🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <LFLekx.01x0@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET>,
Len Lekx <LFLekx@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET> wrote:
>
>In article <D80yr9.MHt@freenet.niagara.com> msteele@freenet.niagara.com (Mike Steele) writes:

Stu:
>> : >Do we have enough wealth?  Why do you insist on rocketing our wealth to
>> : >mars?  I think we should have a referendum (as Reform would have it) and

>> 	I'd like to see my tax dollars spent here too...
>
>    You miss the whole idea.  When we send people and hardware into space, the
>money gets spent ON EARTH.  (After all, there are no stores in orbit.  ^_-)
>
>    It pays the salary of the astronaut, who buys clothes, a car, etc.  That
>makes work for clothiers, auto makers, farmers, grocery store clerks,
>and so on.
>Plus, the research we do in order to put men and equipment in orbit can be
>applied to produce things that other people will actually pay money for.
>
>    Unlike welfare, which pays people to do nothing...  (^_^)

"[NASA] pays the salary of the astronaut".
Doesn't welfare pay the salary of the people on it. And don't they
subsequently buy "cloths, a car, etc." just like the astronaut?
I know, 'well the astronaut has job. he's doing something'.
So, Lets just hire all those welfare folks to sit at home and watch TV.
There *are* people who have jobs like that. (There must be. Maybe a person
who has a job being a research subject for a sedentary life style.)

And the welfare people can even do other things with their time. They could
read and gain more knowledge, They could clean their home, fix their car
fix their own meals be there to raise their children.
Heck they could even get a second job! 

The astronaut will have less time for all these things.

I'll admit that welfare is much larger than NASA and we should cut it
first, but we should cut both.

Because the amount of money spent hiring people to sit on their butt and
the amount of money spent hiring people to make space widgets is determined
by politics there is no sure way to know what economic value either has.
(And for every study by NASA lobbiest you can find saying how valuable
it is, I can find a study saying how valuable Welfare is. I think both
studies are ludicrous.)

-rex-
-- 

Work phone: (317) 451-0358  (8-322-0358)
Internet:   c2xrib@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com   (Ick. It's suppose to be ahw.)