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Re: (meteorobs) Perspective
--- Chuck Boudreaux <chuckbou@atvcidot net> wrote:
> Study after study over the past four decades have
> shown the cost-to-benefit
> ratio for space spending provides the greatest
> tangible benefit to mankind
> of ANY US program.
What studies are these? Certainly no direct benefits to help starving and sick people! Consider this: about one quarter of all deaths are caused by cancer (it jumps to a whopping 2/3 if you include cardiovascular disease) but the NCI budget is just a paltry 3.7B compared to 14B for NASA! Even though the vast majority of NIH/NCI funding goes directly for research grants, the field is grossly underfunded. Critical research that may already have cured many cancers sits as proposals in paper and data files, unable to proceed due to lack of funds for basic equipment and personnel.
> Shuttle program alone has
> done, check out
> http://www.fas.org/news/usa/2000/usa-001012.htm. And
I see a few odd things mentioned: 3-D cell cultures (? I dont know anyone here at my university who uses that one); Artificial heart (A dismal clinical failure); some alternative to centrifugation of blood serum (why? that technology is mature and works perfectly fine - not an issue)
> Also lost in the news are the
> hundreds of thousands of
> lives saved over the past forty years, thanks to the
> money spent to push
> man beyond what he thought was his limits.
Even if thats true, its a drop in the bucket compared to the portion of a half billion people who wouldn't have lost their lives to cancer in the past 40 years, if a lot more money had been directed towards that research along the way.
P.S. Thanks to all who sent me positive messages in private!
Mike Linnolt
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