Philbrick's Sea of Glory vs. Gee Dubya Bush and NASA

I don't know how many people here have read Nathaniel Philbrick's Upon a Sea of Glory (I listened to an abridged audio version while driving), but I think that the work raises quite a bit of pertinent questions for the role of science and exploration in the Boosh regime's America.

I'd highly recommend Upon a Sea of Glory--especially as a gift to centrist friends and even those genuine conservatives who haven't handed over their thinking to the likes of Norquist, O'Reilly, Tyrell, and Limbaugh.

Consider: the US was a backwards, second-rate country only beginning to industrialize, riven with sectional hostilities, and yet it was willing to appropriate money for an around-the-world scientific exploratory mission. Not only that, the size of the appropriation was very interesting, too; as I recall it was about one quarter the size of the annual Federal budget at the time.

Let's compare and contrast this with the sort of funding today's Congress (Almost continuously controlled by the Republicans since 1994) has given NASA. While the amount given NASA may be more in absolute dollars, NASA and other exploratory and scientific agencies don't get anywhere near that portion of today's federal budget.

Let's consider one other thing. Those guys who put the Wilkes expedition into motion in the 1840s had a federal government so small compared to our own that "it could be strangled in the bathtub." Nevertheless, a majority in Congress and in the Senate were willing to appropriate the money for exploration.

By contrast, the Boosh regime and its Banana Republican allies, with a far, far more wealthy country and far, far vaster resources, has systematically starved NASA and other exploratory and scientific agencies through continual cheeseparing, indifference, and budget cuts.

Consider the space shuttle--an obsolescent design dating back over twenty five years. Consider the the deep space missions that lost their funding before they left the ground. Consider the looming fate of the Hubble telescope.

Our nation's glory--sacrificed by Bush-league thinkers for more "W"ars and tax breaks for billionaires.

Our national scientific and economic decline--put into motion by a silver-spoon C student.

:argh: :argh: :argh:

I read this book about a year ago and you captured a lot of what I was thinking at the time.