Re: Space Policy: Why Mars should be our top priority.

David Spain wrote:
Jeff Findley wrote:
Certainly spysats, comsats, weather sats, and missile launch detection sats are important military tools, but none of these has *anything* to do with a manned space program. Perhaps they can share some infrastructure on the ground, but that's about it.


Are you kidding? Wasn't the Atlas that launched Mercury derived from an Atlas
ICBM? The Titan that launched Gemini also existed an an ICBM. Are you saying that
the man-rated versions of these shared absolutely *no* tooling/hardware/fuel
with their weaponized cousins? Was not every manned rocket launch, regardless
of its lofty goals, also an implicit demonstration of what we could do with our
strategic missiles? Kept fresh in the minds of our adversaries every few months
when the news tracked the next launch of Mercury X, Gemini Y or Apollo Z?

"civilian manned space program derived from military hardware" != "military manned space program".

If I can get the public to go along with the taxation necessary to support a manned
space program, why not divert some of that $$$ to the military?

Because there is no military mission for man-in-space that justifies the cost. That is why every military manned program in the past (Dyna-Soar, MOL, DoD shuttle) has wound up being cancelled. It was true then and it is true today.

I supposed it would be *possible* to get the public to go along with the taxation necessary for a military manned space program, by use of a concerted propaganda campaign to play up the dangers and hype the advantage of the "high ground". Doesn't make it ethical.
.

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