Re: Cassini: its cost and purpose?

From: Dr. Zarkov (Ming_at_Mongo.com)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 11:56:56 -0400

"Mean Mr Mustard" <macusr023@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ef808dff.0407081634.7776122@posting.google.com...
> "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).

Well, yeah, but it seems odd to pick on programs that fund technological
progress when they are trivial compared to other government waste. And at
least some good comes out of them--in contrast to things like wars: We will
have pissed away several hundred billion in Iraq before we're though, and
Viet Nam cost around a *trillion* in terms of today's dollars--all for
nothing. Then there are the programs like the war on drugs, which are
actually doing a good bit of harm.

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