January 25, 2011 - 9:15 pm
Our Sputnik moment? Oh, that’ll pull the young folks in, all right.
I remember it well, although I was just a little kid. It meant that big bad Russia had beaten us, or something like that. It meant we kids had to learn more math and science, faster and better than our elders, so it wouldn’t happen again. Sputnik was thrown in our faces for years, as though we were personally responsible. Down with Sputnik!
Wasn’t the USSR’s space program and military spending to blame for ending them as a nation?
They were spending (and borrowing) so much money to try to keep pace with or ahead of us… money they couldn’t afford. And it sunk them as a nation.
So we should do the same thing? Spend even more money that we don’t have, in order to “invest” in our future. Yeah… that’s a prescription for success if I ever heard one!
If we were carrying the debt load that we were in the 1960s, his solution might make sense. But we’re not. Has anyone shown him the graph for how much he’s increased spending since he became POTUS?
Forget all about “Sputnik” tell people about the Captured Aliens and Flying Saucers from Area 51. Using the technology that you have Reverse Engineered should put America back on the Map.
Thank you for allowing me to respectfully disagree. It was Pres. Eisenhower who took that money and motivated Americans on the local level, moons of Americans, parents, educators, business leaders, to make a change and change they did. In 18 months later, our school system, the classes, the way we look at education, changed. Everything had assigned spent. And there is no question but that the result of that, and the foundation of NASA, improved America’s competitiveness in the world and so much more. Motivators are needed. Sputnik was one. But it took a great president to understood how to motivate to make it meaningful for the average citizen.
David Hoffman
see The Sputnik Moment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhJnt3xW2Fc
So if this is a Sputnik moment, who’s the superpower who’s beating us at what with their superior technology? And what’s the point of educating more scientists and engineers when so many are unemployed now?