Reported Obama Plan Would Privatize Manned Launches 450
couchslug writes with this excerpt from the not-yet-paywalled New York Times: "President Obama will end NASA's return mission to the moon and turn to private companies to launch astronauts into space when he unveils his budget request to Congress next week, an administration official said Thursday. The shift would 'put NASA on a more sustainable and ambitious path to the future' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But the changes have angered some members of Congress, particularly from Texas, the location of the Johnson Space Center, and Florida, the location of the Kennedy Space Center. 'My biggest fear is that this amounts to a slow death of our nation's human space flight program,' Representative Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, said in a statement." If true, this won't please the federal panel that recommended against just such privatization.
Beware of the spin. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone jumps up and shouts make sure that you're not being taken in by lobbyists who are trying to either support specific companies or jobs in specific states. They are apt to shout out about the sky falling before the real information is known.
Sit back, relax and wait until the report is actually published, read it and make up your own mind. Don't believe what has been filtered through potentially biased news media companies.
A sound plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Plan : increase the budget to NASA, and ask for them to purchase rides to space from newly formed private companies.
The article says that NASA has "50 years of institutional experience" in doing spaceflight, and that this would be a bad idea.
The "institutional" part of that statement is the problem. NASA stinks for spaceflight. The problem isn't in their engineering, it's in the fact that they have many, many masters all trying to stir the pot. Their budget depends upon the whim of Congressmen, not performing to a contract.
Privatization has many failures. There's a lot of goods and services that it doesn't make sense to privatize. But I think the high tech industry of space travel is one that will benefit enormously from privatization.
The only downside? Private firms can probably get a LOT more manned launches done per year for the same cost, but they'll be a little riskier. More astronauts will be killed. I don't see this as a problem : there's 6 billion people on the planet, and I for one if faced between possibly dying during a trip to space or dying from old age would choose the former.
Re:BEGIN (partisanBickering) (Score:4, Insightful)
"Launch astronauts into space"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who gives a flying fuck about privatized LEO launches of some tycoon (apart of the tycoons themselves)? Private companies will not undertake the large-scale, visionary projects like sending people to Mars, building permanent bases on Mars and Moon, reaching Europa and exploring her oceans. Private companies only produce as little science as they possibly can get away with, putting much more emphasis on patenting the crap out of the little they do produce, and then keep it for themselves.
In other words: FAIL!
When Obama said he'll cancel Constellation, he crushed the dreams and hopes of MY generation. Those who grew up in the 50s and 60s in the US and Europe had the ride of their lives, if they had even the slightest affinity for science. That was science that inspired millions, and from the sci-fi movies of the 70's, I'd say people were probably less dumb on average than they are today ("Andromeda Strain", for one example. Compare that to the blockbuster space-operas some call "Sci-fi"). Nowadays scientists are only prodded to make cheaper electronic components and larger plasma screens.
Re:A sound plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A sound plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Private firms can probably get a LOT more manned launches done per year for the same cost, but they'll be a little riskier. More astronauts will be killed. I don't see this as a problem : there's 6 billion people on the planet, and I for one if faced between possibly dying during a trip to space or dying from old age would choose the former.
Kind of agree. The dying thing is a turnoff, but like the people who decide to be soldiers or drive stunt cars, they know or at least should be vaguely aware that death is a possibility.
What I really do agree about is the sheer potential increase in quantity. Fuel consumption will suck, but the ridiculous increase in quantity of launches will cause far more innovations and research for future craft than the current trend of not so many launches. According to Wikipedia and a little bit from NASA, there've been around 130 shuttle missions in the last 30ish years. That's about 4 launches a year give or take?
Bump that number up to 1 a month, combine it with the fact we might have multiple shuttle/rocket designs going up a year due to different companies sending up different designs and the set of data we'll have about what makes a good shuttle/rocket will have increase by quite a lot after 10 years.
Thumbs up to privatization. Maybe they can get NASA to do more hardcore research with less of the headache that comes from administration.
