Re: Cassini: its cost and purpose?

From: Mean Mr Mustard (macusr023_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: 8 Jul 2004 17:34:28 -0700

"Jon Kickerston" <none@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<JDyFc.23901$bs4.5432@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>...
> 1) What has (or will) this entire Cassini project cost when everything is
> completed?

Billions the US doesn't have

> 2) Now this is tough for me: its purpose?

The same purpose as every other bull*** government program: a hand
out to special interest groups.

> The point of the aforementioned, at least in my mind, is the question of why
> probably millions are being spent on this mission to find out the
> composition of clouds, their rotation, etc. and maybe something more about
> Titan, when such studies could have been better conducted here for a more
> useful purpose.

The government should not be in the business of funding such studies
or any other research. It is a complete 180 from what the founding
fathers intended ... ie no taxation without representation. Sure we
get pretty pictures, but that's about it (oh, except that we also
increase the national debt).

Unfortunatly, for the space-geek community the United States is broke
... I mean piss poor, so they will have to find some other
"sugar-daddy" to pay for those pretty pictures. Maybe China, maybe
the EU? Probably neither since they realize space "exploration" is
basically flushing money down the toilet.