>>>Money spent on space isn't put in a bag and launched on a rocket. Its spent on engineers and equipment. Mostly in the US. Its like a cash injection right where its needed, in employment and training.
>>
>>I didn't say it is or would be money wasted. Just that space dreams strike me as a luxury at the moment, not a necessity.
>
>Mike,
>
>I wouldn't want to explain that position to the 300+ workers who were just given pink slips in CT aerospace industries this week.

While I agree that it is crucial to our economy to maintain as many jobs as possible, between August 1998 and September 2001 the U.S. manufacturing sector lost 1.4 million jobs. By 2000 the loss was 3.0 million. North Carolina alone lost over 130,000 by 2000 and up to now the total has exceeded 300,000. The country was slammed for years as manufacturing moved overseas and no one considered a bailout then. Now, we are worried about 300?

Perhaps our government would be better focusing on current trade deficits:

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp117

North Carolina lost 16,000 manufacturing jobs in 2007 alone:

http://www.manufacturersnews.com/news/release.asp?ID=115

Or how about the 18,000 workers in North Carolina who lost jobs in the IT manufacturing field:

http://www.soc.duke.edu/NC_GlobalEconomy/information/workers.shtml

Also, don't forget that the image of every immigrant coming to this country to work in low-tech menial labor jobs is false:

Most of the attention on North Carolina's emergence as an immigrant-receiving state has focused on low-skilled immigration, primarily from Mexico, to supply the labor needs of traditional industries such as agriculture and hog farming (see the Workers and Jobs section of the Hog Farming industry). What is less known is that North Carolina has also witnessed a concomitant growth in the numbers of immigrants who arrive to work in its high-technology sectors.

According to the 2000 census, India is now the second leading country (behind Mexico) sending immigrants into North Carolina.Highly educated and skilled Indian immigrants have significantly impacted the hi-tech economy of Silicon Valley in California, both as professionals and entrepreneurs, and this has been well documented in the literature. A similar labor flow of skilled workers from India has converged around North Carolina's hi-tech hubs, moving into the Research Triangle Park area and around Charlotte.