Space Exploration -- An Overwhelming Contribution
In regard to the letter about the U.S. space program, I intensely disagree.
The space program has been a success, and to say that it now has no practical application is to be blind to the overwhelming contribution that the program makes and will make in the future.
The cost has been measured in the billions, and the writer makes the point that this would be better spent elsewhere. Baloney. NASA's budget wouldn't carry the Department of Health and Human Services 10 days.
NASA is directly responsible for the means to give timely hurricane warnings that save thousands of lives. Weather satellites are part of the space program. Affordable, high-quality medical technology improves the lives of innumerable people. Anything miniaturized, portable, and most electronics are a result of space technology being applied to other fields. We are nowhere near the end of the high road that space research offers.
The space program creates, and will continue to create, jobs, new fields of research and spinoffs of technology that benefit mankind and help solve its problems much more than whining about how worthy causes can't get the job done.
- S. Mike Dierken, Kirkland