Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Pow! Zoom! To the Moon, Georgie!
Bush To Unveil Moon-Mars Plans Today0 comments
Either George got sold a space program bill of goods by his political people ("Hi Karl, it's OK. You can come out now, we see you behind the curtain. Your shoes are sticking out."), or he thinks he can sell us one.
I was nine or ten years old when the space race started between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I can hardly imagine a more romantic period for a nine-yr.-old. Brave men (and dogs and monkeys), going forth "where no man had gone before."
Well, many years later, scores of men, and quite a few women, have gone forth, and come back again. This includes a Senator (oh, OK...he'd been up before) and a rich, thrill-seeking businessman. Some died on the journey.
As an adult, you also see all the $$$$ that have gone into that rocket, instead of just the romance of its flight.
So, the romance part of it has lost just a bit of its blush.
Today, President George W. Bush looks through the family heirlooms, and recycles his dad's old election-year space plan, first outlined in a pre-41 campaign address on May 20, 1988.
[Fairness forces me to point out that this was during the 1988 primary season, and Bush was fighting off Republican challengers for the right to follow in the Gipper's shoes. The Democratic opponent had not yet been chosen. Nor had the rout started. So, this was good, pre-emptive election-year ink. Needless to say, once it was found to no longer be needed, it was never heard from again. Any similarities to now? Did you hear anything about this in 2000, or before W. started getting hammered in the press again? And, of course, Shadow President Dick Cheney was very involved in ol' 41's staff, campaign and later his cabinet, so the idea may have bubbled up from him.—Gotham Notes]
Dad's plan also included colonizing the Moon as a stopping off point on the way to reaching Mars—just like Junior's.
Ol' 41 projected the cost then to be over $500 billion.
That's $500 billion in 1988 dollars, folks.
Young Master 43 seems to think that he can put this retread plan back into action for only a 5% annual increase in NASA's budget.
According to CNN's Lou Dobbs (1/13/04) the math brings this outlay to approximately $4 billion—mere pennies on the needed dollars.
$4 billion barely gets you a USofA decal (probably made in Taiwan) for the side of the main thruster rocket. So, what's Bush thinking of spending on this endeavor? And since we're now broke, where does he intend to get the money for it? More deficit spending is my guess. Total elimination of Social Security and Medicare, and every other domestic program?
I think we can safely assume we can rule out any kind of tax, earmarked for this effort.
So, aside from the "Yippee! How COOL!!!!" nature of the idea, and considering his dad's tepid interest in it, one must question how serious this young man is about really wanting, needing and being able to afford this bright new toy.
Once again, we see that Shrub is either:
a) contemptuous of the intelligence of the American people
b) delusional
c) clueless
d) smart (for following Dad's idea of getting some harmless upbeat press while he's getting hammered from all sides during an election year)
e) the cheapest son of a bitch that ever came down the pike (considering his nasty habit of getting everyone all in a tizzy about a program, and then not spending one damned dime on it, e.g., No Child Left Behind; rebuilding Afganistan, rebuilding the military, etc.)
I could support this project, and rekindle my youthful romance with the space program, under one clear, two-part scenario only.
That's:
1) if they got back all the money they just gave to the rich folks which hasn't already been dropped in Tiffany's and the New York Boat Show, and used it on this program (that's at least close to a Trillion bucks right there!), and
2) if they gave W. a spiffy new space flight suit and strapped his sorry ass to the outside of the rocket and set it off.
I consider these conditions simple enough. But, I can negotiate some.
On the money.
posted by Gotham 12:30 PM
0 Comments:
