Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: spinoffs +- competing hypotheses



The policy arena is not a contest to find worse and worse
ways to spend money; the idea is to find better and better
ways. Attempting to justify the Apollo project by saying it
is better than 20 billion dollars worth of marching around
in circles is to damn it with faint praise.


I am not trying to justify the Apollo project because of the
many useful spin-offs that resulted. I have to look at the
Apollo project as it was promoted - put a man on the
moon and bring him back safely. Was that good or bad is
a matter to be debated. However, many of these useful
spin-offs may not have been "discovered" without the
project.

This would be true of any "big" project. The project has to
proceed because of its own merits - not because of what
spin-offs might results. But one can't say let's use the
funding to develop the spin-offs, because those spin-offs
would never be or at least be "discovered" much later.
Tim O'Donnell
Instructor of Physics and Chemistry
Celina High School
715 East Wayne Street
Celina, Ohio 45822
(419) 586-8300 Ext 1200 or 1201
odonnt@celina.k12.oh.us

"Chance only favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur