wrote in message
oups.com...

Today the bush administration announced it was drastically cutting back
the Nasa budget, so what little money is left can be funnelled
exclusively
toward 'manned space flight.'

That's exactly the opposite of what should be done.

Manned space flight is a useless publicity stunt.
What they are now cutting from Nasa are the programs that have actually
been useful.

Leaving aside the rather naive notion that something so routine that no one
notices unless something goes drastically wrong is a publicity stunt, that's
just about as wrong as it is possible for anything to be. Manned space
flight is pretty much the whole point of the four ****ing million year
exercise. Ever since Kubrick's monkeys stood up on their hind flippers and
stretched for an apple.....and couldn't reach it.....their descendents,
however much they've butchered one another and engaged in other deviltry,
have shared just one common and overarching goal......to reach the stars.
And now, just when it looks like it may actually be possible, we should
decide, nah, maybe it really would be better to go back to being monkeys
after all?

Not me.

Wolfgang