G'day Nuno Cardoso and welcome to the BABB.

Yes, there were people who wanted Apollo shut down as an unnecessary expense, including Congressman (and future Vice President) Walter Mondale. I've read their letters in the newspapers of the time. Their argument was that the money spent on space could better be spent on Earth, usually for the improvement of living conditions. In some ways it's a powerful argument. After all, apart from paying the salaries of a couple of hundred thousand employees and contractors, Apollo didn't immediately return much to the community.

What people missed (and still miss today) is the technological investment in Apollo has produced massive returns for the community - JayUtah estimates the value of returns on investment at something like 7 times the investment. However, this return wasn't immediately apparent, as it takes time for new technology to be adapted for general use in the community, and sometimes it took some lateral thinking to find uses for some of the technology developed.

That is why I couldn't bring myself to vote for Kerry. He was going to shut NASA down by some accounts.

Some nice space links:


http://home.flash.net/~aajiv/bd/v3.jpg
http://home.flash.net/~aajiv/bd/colliers.html

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1999088158.pdf

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/inside_ksc/

Bem-vindo! Another Brazilian or a Portuguese? Anyway, welcome.

by the way, where did you find that quote???

It is an interesting quote.

Here is one for when that next big space rock causes a mega-tsunami:

"So you have turned your backs on Apollo, have you?

Now face Poseidon."

World's nations will shoot for the moon in the next decade
In the "space race" of the early 1960s, when reporters asked U.S. rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun what he expected to find on the moon, he jokingly replied: "Russians."
Nowadays, his answer might be: "Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Europeans."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...P&type=science
India, China, Japan and Europe are busy launching, or planning to launch, robotic spaceships to the moon and points beyond.
Their goals will include tasks ranging from mapping minerals to seeking ice from which future astronauts might extract drinking water. More distant goals include looking for a mineral called ilmenite that some experts think is rich in an isotope called helium-3. In theory, that isotope could be shipped to Earth and burned in futuristic nuclear fusion reactors.
"It's going to be a very exciting decade," said Carle Pieters, a planetary geoscientist at Brown University who is the prime scientist behind the development of a U.S. instrument that will ride aboard India's Chandrayaan-1. The device, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper -- M3 or "M Cubed" for short -- will measure wavelengths of light from the lunar surface in order to identify elements.
The international space competition worries some politicians.
"I know that the United States is beginning its long journey back to the moon, and then on to Mars through the Exploration program, but I worry that we are not taking these challenges from other nations seriously. The United States must maintain its global position," said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona (Riverside County), chairman of the House Science Committee, during a budget hearing on Feb. 16.

Zubrin Invited to China
02/22/06
http://www.marssociety.org/
Mars Society president Dr. Robert Zubrin has been invited to China to lecture at Beihang University (formerly Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, BUAA).

Resurrected Thread alert.

__________________
"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

As many of you know Zubrin best known for his pro-Mars stance, and his advocacy of manned flight to the Red Planet. He is also an engineer and book author and Zubrin will delivering public lectures in China on near-term Mars exploration and he will remark on the potential of the Chinese space program, he'll be making a report on the trip to China in Aug 06 Washington DC.