Martha Adams
October 27th, 2007, 05:58 PM
Far from here in space and time, a much younger version of myself read Robert Heinlein, "The Man Who Sold the Moon." It was published in 1945, it's a prequel to "Requiem" (1940). The central character in both these stories is Delos David Harriman (those interested in names will find good history to this one). Harriman is not an engineer nor any kind of a technical worker. He is smart about technology but he's a *business* person, a sort of a venture capitalist. And to my younger self who thought space travel and settlement was a *technical* matter, this story brought in to my attention the first little threads of thinking about how this sort of thing works in the real world.
Today, as a result, I'm *very* interested in politics. (Well, disgusted, too.) Because, doing space costs money ("To make a small fortune in space, start with a big one"), and the most powerful and profound factor controlling money is ...politics. For which reason, I see two things going on which could want discussion here.
The first one is Barney Frank's proposal that all tax money which might be spent on Mars exploration and settlement, *should be blocked.* To me this idea is amazing, inexplicable, and terribly, terribly unfortunate, since Mars is the best place off Terra for settlements and the development of an off-Terra industrial base.
The second one is, the National Space Society has been doing lobbying "blitzes," activities in which many NSS people collect in Washington DC and then in small groups, they go out and lobby legislators (or more likely, their offices). I've had two or three opportunties to participate in this, and I didn't; but I've wised up and today I'm organizing my life so I can participate in the next one (February 2008).
So there are just two of many topics I think are good to work on here in Politics, which I think *urgently* needs to be revived.
Cheers -- Martha Adams [2007 Oct 27]
Today, as a result, I'm *very* interested in politics. (Well, disgusted, too.) Because, doing space costs money ("To make a small fortune in space, start with a big one"), and the most powerful and profound factor controlling money is ...politics. For which reason, I see two things going on which could want discussion here.
The first one is Barney Frank's proposal that all tax money which might be spent on Mars exploration and settlement, *should be blocked.* To me this idea is amazing, inexplicable, and terribly, terribly unfortunate, since Mars is the best place off Terra for settlements and the development of an off-Terra industrial base.
The second one is, the National Space Society has been doing lobbying "blitzes," activities in which many NSS people collect in Washington DC and then in small groups, they go out and lobby legislators (or more likely, their offices). I've had two or three opportunties to participate in this, and I didn't; but I've wised up and today I'm organizing my life so I can participate in the next one (February 2008).
So there are just two of many topics I think are good to work on here in Politics, which I think *urgently* needs to be revived.
Cheers -- Martha Adams [2007 Oct 27]