I'd love to turn out one of my long-winded responses, complete with extensive links, but my sinuses are killing me, and I have to pick up the house yet for the cleaners. When I refer to "environmentalist wackos," which is a more lowbrow term than I like to use, but I haven't come up with a better one, I am referring to those in the environmental movement who believe that capitalism, industry, and in particular America, are the big problems in this world, and if Something Was Done About It, everything would be fine. And you damn right they are socialists. hard-core, full-bore socialist, who firmly believe that all property should be nationalized, or failing that, placed under the absolute control of the state.

The big problem is that these are not a fringe element in Greenpeace, Earth First, etc. They are in strong leadership positions, and largely control the agenda of the organizations. Some of them go much farther than socialism, and dabble in nihilism, declaring that this planet would be just hunky-dory if only that nasty human race was extinct. What these people see when they look in the mirror is a subject best left to psychiatrists.

You need look no farther than the Green Party, which is the high priesthood of enviromentalist politics. Check out their agenda. It's currently being rewritten, and I have not examined the new one in any detail. The old version is linked on the same page. This is hardcore leftist rhetoric down to the marrow, with little or nothing that would not have delighted Karl Marx.

If you think "socialism" is a philosophy held by "relatively few people these days," you've got a rude awakening coming.

I think that everyone here would greatly benefit from actually *studying* at the history of Socialism, and understanding A.) what it really meant for space, and B.) what it really meant for the environment.

You bet they would.

A.) The Soviet Union got into space first because they had gigantic missiles on hand that were required to lift their third-world cast iron nuclear warheads. Most of our missiles were smaller. They also didn't have to take it up with the voters every four years.

B.) I'll let the environmental record of the former Soviet Union and China speak for itself. The most ghastly environmental abuses over the past fifty years took place in socialist nations.

Hmmm. That was longer than I thought. Aspirin must be kicking in.