Alan Bean Quotes
I think everything depends on money.
Bean, Alan. Interview by Doug Ward. NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, NASA, 23 June 1998.
Of all the inequalities that existed in society, the easiest one to overcome with effort is wealth. Race, blood, parentage, even education are not as easily overcome. Of all the inequalities, traditionally Americans have been least offended by that of wealth under the theory that with current effort that can often be overcome. It is only in the latter part of the 20th century where modern economics and sociology have shown that wealth inequality itself is also difficult to overcome, that money as a societal leveler has been conceptually diminished. Sedgwick was the first American to identify the phenomenon that had operated in early America.
In Rhodes’ era money not only bought and influenced politicians but it enabled rich people and their companies to have their own armies and follow their own foreign policy. The British government has a long history of finding a proper balance of control over British wealthy men and her companies doing everything from enforcing the law to invading other countries. Without the companies, the management of the huge empire would have been too expensive and with them, the citizens and the government lost control of foreign policy. In the end, the latter was unacceptable and the British Empire was just too Expensive to maintain where so any nations wanted independence.
Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3.
