Don Davis article

In making
> that point, Davis said that we had squandered the money we could
> have used to make a lunar settlement to delay the takeover of S.
> Vietnam by the communists by only ten years. What I am wondering
> is, where does he get the idea that ten years is "only."

My point was that We spent several times as much money on this
unsuccesful intervention as on Apollo, a sucessful project. The
economy was hurt by the war and by other decisions made then, and
Lunar voyages suddenly seemed like a luxery we couldn't afford. In
return for throwing away our ability to reach other worlds, perhaps
forever, we delayed the communist takepver of Vietnam by only ten
years. It was going to happen anyway, as soon as we decided to cut our
losses, as the French did before us. Communism, falling largely due to
the power of economic and mass access to information, is now history
except in Mainland China and a few other stragglers, and so is our
ability to reach beyond Earth orbit-for now.

I would rather have spent the money on Lunar and Mars expeditions at
that critical time when we had the opportunity, and later on space
colonies, than on the Vietnam war. We would have gotten a lot more for
our money in the long term. Even now a NASA budget is burned up
roughly every month in Iraq. We can afford to reach beyond Earth, it
is all a matter of priorities.

Don