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Re: starship-design: It's a bad, bad world out there
KellySt@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a way those signals helped kill the program, but not in the way you'ld
> thing. NASA got funding by NEVER mentioning SETI.
Very interesting. But I recall that there was quite a bit of knowledge
of the existence of SETI before then...
> It was a microwave
> astronomy survey, period. But the signals, and the possible SETI
> implications got a lot of press. Suddenly congressmen and senators were
> geting calls about why was NASA wasting money searching for little green men.
> If the feds have so much money to waste on such things... etc.
Perhaps some people didn't like the idea of it, but I suspect the
majority of it originated with the congress/senators. Really you can't
even blame them, but their superiors.
>
> The funding was pulled the next year.
>
> You have to remember. The general public thinks NASA is a MAJOR fraction of
> the federal budget. So surveys have shown that people think DOD and NASA
> practically split all the federal budget between them (the public is
> stageringly ignorant about the budget). They thought META was big bucks, and
> wanted it stoped NOW. Congress obeyed the will of the people.
Just like they obey us now? They rarely do what the people want. I think
this occasion in which they obeyed was of their own choice, not what the
people said. I can't remember who said this, but: "When the Government
does what the 'people' want, be cautious: something is amiss."
Perhaps NASA should have explained that META was cheap. But no, we like
to pretend we're dismantling nuclear weapons....
Kyle Mcallister