Re: Congratulations NASA

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 06:41:26 +0100, Paul Harper <paul@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 23:19:40 -0400, Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I mean, how many people wouldn't
jump at the opportunity to go themselves?

Me, for one. I don't mind taking risks when it's worth it, but how
many manned missions these days actually *need* the crew?

Kind of hard to answer that, because some of the missions need a crew
only because they were designed around a crew, or because whatever
they're servicing was designed to be serviced by one.

To be honest, I have other priorities.

Fair enough. Though just to muddy the issue a bit, I'll suggest that
some things are better /because/ they involve risk. I'm not wild about
stupid, senseless risk -- an odious pesticide on apples, say, or a
lunatic with pipe a bomb -- but do we really want a world without
challenges, a tamed suburban shopping mall world in which risk is
reduced to some sort of mildly lethal background radiation (oops,
there goes Pete, oh so awful, next) and our only source of excitement
is television (gawd forbid it should upset the kiddies or old Miss
Prickett of Dogsbreath Iowa)?

--
Josh

"I love it when I'm around the country club, and I hear people talking about the debilitating
effects of a welfare society. At the same time, they leave their kids a lifetime and beyond
of food stamps. Instead of having a welfare officer, they have a trust officer. And instead
of food stamps, they have stocks and bonds."

- Warren Buffett

.

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