This is Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Every damn article posted on Slashdot about privatization of space has been packed with complaints that this is the end of the world. It's really not. God willing, it may be the start of a new one.
NASA was pursuing a completely impossible architecture. Ares was underfunded and unable to be effectively used until 2017 at the latest. By forcing NASA to buy services from private corporations we can develop our domestic launch infrastructure as opposed to keeping it under government control.
And yes, I said BUY! This is not cost-plus contracting, which defense contractors famously use to rip us off every chance they get. This is a straight purchase of services, cash for deliveries and milestones met. In other words, actual free-market capitalism.
As for those claiming that we should have blown our cash on another Apollo-like shot: what cash? Obama is not a dictator, he's a President. His budget requests have to be approved by Congress which would have balked at any substantial increase in spending on space exploration. Not to mention that we tried Apollo and it was nowhere near substainable. Development of regular deliveries to orbital space by private companies - that's sustainable. That's what will provide us with the groundwork to move beyond earth orbit and lower the cost to orbit to the point where we can actually do something.
Bend over. (Score:3, Insightful)
Income Redistribution
Man! You went there!
Bend over!
Do mean all that money (bank bailouts) that was taken from the middle class in the form of taxes to bail out the filthy rich bankers so that they can get their BILLIONS of dollars in bonuses paid for by the US taxpayer?! THAT INCOME REDISTRIBUTION?!? ($$ Poor => Rich and well connected)
Yep, that's REAL leftist alright.
The Republic Party Brand (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays everything is about branding, even politics. In order to differentiate their brand from brand of the Democrat Party (as they like to call it), the Republic Party (as I like to call them) has to avoid showing any support for anything Obama does. Their marketing division (or, to use an old-fashioned term, their political strategists) understand that any show of bipartisanship confuse the consumers (I guess most people still call them "voters") and dilute the brand. So the party has to maintain a uniform anti-Democrat (not to be confused with anti-Democratic) message, even when the Democrats propose a product (officially a "policy") that the Republics invented in the first place.
Obama's attempts to achieve a consensus show his utter contempt for the way business (isn't government a business? if not it should be) is done in the 21st century. If that doesn't convince you he's a communist, nothing will!
I feel divided about this. (Score:5, Insightful)
On one side I know that (in this economy) there are many more ways to spend money than space.
But few things united the US as much as the space program.
When the political climate was different, the reasons for going to space were different.
Now that the Cold War is over, space has become a primarily scientific endeavor. I'm happy that science (instead of politics) is the motivator, but now it seems that politics is choking one of the greatest achievements of our species.
The idea behind this "private taxi service" to space could go either way. We all know how recent new aircraft have suffered delay after delay. But what if a more competitive environment brings innovation that otherwise would have been unattainable? After-all it was a competitive environment that pushed us to be the first on the moon.
What I am really sad about though is the lack of interest in the moon. I believe that a permanent, self sufficient (however difficult that might be) settlement on the moon should be a priority. And if we don't start soon, India [telegraph.co.uk] or China [xinhuanet.com] might beat us to it.
While I believe that any mission to the moon is an international event, other countries/cultures might not share that view. I would prefer for us to set the bar in both - returning to the moon, and sharing that experience with the rest of the world.
Re:BEGIN (partisanBickering) (Score:4, Insightful)
A "universal healthcare" process that has been deferential to the point of obsequious to existing insurance and pharmaceutical players, and isn't shaping up to be universal at this point. "Income redistribution", the same-old grab bag of welfare programs that have been in play for years, across multiple administrations, along with massive subsidy of dysfunctional Wall Street entities. Yup, a real socialist firebrand. We'll be "re-educating" the bourgeois elements and living on communal farms any day now.
Our little adventures in the middle east are grinding on pretty much exactly as they ever are, the NSA and CIA are as far above the law as ever.
