I read "The fiscal 2010 NASA budget outline to be released by the Obama Administration ... sticks with the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020... Obama wants to continue robotic exploration with probes to Mars and other Solar System destinations, as well as a space telescope to probe deeper into the universe."
If so, that really makes me feel better about my job. I've read so many stories about failures worldwide that I thought NASA might be one to go as the US cinched its belt.
4 comments:
Sweet! I am really glad to hear that NASA projects have the new administration's backing. Too bad that medieval history and other such humanities stuff is becoming completely irrelevant in tough times, though!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/books/25human.html?em
Learning about the value and history of human life should not just be left to the very wealthy. It was in the past, and that is why so many 19th and early 20th century studies are scarcely useful to historians (as well as those studying literature, art, you name it) now. It was all about deciding a canon of cultural value only accesible to and determined by the elite. Sorry for using your NASA post to preach!
Preach on!
I found that a math degree was unsellable in the early 90's.
That's why I was plumbing, and living with your parents!, when we lived on Boggy Ridge :)
Hi, Connie! that is a very interesting (and alarming) article. I would comment further, but Kovi wants out of the bathtub. Plus, i am not sure exactly what to say! ;-)
Connie, I sympathize with your view, and personally I would be interested in hearing more of it. I think a Faustian bargain was made in America a long time ago as reflected, for example, in Ford's comment that "history is bunk." I don't think I've ever had an interview where I was asked something like "what is your philosophy of life." Rather, it's all "do you have X skill?" "How would you go about doing Y?" Employees are skill sets, not people. Consumer culture seeks buyers, not thinkers. I suspect the shift towards postmodernism in the academy has made things even worse -- one ends up articulating only problems, not solutions. I find it ironic, for example, that a professor in the NY Times article cites Obama as an example of how the humanities can show itself worthwhile when Obama's rhetoric (and I mean that in the academic sense) is so strikingly traditionalist in its tone and narrative. Back to the future?
Post a Comment