Chapter 4, Question 7

The first thing that stuck out to me in this chapter was right on page 85 when Wheelan talked about the Margarita Space Pak. It is so interesting how our economy spends time and money on stupid (no offense) items and ideas, example: a backpack that makes margaritas so lazy Americans don't have to miss a pitch (there is a thing called the seventh-inning stretch, let alone the time in-between innings). I am obsessed with magazines like Sky Mall, which is basically super awesome items that either look cool or do something faster or in a more cool way than I can (a.k.a. stupid things). This passage struck me because I was reading it and thinking how cool it was and then Wheelan threw in the whole starving kids in Africa issue, which made me realize how we need to focus our time, energy, and money on important things that will get us places, not get us a margarita. Another thing that I realized (that I hadn't before) was that the Soviet Union got more things accomplished more efficiently because their government told the people what to do. Not that I want the government to tell me what to do, but hey, it worked quite well for them. Until larger issues than the Space Race came up...like abortions (there were "two abortions for every single live birth"...WHAT?!? I never knew this!(Wheelan 85)).