As for "cap and trade", I'm not sure when it became an article of faith that businesses have the right to impose unlimited externalities on everybody else. "Cap and trade" is by far the most market-oriented mechanism for internalizing externalities. If you think that that is a sinister lefty scheme, your head would probably pop on exposure to an actual Green Party...
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A sound plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Allow me to strongly disagree with you for a second. While I think private space flight will be a good thing in the future, it's not now. The technology is there, but funding, logistics and safety guidelines probably are not up to par with NASA's
I abhor your suggestion that we could sacrifice people to get private space flight off the ground. Reminds me of the Star Trek Enterprise episode where the Klingons kidnap Dr. Phlox in order for him to help cure or restore the genetically altered Klingons who were dying. He didn't have time and the Klingon general wanted to sacrifice some of his people as test subjects. Phlox refused because it was unethical, but relented when given the option of millions of lives verses a few, and pressure from the Klingons.
The point is it was unethical, but did it, for what was at the time, the only winning option
Sacrificing even a few lives for private space flight at this point in time would be irresponsible (and might turn off many people to privitization) and it stinks of the old Robber Baron's lives for profit attitude (sounds Ferengi, no?).
So instead, if you want to go the private route, let me suggest a better short-medium term plan, which could be our winning option: Streamline NASA. Keep it's budget big, but dedicate it to ONLY spaceflight (and maybe atmospheric research) so as to try and have it waste less by setting goals for only that. And have private companies haul cargo, like satellites and rovers into space. That is something they are already capable of doing, and are doing it safely. Now, it won't save as much money as privatizing manned-missions so soon, but it will save money and definitely save lives.
Re:This is Good (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, actual free-market capitalism.
It's not free market capitalism when the government's doing the buying.
Outsourcing to China (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Launch astronauts into space"? (Score:1, Insightful)
It is a dark day for exploration. The day we turned to the unexplored and unmastered and said "fuck it, we don't care." The space program has always been a huge source of national pride for me. I guess not so much for many other people. But then again, most people consider "national pride" to be anything the other party doesn't want.
You said it best, it crushed the hopes and dreams of OUR generation.
Re:BEGIN (partisanBickering) (Score:3, Insightful)
this is the american model (Score:4, Insightful)
most nations recognize the value of capitalism, but they yoke it with socially-conscious goals, to effective and ineffective results
but the usa is a cult of capitalism. they think it answers every question (it doesn't). they invoke market principles where market principles make no sense, such as in healthcare. they remove financial regulations and then act surprised when the markets bubble and burst (and then some of them, in their denial, even blame the government, magically somehow, for the market's failure, confusing cause and effect)
that space exploration should be privatized is yet another absurdity of the monomaniacal american obsession with elevating market principles as the driving force behind everything in the world. americans: of course capitalism is important. of course capitalism works. but capitalism is a beast of burden, it needs to be tamed and controlled. it needs to be fenced and given limits, or it will run roughshod and destroy your society with its extremes and stampedes of panic or greed. you need social safety nets, and you need to tame the excesses. understand this or understand nothing and be just a market fundamentalist, as foolish and blind to reality as any religious fundamentalist
Re:How's that working out (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this as a way to siphon off funds to be redirected to more social programs
TFA: "Mr. Obama’s request, which will be announced on Monday, would add $6 billion over five years to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s budget."
How is increasing NASA's budget and enabling it to buy space launches from private companies "siphoning off funds to be redirected to more social programs"? Your political bias is leading to illogical reasoning.
Re:Outsourcing to China (Score:3, Insightful)
Its the death of America.
It has now become American to sell out America... even Obama is doing it.
We're slowly dismantling everything that we once were. One day we'll look back and say "no wonder they couldnt pass universal health care...... you have to actually care to do it."
As long as the rich have their big homes and green grass, it doesnt matter if America dies around them.
Re:"Launch astronauts into space"? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need manned space flight to do any of those things. In-fact manned space flight is a terrible way to do those things. We're already doing awesome things and producing great science using robots. Why on earth would you want to do it with humans?
