Senators to the rescue!……
Did you see the senators on national TV giving their take on what should be done in order to help pay for the storm damage caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita (Not Lovely Rita as in Sgt. Pepper’s)?……..
The two that really stuck out in my mind was the one (I don’t remember the individual names and I have not seen the story again) that proposed to put a motion before the senate to forego their next one or two raises…… Now, that’s what I call really digging deep in the ‘ol pocket and sacrificing your lifestyle for those in need….. Hell, most of us have a hard enough time finding a decent job, not alone one with guaranteed raises…..
The other one proposed that we cut all NASA funding on their “Return to the moon” project….. This one really got me….. The original moon program and “Space Race” were almost solely responsible for all the technology and development that placed those weather satellites in space which were used to accurately track the very erratic Katrina and Ugly Rita….. Even though preparation and rescue wasn’t up to a lot of people’s expectations, I think that if we would not have had the accurate tracking furnished by the NASA developed technology, we could have seen the early projection of 10,000 deaths in New Orleans as a reality……
I hope you plan to check into what your senator went on record with and vote accordingly next election……. I know I am…….
October 3rd, 2005 at 2:52 pm
The forecasts for Katrina were really quite good. NASA itself does a lot of earth science, and somewhat ironically the “Return to the moon”/”Return to Mars” initiatives have actually sucked a lot of funds away from the science and satellite remote sensing that NASAs been doing. Scientists (not to mention taxpayers) get way more bang-for-the buck with satellites and unmanned probes.
Also, lots of the rocket development efforts were done through the DoD (cue eeeevil military-industrial laughter).