🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4239@drivax.DRI>, macleod@drivax.DRI (MacLeod) writes:
> I'm 36, and I'd trade the rest of my life for one LEO, assuming I could 
> take a stack of (old) Yes and Vangelis CDs along.  Quality, not quantity, 
> makes a life well-lived.

I find this statement to be astounding, if not appalling. Sure,
ripping around the planet would be a blast, but dying for it? What
could you possibly gain from one LEO that would be worth dying for?
What if you cut a deal with our Soviet comrades, and at the end of the
ninety minutes you decided the experience didn't match your
expectations? 

I read a hauntingly similar statement in a _Time_ magazine article
about legalizing controlled substances. A cocaine addict was
commenting on what he would do if cocaine became legalized (and thus
cheap): "I'd go out and buy the biggest pile of coke I could afford.
Then I'd come home and snort it until I died. Only a true cocaine
connoisseur can understand this."

> The fundamentally conservative values of those who oppose manned space flight
> ...  lead to all the satisfactions of
> animal nature - more comfort, more ease, a greater insulation from physical
> reality, and a homogenization of shared experience.

I am having trouble imagining exactly who you might be referring to.
Does anyone in fact oppose [all] manned space flight [in principle]?
Personally, I am all for permitting private individuals and collective
ventures to loft any payloads they can afford to. Private interests
should be free to select the most cost-effective and appropriate tools
for obtaining a return on their space investments. But when support is
coming from the public trough, the public is entitled to ask about the
return on their space dollar. 

At present, manned ventures are (very roughly, I believe) ten times as
expensive as unmanned ventures in terms of data and benefits returned.
We might even go so far as to say that a certain manned program almost
eliminated the US as a spacefaring nation. I don't know about other
people who value return on public investment, but personally I don't
(and don't want to) lead a life of ease and comfort. And surviving
in space requires substantially greater insulation from physical
reality than I have ever required.

Cheers,

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu