Decline and fall of the United States will be from causes within.

Because everybody knows what a black box does even those that don't. With newer cars outfitted with recorder boxes, they call them black boxes so people know it's this thing that stores data for experts to examine later when "something" happens.

Saturn rocket was way too expensive to be sustainable, NERVA was cancelled because only need for it is to go to Mars (and no money for that so need for such a rocket).

problem with space tug is amount of energy to change orbits is more than sending a spacecraft to the moon. Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle can change orbit inclinations but these were very small.

Most certain intent was to "scuttle the fleet" to motivate a development of a new vehicle much like Cortez scuttling his fleet to motivate his troops to take down the Aztec Empire. Silly analogy but according to Paul Spudis there was this kind of thinking.

as this also ties in with old TV sets, any old timers here remember when staying up late watching OTA TV, falling asleep and to wake up later (about 3 am) to the sound of 'shsshshshshshsh' and nothing but static because station went off air at 1 am (will not get back on till 6)?

or a car backfiring, it seems very rare these days. I had a 1970 plymouth, in early 80s the points/rotator was getting out of sync which caused engine to backfire occasionally. When going up a incline it backfired more, and then one of these backfires blew the muffler off and then the vehicle was really loud.

no money for a lander. That's why Moon is off limits (human landings that is). Until NASA is given money for a lander, the moon is simply not discussed. Mars is discussed even though no money for lander or habitat module while getting there, but that's far off into the future (much like fusion power plants, flying cars, etc.).

All these gadgets are nice but many (i.e. high tech light switches) cause lot of RFI on my VHF and UHF radios. I cannot imagine what HF must endure, I don't have such at my place but I've heard a lot of gripes for HF users.

but sure has a lot of time to write this article.

I recall one of those 1950s sci-fi comics of a manned Mars mission exploring surface, come across some ruins (there really was a cilivization here millions of years ago). They find this one place of various apparatus and documents (maybe it's advanced mathematical studies and high technology). After spending some time analyzing the numbers, one concludes it doesn't seem much more than just a balance sheet for a business. Another finds the equipment some kind of holographic projector and manages to get it operating. It shows a person under attack by a tenacle monster. Among other evidence they realize Martians were very humanoid and what they stumbled on was a movie theatre with feature film, "Invasion From The Third Planet."

that's why mission is not to ask "is there life?" Because if answer is no, then we ain't going back for another 20 years because that is exactly what happened with Viking (ok maybe I'm stretching it). But then I feel the same way, the next big thing is even a bigger rover. I've read stories of the "Mars Mafia" to keep the money rolling to JPL by continuing easy missions (but talk to people that worked on Curiosity and they'll tell you it is ***NOT*** easy). Now for a mission of big leap is a Europa lander and submarine (imagine it taking pictures of the little fishies if any).

yes, this same argument was made back in 1944 when NASA was NACA, billions were millions, and a completely different enemy.

But the real issue in Launius's article is NACA did not consider importance of the jet engine.
http://launiusr.wordpress.com/...

"...the public, when surveyed, thinks that NASA gets something like a quarter to a third of the US budget. Perhaps we should show the world what we could accomplish if we really had that level of funding?"

No. We need to educate the public what percentage of federal budget is spent on NASA. We first need to show the brutal truth of what's going on, and those who closely follow space activities have shown misinformation among themselves (not that it is all their fault, it seems federal policies are delibrietly made confusing).

Some years ago I purchase Premeire, it was a turkey. Resolution gets squashed and saved files like 720x480 are immensely large size to a point impractical. I heard these days Avid is the top program. Regarding gripes about FCP I bought a program last year and it sure doesn't perform like pre-Apple version. It may be easier to use but I find it will not import many video formats (I heard previous versions did). Then latest problem is audio is stripped when I import AVI files. Nobody seems to know how to deal with this, occassionally someone posts a useless tip like go to this menu selection that doesn't exist on my system.

If I was a predator and a clam lights up with those horrible 1970s fashions of bright clashing colors of polyester material, yuck that would turn me off very quickly.