[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

NASA Announces Public Meeting for Proposed Mars Mission
MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-154
October 4, 2006

[dvandorn]

The problem is, if you tell these people that you need the energy available from an RTG to accomplish the mission, they'll just use their circular logic to conclude that any mission which requires nuclear power isn't worth the risk. Period. End of story. Their argument becomes: If you can't do the mission without using plutonium, then the mission doesn't need to be flown. If you insist that it does, then you are knowingly exposing them to an almost certain death. They're looking for a reason to hate and fear you.

No amount of logic or reasoning will budge them from that position, because they are not operating from a rational position. They are irrational and driven entirely by fear -- fear engendered by people who want to use a mass of fearful people to further their own goals of acquiring and retaining some form of power.

Keeping people afraid in order to achieve power is the worst, most profoundly sick and perverted mindset in the entire panoply of the human psyche. It's also one of the most common perversions. If it were possible to alter human nature, this is the place I would start.

-the other Doug