The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Space Restrictions

8.2.05 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 5)

Though I agree with your article, I don't know if I agree with some of the tenets you sight.

First, the period between 1952 to 1975 for both the U.S. and USSR the space race was part of a political scientific race. In a sense a scientific war without the use of weapons. From the period since the last joint Soyuz mission to present there has been no pressing push to "be out there." Lacking any aim, science for science's sake became the buzzword.

Second NASA's mission should radically change. NASA should still be a champion for basic science missions developing payload packages, etc. But their bigger mission should be the fostering of private enterprise into space. Until profits are being made from low earth orbit there will be no great leaps. Possibly NASA should be emulating the Postal Service of old with the fledgling airline industry. Let lift contracts for payloads to private concerns at certain launch prices. Adjusting the price downward over time to get the lift prices down to where launches into space are not much more than three times current airline ticket prices for an international flight.

Somewhere there is a budding Jack Northrop that sees the solution and gets the payload price down.
-- John McGinnis
Arlington, Texas

I've often wondered whether, if we ever get our act together and proceed into space in the way Jed Babbin has so wisely signaled, our great-grandchildren will be able to believe that we used to strap human beings onto giant bombs and blast them into orbit for no good reason.

With all due respect to the hard work and dedication of the legions of good people who carry out NASA's programs, the entire enterprise is preposterous. It would be hilarious if it weren't so expensive and wasteful.

What we're doing now is not much more than a zillion-dollar version of shooting a man out of a cannon.

More bread, less circus, please.
-- Paul Kotik
Plantation, Florida

How long will it take to send a rocket filled with bailing wire, chewing gum, duct tape and super glue to fix Discovery?
-- Clasina Segura
New Iberia, Louisiana

WITHDRAW
Re: Doug Bandow's Closing the Books on Kosovo:

Now that NATO (pardon me -- the "EU"?) has established a strong Muslim foothold in its underbelly, I believe we should not only leave Bosnia/Yugoslavia/Whatever you wish to call it, but also Germany, Belgium, Greece, etc. except for some "serious" bases of operations from which we can launch and support our military unencumbered (e.g. Italy, Czech Republic, and Britain).

We may choose to "report" the atrocities committed by "both sides" and the apparent "disingenuous reporting" preceding our "invasion," but doubt that will ever happen.

This was and is not a problem of the U.S. any more than the Euros would claim ownership of our problems with Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, or Mexico.
-- Bill Toutz
Appleton, Wisconsin

The problem of Kosovo is described well by Doug Bandow. But Bandow didn't stress that Kosovo has inherited a big new complexity since NATO's 1999 intervention: that, post 9/11, it lends itself easily to being viewed through the prism of the "Global War on Terror."

Like Lebanon or Chechnya, Kosovo sits squarely on the fault-line that, for centuries, has marked the frontier between Christianity and Islam. The province's 2-million population is mostly two main groups: Serbs and Albanians. The Christian Orthodox Serbs number about 120,000. Kosovo's Albanians are over 80 percent Islamic -- almost entirely Sunni Muslim.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Mainstream Media, Religion, Islam, Books, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, NATO, Conservatism