Re: Barack Obama Pits Space Explorers Against School Children

Quadibloc <jsavard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:On Dec 5, 4:51 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:> On 4 Dec, 21:11, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:
:> > >On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:17:46 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away, Ian
:> > >Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
:> > >such a way as to indicate that:
:
:> > >>The first of these is that there is no
:> > >>magic formula to lower costs. If there were someone would now be
:> > >>building a cheap LEO reusable vehicle.
:>
:> > >Yes, of course. In fact we would have had it three thousand years
:> > >ago.
:
:> Now this really is idiotic. To claim that we could have had a
:> technology years back in the past with no antecedents. It is on a par
:> with some feminist "science that insist that Newtons work was a rape
:> manual.
:
:I think what he meant was that if there was a "magic formula" to
:voyage to the Moon without problems, then, since three thousand years
:ago, people were already chanting magical incantations, it could has
:easily have been available then.
:
:That is, he was taking the phrase "magic formula" in its literal sense
:with the intent of uttering a witticism.
:

I suspect he was also pointing out that the fact that nobody is doing
it now does NOT mean there isn't a better, cheaper way. Just as the
fact that nobody did it three thousand years ago doesn't mean there
isn't a better cheaper way.

You can't railroad until it's time to railroad. The argument "nobody
is doing it so it must be impossible", which is the essence of Ian's
'logic', is absolutely specious.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
.

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