Subject:
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Re: And now for something completely different...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:17:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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683 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > you'd rather just take potshots at NASA and claim the money is better spent
> > on solving current problems.
>
> There is a strong argument that is the case. But the same can be said of many
> human activities and endeavours. A child dies every 15 seconds due to lack of
> water. Sending coke machines at into space 10,000 - 20,000 per pound isn’t
> going to fix that:
>
> http://www.ccssc.org/exhibit.htm
> "The Coca-Cola drink dispenser is a replica of the first such beverage machine
> taken into space. The dispenser was used during recent shuttle missions to test
> the feasibility of creating and drinking carbonated beverages in space."
The deal with research is that you never know what ancillary technologies will
crop up from it. You can smirk at Coke in space all you want, but the "test
the feasibility of creating...carbonated beverages in space" part sounds like
potentially very usefull technology. What if in order to do so they have to
invent a new distillation technology that allows poor countries to cheaply
extract potable water from poluted or saline sources? I'm obviously just
pulling that out of my donkey, but stuff like that has happened a thousand
times with the space program.
Chris
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