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Guest
Over the past few weeks, since the flight of Discovery on STS-114, and the continued problems of foam shedding, I have heard voices coming from certain camps that the Shuttle Program should, from this point, cease to exist, and others, more radical, that manned spaceflight should cease to exist. Often times the reasons cited for this are risk versus benefit, cost to the American taxpayer, and other reasons. <br /><br />I would like to suggest to you that one very good reason to continue our manned spaceflight programs is not "because it is there" (though that may be a good reason), but to continue to aid the economy of the United States. Whether the space shuttle system continues to fly until 2010 or not (I am not interested in entering that debate), manned spaceflight programs have created a fairly large number of jobs, both within the space agency itself, and also among private corporations that are in the Aerospace industry, as well as other firms that support the industry. Just about every type of job that one can think of has a place within the overall space program, from an aerospace engineer or electrical engineer, to an accountant, to a food service provider, to a janitor, and everything in between. Not all of these jobs are government jobs, but many, if not the majority, are jobs that exist within the private sector that supports the efforts of manned spaceflight, and other spaceflight programs. These jobs enable thousands of people to have income, which in turn is spent in the free market place, fueling the economy. If those jobs were lost, that would signal a loss of income, a loss of purchasing power among individuals in that industry, thereby reducing economic growth (perhaps not by much, but some). <br /><br />Remember what the halmark of President Clinton's first campaign was: "Its the economy stupid." Well, the same is true in the case of the aerospace industry, and the space program, perhaps more so than anyone may realize. <br /><br />What I fi