- We need food and oxygen. We can't run on solar power. Food and oxygen is added weight which given the cost of launching is the last thing you need.
- The risk of failure is much higher. If a human life is lost then it's a huge tragedy and setback. If a robot is lost it's a financial setback and you sit down and work out what went wrong and then have another go. No huge political or moral setback.
- We can push our knowledge of robotics to the limit and make new discoveries related to robotics.
When Obama said he'll cancel Constellation, he crushed the dreams and hopes of MY generation.
I'm in my 20's and I didn't feel very crushed. Let's say we do go back to the moon. What're people going to say? I'm imagining it would go something like: "Oh great we did that half a century ago. What's new?" Certainly going to Mars would be an enormous victory but you need to balance between spending huge amounts of money on something which has enormous propaganda but huge risks associated with failure vs. spending relatively little continuing to send robots up and generating tonnes of new scientific knowledge.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about time (Score:2, Insightful)
Finally the Administration is doing something to end corporate welfare and make the US aerospace industry competitive once again. If it forces Republican congressmen to stand up and trumpet there support for pork barrel projects while crying for fiscal conservatism I'm sure the Irony will not be lost on the general population.
Give such corporations as Space Exploration Technologies a chance, there founder, Elon Musk, his comparison of other aerospace companies to "Dilbert in real life" is spot on.
I say this as an aerospace employee.
Re:Afro-American Racism Against Whites and Asians (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same percentage of the Afrian-Americans that voted for Clinton.
Re:A sound plan (Score:1, Insightful)
More astronauts will be killed. I don't see this as a problem
Well, there's also the potential for more people on the ground to be killed from bad launches/re-entries.
Astronauts know what they're getting into, they have the choice to make. People living along flight-paths... not-so-much.
They're going about this the wrong way... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I think the future of space travel will be in the hands of the private sector, NASA are currently the only ones really equipped to do this stuff.
fair warning: this may get a little "everybody just get along"-like, so I apologize in advance for any hippy attitude you take from this
It's hard nowadays to sell a space program to the public, but it can be a unifying thing. Countries are still working seperately (except for the ISS, which is quite an achievement). What really needs to happen is the space programs of the world need to come together and work together. If all the nations with major or developing space programs pooled their knowledge and resources, we could have a moonbase going in the next 10 years and be on Mars shortly thereafter. The problem is that each country has a few super brilliant people. Space travel requires a LOT of brilliant people.
Re:"Launch astronauts into space"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A sound plan (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree vehemently with your approach.
1. We're not "sacrificing" people, we're allowing people who are willing to tolerate a small risk (under 5%) of death in order for the glory of going to space. *I* would take that risk, even if 1/20 launches ended up blowing up or otherwise failing. You can go sit at home watching TV if you want, until old age puts you in a nursing home where you have to wear a diaper and someday something fails and you're dead. LIFE is ultimately going to result in death...you might as well get what you can out of it. If someone volunteers for a risky anything, we should generally allow them to take that risk.
2. Your reasoning is why medical science advances as such a glacial pace. In the old days, scientists could take experimental drugs right out of the lab and test them. Yes, there were some mishaps, but most of the drugs we use today were discovered this way. Institutionalized CYA and mountains of paperwork often cost more lives than it saves.
3. If a corporation has a big disaster, they'll go under...leaving the surviving private firms in the industry, who will scarf up the facilities and people left behind by the failed company. That's the very purpose of a corporation : to insulate the people owning it from the risk.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
What's funny about it though is I'm convinced that they don't really believe or agree with what they say.
Think about. You can accuse O'Reilly, Hannity, Matthews, etc of many things, but you can't accuse them of being idiots. They know EXACTLY what they are saying. I'm still convinced that they don't believe all of it, they just say what they are told. There is no possible way someone could be that extreme, that emotionally violent, and still be put together well enough to go on TV/Radio every weekday. But with a multi-million dollar contract...
