OFF: soaps and saps

[J Strobridge]

Horse Whisperer writes:

> This is a little like what Douglas Adams suggested - Convince the
> useless 3rd of the population (all the middle men) that there's a really
> good reason for going to a pointless place and then just let them go.
> And that's them gotten rid of.
>
> So let's ferry all unwanted people to the moon.   Hah.

hmmm... well given Michael Fauld's comment that the best people for long
distance space trips would be elderly folk since the potential risk
associated with increased radiation dosage would on balance matter less
to someone who already had a family and/or achieved career success or
whatever than to a young person who was only just starting out on this
(as well as other reasons connected with the duration of long space
trips) I have wondered if the fact that John Glenn is going back into
space as an elderly man doesn't suggest that someone is taking this idea
half seriously.   I mean can you think of a better way of reducing an
excessively large ageing population than shipping them all off on a long
space flight somewhere?

Douglas Adams> prophet

jill

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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at holyrood.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk
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