tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post3283940788638318422..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Wowee! Worth the wait!Anne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-21414529482968940702015-07-17T08:41:38.029-04:002015-07-17T08:41:38.029-04:00Well, yes. But my personal issue is the emotionall...Well, yes. But my personal issue is the emotionally sincere but scientifically misleading gush in the media, relative to what I believe relates to the ethics of priority decisions for public resource uses. I'm surprised that Republicans and the Big Government hawks aren't saying the same. There is science here, but mainly engineering and curiosity.<br /><br />As to income inequity, I can't deny that the same applies. I was very well paid as a faculty member and while I don't consider myself to have been a parasite, the relative salary structures in the country these days needs close ethical examination. Just today there are stories in our local paper about the huge salaries various administrators of Penn State, here, are being paid.<br /><br />But I am not convinced about the correlation between Pluto and inequity, nor even whether the lower 99% enjoys the results as much as the top 1%, because it is being presented mainly as entertainment, and nobody is talking about the cost and that this was done not with private but with public funds. And in the 50s we began space adventures without the level of income inequity (other than sexist and racist issues) that we have now. Then it was in part the Cold War. As far as expenditures go, one can ask whether, today, some of these projects are ways to 'hide' what are essentially defense costs in NASA's budget rather than DOD's (or, perhaps, that is going on but is not secret--I don't know). I just think these questions should be raised as serious ones--even relative to what best science funding priorities should be.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-5346351888177104412015-07-16T22:22:06.128-04:002015-07-16T22:22:06.128-04:00"The total annual income of the top 1% in the..."The total annual income of the top 1% in the US has increased by about one thousand times the cost of the Pluto mission in the past 20 years. Meanwhile the income of the average working man has hardly increased at all. Does this suggest a way by which we could build bridges and still afford the occasional space mission?"<br /><br />You forgot to ask the more fundamental question - is there a meaningful correlation between increase in annual income of top 1% and the Pluto mission? After all, the top 1% includes the University professors among various government-funded parasites (bankers, military), and most university professors turn a blind eye to the plight of the remaining society ('income of the average working man'), because they are part of the top 1% and winning from the system.<br /><br />- 'You know who'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-45934434782604467992015-07-15T20:44:19.236-04:002015-07-15T20:44:19.236-04:00The points are subtle, or something. The foul ine...The points are subtle, or something. The foul inequities are foul. The private entertainment industry could pay for space missions. A fair tax system could do what you say, but it and a more humane set of priorities could jointly make resources for both increased standards of living and also research of more immediate priority.<br /><br />One can make other indirect justifications, probably numerically correct, that the space program brings indirect side benefits (including the old quip about going to the moon giving us Teflon and Tang).<br /><br />Space could (in my view, of course as a non-astrophysicist) be much more importantly explored by better, and even more widely or deeply dispersed telemetry, to address real and serious questions in cosmology. Though even that ignores the serious human problems on earth that should be addressed first.<br /><br />Of course, this is just my personal view of things, and I make no policy!Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-73600517898957730892015-07-15T19:22:14.034-04:002015-07-15T19:22:14.034-04:00The total annual income of the top 1% in the US ha...The total annual income of the top 1% in the US has increased by about one thousand times the cost of the Pluto mission in the past 20 years. Meanwhile the income of the average working man has hardly increased at all. Does this suggest a way by which we could build bridges and still afford the occasional space mission? David Evanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13590531184544289491noreply@blogger.com