Taking ANY of them seriously is dangerous for a thinking mind... that much I know is true.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly believe that Obama intended to do exactly what he said he would...until he actually got elected and realized that he couldn't.
I'll tell you the same thing I told my hyper-liberal sister: the guy's intentions are noble, but he has no idea what he is getting himself into. I see it as a salesman promising to deliver a solution to a client without having ANY idea about the technology or time required to do so.
Who knows, I could be wrong...but I didn't see malice in Obama, just ignorance.
Re:BEGIN (partisanBickering) (Score:5, Insightful)
That is perhaps the aspect of real-world libertarianism that I find most disappointing in comparison to its theoretical counterpart(of which I am actually rather fond, in many respects).
In theory, libertarians want the state to protect people's lives and property from aggression, internal and external, and(depending on which ones you talk to) possibly operate some of the unavoidable natural monopolies of modern life. Great, sounds good.
If you have the temerity to suggest that the state should protect your person and property from other people's emissions of assorting poisons, though, and the support of ostensible libertarians just melts away...
When pollution affects health, it is essentially assault. When pollution impinges upon property, it is some mixture of trespass and theft. Any form of pollution whose effect extends beyond the person and property of the polluter(and anybody with whom he has a valid, informed, uncoerced contract covering the matter) is trivially a valid area of action for even the most minimal of libertarian states.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this crowd generally gets its opinions from Daily Show, Huffington Post, Media Matters and the like.
Re:It's not spin, it's Obama's personal priorities (Score:2, Insightful)
Like high energy physics, or astronomy, or nuclear engineering.
Aside from repairing the Hubble, what has putting people in space ever accomplished other than stealing resources from legitimate science?
Re:"Launch astronauts into space"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see...
The automobile and airplane I'll grant you, with the proviso that after their development, government R&D actually did contribute to their success and development (look up all the different things first NACA and then NASA did in developing aeronautics--for example, they discovered the "area rule" for supersonic flight in the '50s, which was applied with great success to a number of designs and paved the way for more breakthroughs)
Both TI and Fairchild had significant government funding when they developed the integrated circuit. Later, of course, further miniaturization of electronic components was often directly or indirectly funded by the government, for defense purposes or to gain advantages in other areas. Bell itself of course greatly benefited from being a monopoly, and all of these companies benefited from the increase in college enrollment after World War II, which was at least partially caused by the GI bill and other government measures.
Haven't you heard of the NIH? A full 28% of the research funding into biomedical science in the US is funded directly by the US government. And I have a feeling that almost all of that is fundamental, "pure" biomedical research, while most of the rest is applied stuff, designed to turn things developed in the first part into useful therapies. While both sides are useful, you need both, and I doubt that corporations would due much pure stuff on their own (they don't in any other field, after all).
Again, all that stuff is pretty heavily government-supported. It might not be people being directly paid by the government, but when you need tax subsidies to be profitable... And, again, there is a lot of fundamental R&D going on funded by the government, whether at national labs or at universities with research grants, into solar, wind, and nuclear energy.
The high-yield crops thing is hilarious--the "homes of the Green Revolution" aren't Monsanto or ADM, they're a series of non-profit research institutes funded by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations. That's right, it's essentially last century's version of the Gates Foundation going out and trying to help people in third-world countries. Still isn't the government, you're right, but it sure as shit ain't a for-profit company, either.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about. You can accuse O'Reilly, Hannity, Matthews, etc of many things, but you can't accuse them of being idiots.
Chris Matthews said that he "forgot Obama was black". Yeah, I can accuse of him being an idiot.
Re:It's not spin, it's Obama's personal priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
I clearly don't understand this well enough, as I'm sure will be self-evident in a moment...
How would the private sector end up being 'space tourism' if Nasa contracts private companies to get it's people to the ISS, and to put satellites into LEO?
