[thechat] Is NASA lost in space

[Erika Meyer]

I want to say first that I don't want to beat up NASA because they
are one of the few gov programs that is fun and exciting for most of
us.

But understand my daughter's school district is cutting teacher
benefits, cutting back the school year by nearly a month to save
money, now may increase class size in all grades to 42 (one teacher,
no aides).   The kids may not explode into firey deaths for lack of
funding, but the are suffering in far greater numbers in a far less
glorious way.  And they are not able to choose their fate.

On technology.  My hometown of Arcata, CA uses a technologically
innovative system of natural marshes to filter and clean wastewater.
Somewhere I'd heard the technology was originally developed by NASA,
but I can't find verification.

Marsh systems can be used to filter sewage and treat it naturally so
that the water can be released safely into the environment.  What
Arcata did was take what was essentially a toxic waste dump and turn
it into a marsh system and bird sanctuary.
http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~ere_dept/marsh/

The city sewage is filtered thru a system of mashes, and being on the
Pacific Flyway, it is an amazing place to bird watch.  Plus it's a
nice place to jog, walk with your lover, or smoke a bowl.

A tourist industry has grown up around the bird-watching
opportunities, with the mash as a centerpiece.  This is in a town
that suffers from the decline of logging and fishing industries aka
extractive industries based on exploitation of natural resources.

The marsh is technological innovation that I would call win-win.
Benefits humans, the environment, the economy.   Works within natural
cycles.  Why can't more communities think this way?

As for killing small animals with rocks,  you might want to take a
look at the thousands of different designs for bows and arrows used
by people who had no metal, nothing but the wealth of plants and
animals found at their fingertips growing naturally on earth.  There
is an amazing precision to how these things were made, from the
manner in which the flint is chipped to the shape of the bow.  THAT
is technology.   Or as my ex used to say, that is "Injun-uity."

But you know-- small impact, no fire, no explosions, no giant
phalluses shooting into outer space.  Therefore: no big deal.

Erika