of people want to get together and build a space colony to survive a nuclear war, I'll let them. But why should I help pay for it? Other arguments: "Without challenge, man will soon whither ..." or "Future generations will judge us by what we did" -- Fine. You are entitled to your beliefs. Just don't force me to go along by taking my tax money. Comments, rebuttals, bric-bats, poison keyboard netnotes are welcome... ------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.