Comments on: Too bad the USSR won the Space Race https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/ Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:04:19 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: MacTurk https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498892 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:04:19 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498892 You have to admire her really. She is so determined to provide us with an answer, any answer, so the mouth opens, the brain disengages and a string of utter verbal diorrhea spews out. She is the political equivalent of a really bad shellfish.

Please, could someone tell me what this means? “..one of these Sputnik moments he would aspire Americans to celebrate, and he needs to remember that ….”

This woman was seriously considered for the post of Vice-President? Your country is not going to have another American century, not if such utterly stupid people like Ms Palin and Ms Bachmann(now that is one completely context-free person)can get into office.

The USA was not in any “space race” when Sputnik went into orbit. The reason there was a space race was that the USA got a severe kick in its complacency, and went on a national drive to catch up. That is the kind of mood that Obama is trying to crystallise.

And Palin’s alternative vision is a doughnut shop? Did I miss something, or was doughnut technology the reason for the present pre-eminence of the USA?

]]> By: Anon. https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498891 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:58:57 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498891 [Insert tasteless Space Shuttle Columbia joke linking litter to space shuttle program here]

]]> By: Jim Thomerson https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498890 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:45:27 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498890 Back in the late ’60’s at the height of our space activities, I happened to see figure, from two separate sources, on how much we were spending per year on NASA and on picking up litter on Interstate highways. We were spending slightly more picking up litter than we were spending on NASA.

]]> By: Eric Lund https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498889 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:03:16 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498889 Greta is a lawyer, she is supposedly smart & educated.

Educated I’ll grant you, but that does not imply smart. After all, we are talking about somebody who has a show on Faux News.

]]> By: Curtis https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498888 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:39:50 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498888 Palin is a “SPUDNUT”.

]]> By: Len https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498887 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:01:18 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498887 I think Greta had a WTF moment of her own there, right before the question about Bristol!

]]> By: StevoR https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498886 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:03:22 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498886 Wow. Yikes. Jaw-drop

“Spudnut?!” Really?

The ignorance and stupidity of this woman just buuurrrnnnnssss! 😮

I hope everyone in the States realises that she’s wa-aay too much of a joke to ever hold high political office . Because if not .. no words. *facepalm*

]]> By: Nemo https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498885 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:31:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498885 I was kinda surprised when Chris Matthews focused on “the USSR won the space race” as the thing that was wrong with what she said. There are many things wrong with what she said, but that one, in the specific context of Sputnik, seemed at least justifiable — the USSR was the first into space, so they won that race (if indeed there can be said to have been a race on at that time).

I could add that the idea of the manned Moon landing as the “finish” of the race has always struck me as arbitrary and ex post facto — it was really the first time we beat them (after a long series of firsts in space by the Soviets), so we declared victory and quit the race. But that’s probably me being too cynical.

Anyway, the deeper issues include her confusion of the arms race with the space race, and the implicit perpetuation of the myth that space programs are really, really expensive — even running to nation-bankrupting levels. As Wikipedia notes:

Public perception of the NASA budget is very different from reality and has been the subject of controversy since the agency’s creation. A 1997 poll reported that Americans had an average estimate of 20% for NASA’s share of the federal budget. In reality, NASA’s budget has been between 0.5% and 1% from the late 1960s on. NASA budget briefly peaked at over 4% of the federal budget in the mid-1960s during the build up to the Apollo program.

I don’t know what percentage of the Soviet budget their space program peaked at, but I think it’s safe to say, it wasn’t the problem.

]]> By: gocart mozart https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498884 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 02:55:19 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498884 With Palin as our leader, America will lead the world in potato/donut based technology. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

]]> By: Art https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498883 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 02:19:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/01/27/too-bad-the-ussr-won-the-space/#comment-498883 Sarah Palin is clearly the foremost representative, and the person most obviously in need of, a new organization, Dunning-Kruger Anonymous.

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