ok here goes...
Thilo:
I think we're in agreement. I agree completely that the media are completely sappy about the 'human cost' angle. It gets completely blown out of proportion both by advocates and critics of the space program. Critics for example will insist that this shows that the space program is 'too dangerous'. Trying to bring up a family in the South Sudan warzone: now *that's* too dangerous. I must say though that I have a kind of remorse here for the crew that doesn't have to do with them being people. They were also office-holders for an office that I think is kindof cool, ie 'astronaut' and died in the execution of that office. So you'll excuse me if I don't completely agree with you equating all rational concern down to a calculus of misery generated or avoided. Mother Theresa's death for example was more significant than the average because of who she was and what she did, not just she might have had more life left in her or could have helped more people. All sorts of things can matter, not just people and their wellbeing. I get into arguments about this all the time, but I really don't see why people are the be-all and end-all of morality. Do we really want to say that science and the environment and things like that are only valuable because they're useful for people? This is getting down to basic philosophical/ethical axioms though... I'll stop here before I get too boring.
Don:
You took issue with the details in my sappy eulogy-for-an-inanimate-object (ie saying I was 'way off') and I was surprised by some of what you said, though some points were taken. Here's a snip from a Smithsonian webpage: (
http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/dsh/artifac ... rprise.htm)
"The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is a test vehicle designed to operate in the atmosphere; it is not equipped for spaceflight. Enterprise was rolled out at Rockwell International's assembly facility in Palmdale, California in 1976. In 1977, it entered service at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, for a nine-month-long approach and landing test program. The vehicle was flown atop the Boeing 747 Shuttle carrier aircraft and also released for piloted free-flights and landings
to check out all systems and performance characteristics. This test program was a necessary prelude to the first orbital flight by the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981.
The Space Shuttle made its debut in 1981 as the new U.S. launch vehicle for human spaceflight in Earth orbit. It was developed for a variety of purposes: satellite delivery and retrieval, orbital servicing, roundtrip service for science instruments, and laboratory research in space. Intended to be an economical replacement for expendable launch vehicles that are used only once, it was the world's first re-flyable spacecraft."
so, in response to your numbered points:
1) Columbia can reasonably be described as the first space shuttle because Enterprise was a test vehicle never designed nor intended to go into space. It may have looked and landed like a space shuttle, but this 'orbiter' couldn't ever have made it into orbit.
2) A reasonable point. I guess I should've said "she'd been flying 22 years" or something. But first flight is somewhat more of a significant event then being declared complete in some ribbon-cutting ceremony in some hanger when not actually fully prepped for launch. I think you knew what I meant, surely?
As for the "they should look after themselves" comments about the third world... I could go on at length, but basically all I want to say is that it's nothing like that easy to know what to stand up for let alone how to stand up for it. You blame the people who overpopulate and don't take responsibility and cite death and disease as a remedy... well here goes my understanding of the problem and suggestion for a remedy.
Poor areas with substandard educational systems have high levels of poverty and suffering because that is the natural way of populations. Take any population of any animal in any natural environment and some of them will be starving because if they weren't then there would be some resources going to waste and so natural selection and competition between species means that successful species will expand their populations until saturation point and a large proportion of them are going hungry. That's just competition, and it works the same way in biology as in commerce. What enables human beings to extract themselves from the natural situation are 'unnatural' things like science, education and other public services - but if you're in that situation it's a very long climb upwards. Look at how long it took for western civilisation to go from the middle ages (when westerners were just as starving and miserable as anyone in the world today) to now; and the west has had a considerable head start.
To make matters worse, the political incentive structures are set up so as to keep the people of the third world in poverty. Progressive, representative governments are deselected because generals and thugs are rewarded for seizing power. When a coup topples the government in an country like Nigeria for example, Exxon and Shell simply scrap the contracts they had with the old government and renegotiate with the new boss. Either this or they just continue doing business as though nothing had happened. It's like if I bought your old TV off the burglar who stole it from you, and there were no law to stop me from keeping it - this encourages burglary. So understandable western interests (you want to keep making money and you want stay out of other people's wars and not take sides) encourage political instability and leaders in the third world who are willing to sell out their people's interests. In turn, it will be in the interests of these regemes to keep the people of their country uneducated, uninformed, unpolitical an unable to crawl their way out of their state of nature. You can't blame the people for not standing up for themselves if they have no ability to do this and usually not even any understanding of what they should be standing up for. All they can do is live their lives as well as they can, and that's just what they do, and the collective result is a continuation of their miserable condition. Westerners occupy a priviaged place in the global system; we had natural resources available that gave us a comparative advantage (read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diarmond), we clawed our way out of the state of nature and now there's no-one from outside who can make it worth the while of our elected leaders to ruin our lives for us. It is only from our priviaged postition that it looks as though "We as humans have the ability to better ourselves and to learn from our mistakes and to control our environments", as you put it. Being this kind of human takes social resources that much of the people of the world just don't have access to, and the rest need to look long and hard at what they're doing that's perpetuating this. I'm not saying westerners should be trying to feed the world; but they should at least consider stopping being part of the problem. I'm no socialist or anything, I have no political affiliations and I'm not sure if I really care about ending world suffering; but it worries me to hear this kind of uninformed blaming of the people who are on the recieving end of it, and talking about things taking their natural course or 'Nature always moves forward and we must do the same'. It's things taking their natural course that's the whole problem. If removing suffering were as simple as the sufferers pulling their socks up and just excercising some latant ability to make things better for themselves, then there'd be no suffering. But there is suffering and it's not that simple.
The remedy is not to pump money into the problem but to make small sacrifices to the profit-gathering ability of western business dealings to allow development without interference. The idea that the west managed to claw it's way up but other cultures won't be able to without wads and wads of western cash is pure arrogance. All that's needed is a stronger international legal system that recognises not just nation-states but also enshrines some sort of international constitution protecting progressive, representative governments and their sovreignty over national resources and security, by marginalising their enemies. It means that those with the money band together, declare solidarity with progressive governments in the third world and all agree not to do business with usurpers or under conditions of corruption: to simply not buy 'their' oil (or whatever), regardless of what this does to the price at the pump. Anything short of this, and we've got skewed capitalism, not capitalism per se. The problem is though, western consumers/voters are a lot happier in the short term with paying low fuel prices and giving a few dollars to charity to make themselves feel better about it. Ultimately the guilt lies with us.
Hmmm... seems I have gone on at length after all. Nuff said, I'll get off the soapbox now too. This is a software forum, after all...
