Space, war, and Obama

By one estimate the war in Iraq could have paid for 510 people to go to Mars. I’m not a big fan of manned missions, as opposed to robotic ones, but wow. This may be a gross exaggeration (that number takes into account many peripheral costs like veteran healthcare), but even if you only take the direct costs you get more than enough for one normal manned mission.

Obama also recently said he would like to delay the Constellation Project 5 years to pay for his education plan.

I’m not particularly in love with going to the Moon, but give us new priorities instead. If you want to scrap Bush’s silly go to the moon program, and replace it with a serious look into the outer solar system for example, great. If you just want to scrap it to spend more money on poor schools, no thanks. Schools are important, but so is space. There is more than enough money being thrown away in military spending to pay for both, and military contractors can become space contractors pretty easily.

I know McCain and Clinton II probably aren’t better, but I can’t reasonably support someone who doesn’t think it’s at least important.