I'm not saying privatisation is the Best Thing to do, but won't it foster a handful of LEO-capable mini-Nasas? The real Nasa could then concentrate on wider orbit deployment work, moon/mars missions and science (maybe not right now, but in the next 5-10 years). Apart from wider-orbit stuff, all the non-LEO stuff isn't all that interesting to private companies right now, and only the very rich/established can do it, so why not specialise?
The other angle here is obviously money. Knowing the deficit is a bit big, slimming Nasa down a bit makes a bit of sense (I know other things dwarf what it costs, but maybe they're not as easy to cut). If what comes out of Nasa is truly unique and beyond the reach of any other space-going organisation in the world, wouldn't that be better than a sort of "do it all" Nasa that does what others could (in theory at least) do?
What am I missing?
Re:BEGIN (partisanBickering) (Score:3, Insightful)
Works is a matter of degree - it's not binary. My employer is "rich", they give me a job, and compared to many parts of the world, or even other parts of the US, I'm "rich". On the other hand, my employer is moving practically every possible job out of the US. I feel that the only reason my job hasn't been moved is that it isn't growing. There's a cost (both in time and money, and time IS money.) to move jobs, and the job is small enough and not growing, there's not a lot of reason not to leave it here.
So yeah, the "rich" spend money and they employ people - and globalization takes people less lucky than me and turns them from "rich" to "poor", generally making "rich" people even "richer". If you want to say that that's the way of the world and the way of the Free Market, go ahead. But realize that as a side-effect, its moving the US downscale from a first-world nation, and/or preventing parts of it from climbing up to first-world nation status. Take a look at any recent statistics, and the US is at the bottom of the first-world, even below the top emerging and third-world nations, in some respects.
So yeas, you can say the system works in PRACTICE, but remember that extremely imbalanced wealth distribution tends to be a defining characteristic of third-world nations. Then call yourself a CHRISTIAN and a PATRIOT.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who knows, I could be wrong...but I didn't see malice in Obama, just ignorance.
And those of us that, all along, tried pointing out his ignorance and lack of experience were called racists and every other name in the book. It is perfectly possible to disagree with someone because of their politics, lack of experience, etc and not care one lick about their race (or gender, age, etc). I've been called a racist more times than I can count, because it's easier to attack someone for disagreeing with you than it is to defend your own opinions. It's especially funny when the accusations of racism comes from someone that "forgets he was black for an hour" (but just for an hour).
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking money from hardworking people and giving it to non-hardworking people is NOT a noble intention.
For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to leave my own opinion out for now.
Hypothetical question: Say spending cuts were made to bloated and/or unecessary programs, allowing social security benefits to rise and allow more families food stamps, but no new taxes were implemented (so long as the cuts equal the spending increase). The amount of money taken from you in taxes would be exactly the same...except instead of the government getting it, other citizens would get it. Would you consider that to be a noble intention? Why or why not?
Many of his claims (such as transparency, fiscal responsibility, no lobbyists) were made to get those who wouldn't vote for him to support him during the election
Well, of course...name one politician that has actually accomplished more than half of what they claim they will?
then he showed that he never cared about any of that and it was just words to get elected.
This is where my opinion kicks in. While, yes, a lot of what he said was just malarky thrown out there to get him elected, I think at one point he really did want to accomplish a lot of what he talked about. He either chose to ignore the fact that this would likely be impossible or truly believed he could do it.
Either way, I don't really see Obama as being a devious, power-hungry individual. In my opinion he really wanted to try to do these things, but was just too ignorant to realize he couldn't.
Whether he became power hungry now that he has a taste is a different discussion entirely. Prior to being elected, however, I think he meant what he said...mostly.
Re:A sound plan (Score:4, Insightful)
They more than likely have figured something out- listen to the fscking engineers that designed and built the vehicle. The only two shuttle failures to date were caused by management's unwillingness to listen to engineer feedback. With Challenger, the manufacturer of the O-ring in the solid rocket booster warned NASA the O-ring was NOT rated to launch under the cold conditions of that day. Managers effectively said "don't worry about it" and launched anyway. With Columbia, engineers saw the foam strike on launch video, and asked management for military/hubble satellite photography to check for damage to the leading edge of the wing. Managers effectively said "it was foam, what damage could it possibly have done, don't worry about it" without understanding that a block of foam traveling 400 miles per hour has some serious kinetic energy, especially when it hits the relatively delicate carbon-carbon tiles.
