okay Randall uh uh do you have any special interest in uh space flight
oh yeah ever since i was a young and uh used to watch the old uh Apollo missions going off in uh classroom TVs
uh-huh
uh i suspect a lot of people uh uh got uh turned on by watching watching those go off uh very exciting
um-hum
yeah
the uh
uh i've always i've always uh wanted wanted very much uh to uh be somehow involved in all that
um-hum
and uh to uh meet and and to see see it actually happen of course i've really wanted to actually manage to get into space someday
um-hum
but uh that seems rather unlikely at this point unfortunately
what do you do now
uh computer programmer
oh
unfortunately that can be done from the ground
yeah
to bad uh
yeah made the wrong wrong career choice to get up into space
the uh
uh
i used to think when i was when i was younger that uh by this time we'd have lots more in stuff in space than we do now
um-hum um-hum
uh
frustrating at times
um-hum
i don't know what you think about all that
well uh yeah i uh i'm kind of young i'm only twenty two and so uh
uh i'm not you know there's a lot that's happened in my lifetime as far as uh you know with the space shuttle and all
although plans to uh go to other planets have somewhat been thwarted in comparison to uh the sixties
uh-huh
um although i have a i i kind of wonder
uh if
some if it were possible to market some uh form of uh space technology you know to uh
uh to make it equitable it might severely help the economy you know in the in the
uh respect that you know there's endless amounts of research to be done endless amounts of resources and and what not it would be great if we could find some way to to uh use that to boost the economy
yeah
well
yeah well the uh
uh
i've always uh felt that uh uh one of the long term solutions that at least a few of our problems would be to have uh some sort of uh solar power satellites up
um-hum
uh because that's a uh you know in singularly renewable resource that doesn't do it that doesn't require uh uh any particularly uh nasty environmental impact
exactly
and you can just get as much power as you need up there it's a matter of how big you build it
um-hum
um-hum
uh and of course the side effects of this is that you have to have uh lunar mining bases and space stations and easy transport into space and no things that i think we should be doing
so the side effects of doing that which i think would be good you know very very good for all for everyone in the long run is uh is it some of the other things i'd like to see happen would happen also
right yeah it seems like uh there's uh so you're talking about positive side effects then okay i understand
so
i'm
yeah right right um
sure that that makes a lot of sense
right the only problem is of course that uh that requires significant commitment from people to actually decide they want to put things like that up there
um-hum
yeah
and they want to do the research and uh they're all
yeah
you know no no one the only commitments that they're interested in making or even talking about are ones for flash value like uh the trip to Mars
right exactly
which is would would would produce some useful scientific research and so forth but
the same money could probably be far better spent on uh uh lunar bases and solar power satellite research and and uh and uh so forth
um-hum
it it would be done it would be being done for the uh glitz and show factor
um-hum
to get politician's votes instead of instead of for for you know we should eventually send someone people to Mars but not just because it's glitzy to do so
right
we should do it because for the for the return we get for it and uh
um-hum
uh unfortunately that's not why things happen
exactly
i i would settle for the glitz for the glitz if the side effects were useful if they oh but uh
least nothing
yeah
the downside of that is that you after you do one of those people say well we did it
right now we're done
now let's now we're done
no need to use this anymore to play around with this space stuff anymore that's what happened with Apollo
yeah i think you're right
uh
but uh
i'd give almost anything to get into space
i would too i'd i'd uh it was it John Denver that that tried to buy his way on to the space shuttle
