Mars - What's the payoff?

I was visiting one of my regular liberal blogs, Emphasis Added, and came across a discussion of the Bush Space Plan. I was amazed to see one of the libber libs, The Raven (quote: "Bush can't read and distrusts those who do.") ask "WHAT'S THE PAYOFF?" Holy rocket ship to the moom, batman, some of you people need to read a little less narcissitic literature and dig into some rock-'em sock-'em science fiction. 'What's the payoff?' Are you freakin' kidding me? How about the resources of an entire freakin' planet? No wait, one extra planet, one extra large satellite (the moon), a couple of little ones (Mars' moons), plus the asteroid belt thrown in as a bonus. PLUS the spin-off technologies. But how can you ask "What's the payoff?" when we're talking about an entire planet? NASA = bloated gov't, OK, we can fix that, and it's a valid point. But "What's the payoff?"

Comments

[Rick the Bomber]

GEEEEZZ...finally a government program I can get excted about and you libs bitch about it. The problem is it yields economic benefits and national pride instead of dependency and national disgrace.

How about them laser-guided smart bombs? XM Radio? Direct TV? SDI? And, these are just the obvious ones to us non-scientific lay-persons. Nevermind the national pride and sheer thrill of achieving something so impossible.

You libs are such a whiny, dull, pessimistic lot. How, and why, in the hell did you sneak over here on the Mayflower? You should have stayed in Europe with your brethren. You ain’t one of us and JFK wasn't one of you!

Go Space Cowboy, Go! Now, THAT's a legacy!

[Paco]

As a democrat, I just wish Clinton had announced the same Mars initiative when he was in office. I hate that Bush is making political hay out of the idea when space exploration was largely attributed to and promoted by democrats. Ill funded and half baked though Bush's plan may be, it's a start. But, of course, Bush will leave it up to some future administration to figure out how to pay for it all.

[brandy]

I'm a lib all for this!

The pay off is easy. It isn't like the plan is to collect big bags of money and send it to mars. Where do you think the money will go? The Appolo program had paid for itself before the first ship blasted off.

I do worry about where the seed money is going to come from. It's lunicy to try to fund this and the wars going on. They may all pay off in the long run, but ....

[Pedro]

Paco, look for the last picture from the current Mars lander appearing here soon.

[Rick]

Brandy, I think you have it in you to grow up to become a conservative. I can't place my finger on it, but you have promise.

[Karyn Borg]

I am the Raven, or Ravenna since I'm a girl.

I never said that.

I was looking on the internet, to make sure there was a rescue mission for the stranded astronauts. Thats it.

One more thing.

Back off to all of you who use my name.

Do any of you have the Raven Tatoo. In addition, if you want to imitate me-good luck. Not even my sister may.

So(excuse my language website guy)

F*** OFF-or please deal with me, please.

ECHO

[pedro]

Karyn, have you been assimilated?