NASA space budget

On Feb 22, 2011, at 4:02 AM, sraj wrote:

> If one individual is able to convince ten persons, and they in turn
> convince
> another ten persons ....
>
Unfortunately, I've found convincing even one person is often an
extremely difficult and time consuming task.

> 1 ... 10 .... 100 .... 1000 .... 10,000 .... 100,000 .... one
> million ...
> ten million
>
> in seven steps we will reach the ten million mark.
>
> The big question is, will we able to convince say 10 out of 20
> persons we
> meet to contribute 1% of their income for this noble venture?
>
> It depends on the credibility of the individuals making the request.
> But
> what credibility do scientists and engineers have?
>
> 1. They don't provide leadership.
>
> In the pecking order Politicians ( who rarely know much about
> science),
> Industrialists (who are fairly ignorant) and economists (who are
> equally
> ignorant) rate higher than scientists and engineers.
>
> 2. Scientists and Engineers have allowed science to be distorted by
> Politicians, Industrialists and Economists. So not only do they lack
> credibility, their science also lacks credibility.
>
> 3. How come that with the logical tools of science at their disposal,
> scientists and engineers have allowed the planet to reach the sorry
> state it
> is in at the moment?
>
> 4. Why are students in USA not all that interested in learning maths
> and
> science?
>
> In short, people will contribute provided scientist and engineers have
> credibility and they are capable of providing leadership.
>
> Regards,
> Selvaraj
>
> On 15 February 2011 19:54, Combs, Mike wrote:
>
> > If we were to ask the members of the Mars Society to each contribute
> > $500/yr to put people on Mars, do you think each and every one
> would do it,
> > or do you think there would be a certain percentage who would
> decline?
> >
> > Wikipedia says the Mars Society has 6,000 members. So we're 3
> orders of
> > magnitude away from 10 million.
> >
> > From what walk of life are we going to find more people more
> enthused and
> > committed to Mars than the Mars Society?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Mike Combs
> >

The first space tourism business is already profitable! Burt Rutan
spent about $40 million of Paul Allen's money to build SpaceShip One.
This vehicle was piloted into space three times in 2004. The third
flight won the $10 million dollar Ansari X-Prize, writing 'Virgin' on
the vehicle's tail pulled in some more cash, and technology sales put
it over the top. The flights lead to a $120 million contract with
Virgin Galactic to build the first true sub-orbital tourist vehicle.

Al Globus
http://alglobus.net

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.