After a little research and three seperate emails on the subject, I’m so angry at the possibility of this imbecile becoming president that I can’t even form a coherent thought.

Here’s the blog post that got my blood boiling.

Obama plans to place the development of our next generation launch capability on hold to pay for education. I’m sorry…am I missing something here? How about we reduce the amount of time someone can stay on welfare without getting a job? How about we cut some of the social programs in which “citizens” get something for nothing in order to pay for education? How about we reduce our contributions to the United Nations in the post 9/11 world?  

And really, what are we paying for in Obama’s education plan? Government-run preschools in which children are indoctrinated with alternate lifestyle propaganda? I can save the government money on that one with a sock puppet named Rosie O’Donnell and an anatomically correct Big Bird doll. My puppet show will be entitled: “Rosie really wants a penis.”

Let’s examine Obama’s plan for American “Leadership” in Space.

Develop the Next-Generation of Space Vehicles

Sure…delay it by five years to make sure that the government begins the parenting job that our own citizens refuse to do themselves. Obama’s plan is to delay the next-gen vehicle to pay for social programs. In Obama’s world, we’re trading our future supremacy in the space race for those who want to hit the government feeder bar.

Complete the International Space Station

Obama points to this as an example of international cooperation. Really? Canada made a big robotic arm; the ESA made a truck thingy that hauls supplies, and the Russians have the only reliable egress option. The rest of it? All USA, baby. That makes it the “USA and Friends” Space Station if you ask me.

Continue Unmanned Missions

Oooh…be still my heart. NASA just tried to cut the rover budget for the Mars missions. Unmanned missions are cheap(er), they aren’t as glamorous, and they serve as a sop to the academic community that is increasingly dominated by foriegn interests and non-US citizens. All the unmanned missions in the world don’t put astronauts on the surface of Mars, nor do they challenge China for primacy in cis-lunar space.

Monitor the Forces and Effects of Climate Change

The Al Gore “OMG, WTF! THE EARTH IS DYING!” monthly publication has a new subscriber. Let’s put monitoring satellites in orbit to judge how much we’re screwing up our planet rather than looking for life on Europa or studying Titan. News flash! Average global temperatures are down. Maybe we should send an unmanned probe into Al Gore’s head to see if it looks more like Earth or Jupiter.

And what the hell does this have to with space exploration?!

Support Scientific Research

At least Obama recognizes that the USA is losing its scientific dominance. Want to know why? Physics isn’t as cool as a first person shooter. It’s true. Why study engineering when you can play Halo? Obama also recognizes that federal funding for the sciences has decreased drastically over the past thirty years. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what federal programs have drastically increased over the past thirty years? The word to describe them starts with “wel” and ends with “fare.” That spells “dumbass” when I put it into the Google translator.

Maintain Surveillance to Strengthen National Security

Why bother if Obama is president?

Obama: “Oh, damn…Iran is building a nuclear weapon. We’ll have to send someone to talk to them.”
SecState: “Are you sure we won’t offend them?”
Obama: “You’re right. Maybe if we let them blow up Israel they’ll be nice to us.”

Right. Someone needs to tell Obama to Google a Brit named “Chamberlain.”

The typical leftist mindset is to bury their collective head into the sand and wish problems away. Putting up new and/or maintaining old intelligence assets would seem to go against this fundamental doctrine. Although, on second thought, every leftist loves to spy on their neighbors and make rules for other people. Increasing surveillance assets would certainly make that goal closer to reality.

Keep Weapons out of Space

This makes no sense. China already demonstrated to us (in a great bit of saber rattling) that they can take out satellites in LEO. It’s too late to close Pandora’s box. By not developing our own ASAT capability and researching the potential for weapons platforms in space, we are surrendering prematurely in the new arms race of the 21st century. The USA has proven itself to be a responsible steward of terrible power when it comes to weaponry. I see no reason to discontinue our supremacy in this area either now or in the future.

Strengthen Math and Science Education

This is one of the few things on which I agree with Mr. Obama. This needs to be strengthened…and now. However, his methods of recruiting new teachers with money the federal government doesn’t have is immediately suspect. The problem isn’t necessarily a shortage of teachers. The problem is that most American students are apathetic. Science and math take a great deal of effort to be successful. Why study either of those two subjects when getting a business degree is so much easier? Why waste time getting a bachelor’s degree in a science when most science jobs pay two-thirds of what a general business graduate can expect to make?

The answer to this is reflected in our favorite genre–science fiction. Writers of the 50′s and early 60′s worshipped at the altar of capability. In most of those stories, one man, a scientist, engineer, or physician, was able to make the decisions necessary to save lives, win the damsel in distress, and make peace with his enemies. He was able to do this because he was educated, capable, and he believed firmly in the American ideals of justice, equality, and freedom. After the Vietnam era, this hero steadily vanished into literary history, which in my opinion, is a reflection of our society. We are no longer interested in the Renaissance Man who can do it all. Our media gives us what we want: flawed characters who makes us feel that it’s okay to be mediocre. After all, the mediocre get lucky sometimes.

What we need is a branding campaign on a national scale that makes science “cool” again. We need to capture the hearts and minds of our youth and inspire them to be capable again. One way to do that (in a tail wagging the dog sort of way) is to invest heavily in the space program. Put a man on Mars and watch the global celebrations. Build a small settlement on the moon and see the kids in school clamoring to go to school in engineering and science. Let’s do something great again that makes us feel good as a nation. It’s not too late for us to recover what we’ve lost, but it takes the investment of individuals to do so. It doesn’t take government dollars or intervention, and it damned sure doesn’t take a junior senator from Illinois to articulate programs that are doomed to failure.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Politics, Space Advocacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.