Bottom line is, both of those tragedies could have been avoided, if the managers actually considered the dangers engineers presented to them. If Richard Branson and Virgin figure out how to listen to the people working with the designs and hardware when there are potential problems, with a solid enough vehicle they likely could have a perfect launch record.
Re:It's not spin, it's Obama's personal priorities (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
#1: Obama had bad things to say about the *manned* space program -- he always liked the robotic parts.
#2: Presidents have cut manned programs before. We've been trying to build a replacement for the shuttle since it was built, but they keep being overdesigned, underfunded boondoggles that have to be cut. Its only making a bigger splash now because we can't keep using the shuttle.
#3: The politicization of NASA, a necessary evil for any government program, is a good argument FOR putting basic LEO launch infrastructure in the hands of a more robust commercial ecosystem. If bad leadership ruins one of multiple companies that are contracted to for launch, then the results are much less drastic.
#4: A space program that exists to employ people is great example of the broken window fallacy. We do it because its important, and if we can do more with less, as this plan hopes, that seems like a good thing. It may cause temporary pain as business model changes, but its good for the industry and the country in the long term.
#5: Regarding contributions to society, how is this going to change. NASA is great at doing *NEW* things -- getting people to LEO isn't new. If the basic foundation of LEO-access is made more sustainable and reliable by fixed-price competitive contracts, then they'll be able to do those truly new and valuable things -- exploration of NEOs, solar-power, self-sustaining systems -- better since thats all they have to worry about.
#6: We're not not going into space, we're just changing how we pay for it - cutting the corporate welfare of cost-plus contracts and proceeding to the more efficient fixed-price contracts of a mature market.
#7: Keeping going on a flawed design is another economic fallacy. If its cheaper to start over than it is to keep going, or if there are fundamentally better ways to go about things, you don't consider sunk costs, you only consider costs to proceed. Ares wasn't just flawed because of technical challenges, it was flawed because in many ways it was designed by congress, keeping the various contractors happy.
#8: Ares is not the space program! I've yet to see anything about Orion being cut (Augustine talked about putting it on top of an EELV), and I've yet to see anything that says that the amount we're spending will go down. NASA will continue to explore, this will just make it easier for them to do that instead of fretting about the space-taxi part. This is *good* for our space industry and could put us leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, as multiple contractors going in multiple directions refine and improve our capabilities far better than a monolithic program could.
The sky is not falling, we're not giving up our leadership. It could be painful for some workers at NASA centers (and I sincerely apologize and thank you for your work if you're one of them), but this is probably the best, most sustainable path forward for manned spaceflight.
Privatizing by a Democrat... (Score:2, Insightful)
From reading a few of the posts, it already proves what Im about to say.
Does anyone find it funny that the Republicans want to privatize _everything_, and the Democrats want to government-ize everything.. and yet, here's a Democrat wanting to privatize a govt sector, and the Republicans are screaming the end of the world?
It also continues to strengthen my belief that the Democrats and Republicans are brothers who fight over everything because they're too immature to talk about things rationally, and are taking us all down with them.
Need more Libertarians, damnit. Stop thinking you're throwing your vote away if you dont vote for a Republicrat.
Re:How's that working out (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking money from hardworking people and giving it to non-hardworking people
For the last damn time, poor != lazy! I don't claim to know enough about the healthcare bill and whatnot to know whether it's good or bad. But I do know there are millions of poor people who work just as hard and harder than the wealthy and are just unlucky or in an impossible situation, and this attitude that a lot of people seem to have about them is total bullshit. If you don't want the government taking money from you, fine, that's a perfectly legitimate position. But don't try to make it sound less like greed by acting like you're any better than the single mom working two jobs to support her kids because her dipshit husband left her.
