I was looking at some of my old Livejournal entries. I found one from 2004 that was a comment I’d made under a friend’s entry. I may turn it into a blog post.
But today, the part that struck me was that it was a discussion of George W. Bush’s plan to land a human on Mars. It was going to cost 16 billion dollars and take 15 years.
It wasn’t a good plan, and it wouldn’t have worked. But there were several other plans proposed over the previous six months of congressional hearings that would have. Probably ten times the cost to do in a similar time frame. So, figure about 10 billion a year, for 15 years, to build up the infrastructure for repeated manned missions to Mars.
All that money, of course, like most of the money since W, got re-allocated to the so-called “War on Terror.”
The plan, which was quickly de-funded, would have taken 15 years. From 2004.
A program to land people on Mars, repeatedly, starting in 2019. That’s what we lost to the oligarchy. Not even lost. Not taken from us. It’s what we, in our national cowardice, threw away, along with the inevitable advances in technology and giant boom to the economy that would have resulted.
I could cry.