Re: the value of science

["P. O. Johnson" <pojhome@FLASH.NET>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Leigh Palmer" <palmer@SFU.CA>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 12:34 PM
Subject: the value of science

> One of our sons will soon move to Los Alamos National Laboratory where he
> will be engaged in pure science. I hope it gives you some comfort that
> this laboratory also does weapons research. For my part I would love to
> have back all the money I paid the US Government for DOD waste. I expect
> that is of a different order of magnitude than the HST bill. Describing
> weapons reasearch in a time of relative security as "good -- sort of" is,
> in my opinion, slightly monstrous.
>
> You really gored my herd that time, Jim.
>
> Leigh
Well, Leigh, some of your gore splashed over on me. One gets the opinion
that you're against federal defense spending because some of it is wasted,
but NASA spending on HST is all right, waste and all, because it's in the
"pure science" camp. Come on, the only reason NASA hasn't wasted as much as
DoD is the huge difference in their appropriations.

In my experience, the great majority of military and civilian program
managers in DoD, NASA,  and other high technology agencies are conscientious
and very mindful that they are spending our tax dollars. They know, better
than anyone who has not been in their shoes, that most fiscal waste is
written into the appropriation bills by our elected "servants of the
people," and cannot be deleted or left unspent without high risk to the
program.

I sincerely hope that you do not really believe that we currently live in a
time of relative security and can safely curtail our weapons research
effort. The world is more dangerous now than at any previous time because
the number of crazies with the intent and the ability to do us harm has
greatly multiplied. Is it monstrous to use technology to protect our way of
life by trying to dissuade these nuts from their stated goal?

poj