I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate reasons to be against Obama and whatever he's doing, but this attitude that he's taking money from 'good, hardworking people' to give it to those 'lazy bastards down the street' is NOT one of them. Get off your horse.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is rare that I do not see Barney Frank screaming and yelling at the camera's about something.
I find it funny that people find Rush extreme but Carville not.
I believe you are mistaking "emotionally violent" with passion and see "extreme" as something different than what you believe.
And I don't know anybody that finds Matthews conservative. He just had a show on the other night about how the republicans were being taken over by conservatives (gasp!) and went on about how terrible that was along with calling the black conservative repubican on the a sellout and a lapdog sucking up to his masters.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is rare that I do not see Barney Frank screaming and yelling at the camera's about something.
Barney Frank doesn't work for a fucking news channel. He's a politician, he's expected to make an ass of himself.
I find it funny that people find Rush extreme but Carville not.
Forgive me for leaving the Gollum/Lizard Baby out of my list.
I believe you are mistaking "emotionally violent" with passion
No, passion is something grounded in reality, presented with concise and logical thinking...unlike political pundits, who throw tantrums and have knee-jerk reactions so bad they can barely walk.
and see "extreme" as something different than what you believe.
I define "extreme" as someone who uses fear to change people's opinion.
This is extreme. [crooksandliars.com]
And I don't know anybody that finds Matthews conservative. He just had a show on the other night about how the republicans were being taken over by conservatives (gasp!) and went on about how terrible that was along with calling the black conservative repubican on the a sellout and a lapdog sucking up to his masters.
And where did I ever say Matthews was a conservative? I just lumped him in with the rest of the people paid to give us their opinion...they don't freakin' matter, and people shouldn't listen to them.
People need to learn how to form their OWN political opinion without listening to pundits from EITHER side. Period.
Re:Beware of the spin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you remember ABC/CBS/NBC/MSNBC/CNN/NYT/LAT/WaPo etc running stories front and center on their flagships about, say, Obama's admitted drug use? I can remember those same outlets attacking GWB the weekend before the 2000 election front and center. I can remember Dan Rather using phony evidence to push a story about GWB's National Guard years (again, remember, Obama's actions during the same time are irrelevant per you).
YES!
I'm at work so I can't dig up footage, but look around on youtube. I 100% PROMISE that you will find news footage from all of the major networks covering everything about Obama that Fox did, minus the frothing at the mouth.
And, some NON-BLOG sources for you that is either about or mentions his drug use:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/12/politics/uwire/main3823725.shtml [cbsnews.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/americas/24iht-dems.3272493.html [nytimes.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/clinton.obama/index.html [cnn.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/27/costello.drug.use/index.html [cnn.com]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201359.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Barack+Obama's+Drug+Use [obamapedia.org]
Are you honestly going to tell me that the same amount of reporting went into Obama's past by the mainstream media as went into Palin's past?
YES I FUCKING AM! Again, check youtube. You will find MANY MANY MANY videos of mainstream news agencies questioning things about Obama's past.
Or did I just imagine that I heard "God Damn America" and "William Ayers" nonstop during election season?
If so, defend the statement by Tom Brokaw, one of the most entrenched national news anchors, that we didn't get to know Obama before the election
I will answer this by asking a question: if you have such a problem with the way the MSM handled Obama, why are you quoting one of its most prolific members to support your argument?
Re:How's that working out (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why we have thugs in L.A. who bitch and moan about living in the ghetto, but then they never even try to get an education or even any sort of remedial training that will allow them to get a legitimate job.
I have no idea why slashdot would choose to mark this as interesting. It is a gross over-simplification of the socio-economic problems in inner cities.
Google "inner city gang cycle poverty cycle" and start reading. There are literally hundreds of factors at play, and simply saying "if they don't take advantage of (the tiny) aid we give, then F'em" is at best ignorant and at worse sociopathic.