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Monday, December 7, 2009

Beyond Our Means

I think it was a couple of weeks ago that an astronaut became a father while working on the space station. The first thing I thought was that he is a schmuck for not being with his wife. Don't get me wrong, I'd climb in the shuttle tomorrow if given the chance, but there's no way I'd miss the birth of my child.

The second was that why in the hell are we spending money on space exploration? I've been a fan of space exploration and all the new technologies resulting for decades. I remember watching the first manned rocket launched. But with the way things are today, we should be clamping down on discretionary spending. But not the Fed. They don't have any problem spending money we don't have.

Isn't that the kind of behavior that crashed the economy in the first place, spending beyond our means?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Most Astronauts are military.

Military people make family sacrifices all the time as a part of their duty.

I was there for both of my children's births...but we timed it so it would work out that way and got lucky enough that it all worked out the way we planned (which is never a given in the military).

Plenty of military people miss the births of their children because duty calls. I can't imagine that being a shuttle crewmember is any different.