This Week's Lazy Anti-Humans In Space Op Ed Award Goes To ...

Trump's call for human space exploration is hugely wasteful and pointless, opinion (or something), LA Times

"Among the dangers of cavalier calls for publicly-funded human space exploration is that monumental Big Science programs like the space race tend to suck resources away from any science left on the outside looking in. A multitrillion-dollar program to put an American on Mars, endorsed by a president, will get first call on the federal budget, leaving programs aimed at disease cures, chemistry, and physics far behind."

Keith's note: Here we go again. "Today few can summon up the names of shuttle astronauts ..." Where's the poll where someone actually measured public knowledge on this and published the results? The author just proclaims this as it it were a commonly accepted fact. "Multi-trillion dollar"? (sigh) No one has ever published an actual cost estimate for anything NASA has done or might do that uses the word "trillion" - other than references that lazy journalists make to references that other lazy journalists make to references to other lazy journalists make etc.

It is quite obvious that the author spent absolutely no time whatsoever researching the facts behind the topic he has written about. He set out to write an anti-humans in space article and found tired old quotes that people have been dredging up for years and uses them out of context, and then adds in unsubstantiated alternative facts to make his point - or so he thought. I am surprised he did not mention Tang or Teflon as NASA spinoffs. If you are going to try and debunk the notion of humans in space don't just dial it in - do some actual research - and don't just repeat the tired old unsubstantiated rants that others have been writing for years.

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