Blog #30 - What is NASA's future?

Earlier this month, President Obama stated that "we want to leap into the future" while at the same time dramatically cutting back on the American space program as a whole. In his announcement, he continues an earlier trend started by previous presidents Clinton and Bush II of privatizing government functions (think military security, private armies like Blackwater) and also ending the space shuttle program.  The president stated that he is still committed to going where no one has gone before, and that he expects NASA to get beyond the moon by 2025, but he wants to do it in a "smart way" which in the usual business-speak means doing the same or more w/ less money and people. 

His plan calls for the cancellation of the $100 billion Constellation program introduced by former president Bush in his last term who had said that he had wanted to return to the moon back in 2004.  Obama saved the Orion space capsule from the trash heap, originally to be used for the new moon landings, so that it can be downsized and be used to connect w/ the ISS (International Space Station). 

Furthermore, $6 billion will be spent in the next few years encouraging private companies to make their own rocket ships who can then ferry astronauts to the ISS.  Another proposal is to build heavy-lift rockets (its design will take five years to make and then construction begins soon after) to take astronauts to an asteroid, the moon, or another location (as yet undetermined).  The president's plan hopes to create 2,500 new jobs in the industry on top of all of this, but the plan also spends $40 million on helping those who lose their jobs in the cutbacks (like the space shuttle) to find new jobs in the aerospace industry. 

Here's a link to the text of his actual speech on April 15, 2010.  In the speech, President Obama mentions Sputnik and the impact it had on the nation; President Eisenhower's creation of NASA and the increased spending on math and science in American schools, and then President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon and bring him safely back.


All of these changes that he wants, he states, reflect the new world in which we live.  We're no longer living in the Cold War in a space race; we live in an era of collaboration in which other nations (I'm reading between the lines here) should and can bear the cost of space exploration along with us.  And, not stated, but surely understood by all, we don't have the unlimited spending resources like the country did during the Cold War. 

He also outlines more positive changes that aren't listed in the article that I'd discussed above. 

If you want to watch the president's speech in HD, check it out. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/spaceconf_hd.html

Your question:
1. What do you think the future of the American space program should be?  Should we continue with a limited budget like we President Obama has outlined? Or should NASA have more funding to continue on a more ambitious program (see the 5 reasons to explore space below from SA)?  Why?
  - Is there another alternative besides these two options?  If so, what and why is it better?

200 words minimum, due Monday, April 26.


For further reading:
Here's an article by Scientific American about the race back to the moon by other nations: it's called "Moon Lust: Will International Competition or Cooperation Return Humans Back to the Moon?"

Another article on Scientific American lists the five essential goals for exploring the solar system.  Check it out to help you write your response.  This is probably the best resource I found (and you may find more out there) to argue for the continuation of NASA. 

Blog #29 - Good Night and Good Luck

Here's Ed Murrow's commentary on TV and dissent in the 1950s. 

Choose three statements – one from each speech – and discuss how each statement can be applied to our world and political or social situations today.

 

1. " No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.

      This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck."

    – See it Now broadcast, March 9 1954


2. "If we confuse dissent with disloyalty — if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox — if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the . . . confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought."

– Ford Fiftieth Anniversary Show, CBS and NBC, June 1953

3. "We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

"Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.


"For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

"I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

"I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn't matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.

"To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

"This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful."


Speech at Radio-Television News Directors Association, Chicago, October 15, 1958.

3 statements + analysis, 250 words total, due Monday, April 19. 

Blog #28 - After the war is won, a 2nd new Bill of Rights...

As part of his State of the Union address on January 11, 1944, President Roosevelt presented the nation with a 2nd Bill of Rights, economic rights that the government would have to guarantee for all Americans once the laws were passed.  Take a look at the following video:

Some of the key passages are as follows:

"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence...People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation (since only 2-3% of the nation are farmers and less than 20% are in industry, this would have to change if this BoR was implemented);

2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living (since so few of us are farmers now, this might change);

4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

5. The right of every family to a decent home;

6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health (did we just achieve this last week?);

7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

8. The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world."

He listed 8 things that would bring economic security to our nation and hopefully to the rest of the world.  At the point that he gave this address in history, America was NOT planning on a Cold War with the Soviet Union or stockpiling tens of thousands of nuclear missiles or spending billions on a military budget every year.  None of the 46 years of futility vs. the Soviet Union was set in stone, nor the explosion and entrenchment of the military-industrial complex in our national economy like it is today. 

However, America was coming out of the war w/ its biggest national debt in its history (having borrowed $200 billion from the American people in war bonds - $170 billion held by U.S. taxpayers - and from American banks).  Congressmen were wary of spending huge amounts of money on peace time programs, especially for FDR, because his New Deal programs had had such a mixed track record of success and failure. 

The reason I bring this issue up is b/c I think that the country has spent the next 66 years (and may continue) to try to achieve his goals.  As we finish out the year, we'll return to these eight core principles and examine how we have failed and / or succeeded. 

Your questions to answer:
1. Out of the 8 new rights listed above, which of them do you believe have been addressed in some way or another since 1944?  Try to pick and explain at least 2 (if you choose #6, please try to do some research and not repeat misinformation that you might have heard on talk shows, i.e., it's going to save billions, death panels, it forces everyone to buy insurance, etc.) 

2. Which of these 8 rights should be the one that is addressed or fixed by our Congress / President?  Why? 

3. Which one of these seems the least likely to be enforceable / possible to make an economic right?  Why?

200 words minimum.  Due Monday, April 12. 
Have a great spring break. 

Here's Glenn Beck's take on FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights. 




Further reading:
To view an article entitled: "FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights and Why We Need It Now" click here.
A response to this book from Forbes magazine who say that only one is quite enough. click here.
Here's an analysis of how the 2nd Bill is going so far: Click here.
An article about how the 2nd BoR violates the Constitution, click here.