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Privatize NASA
Posted May 13th, 2008 by jzneff
output
The federal government needs to spin off NASA as a non-profit organization. It simply has become infected with bearucrats and will continue to simply be a cash sink.
Case in point...in the 1960's, NASA was quite poorly funded, but had some ambitious goals. These great men found the way around the problems and did it on the cheap. What they accomplished in less than a decade is mind boggling.
But...when NASA started to get more funding dedicated to it after success in the Apollo missions and others, this organization which was once run by largely scientists, became infected with government waste and mindset.
Since we (i'll leave it arguable to not stir up a hornet's nest) landed on the Moon in 1969, what great achievements have we made? We wasted billions on the space shuttle, a idea so stupid that only government could come up with it. We've lost 14 brave people and threw money at this monumentally wasteful program.
Now the fed controlled NASA is saying we should be able to make it back to the Moon within 20 years...WTF??? 20 years??? We did it in less than 10 with transistor radios and velcro, and now it takes 20 years to get back?
Let's show the Russians and Chinese what America is truly about, not a massive government program paid for by the collective masses, but an enterprising venture paid for by willing participants and dedicated to pushing the limits of science and engineering.
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I've always loved this idea
"Evil flourishes when good men do nothing."
—Edmund Burke
NASA is scam
There is no legitimate reason for the government to tax us to fund space adventures, unless it is directly related to national defense.
I'm confident Dr. Paul would agree.
This troll has some good views
Thanks, troll! I couldn't have said it better myself! Oh, except that if we, as a people, demanded that the government coordinate space exploration through our elected representatives, then they could go ahead and do it.
But otherwise, a great response. Are you coming to the light?
'Live for yourself, there's no one else more worth living for,
Begging hands and bleeding hearts
Will only cry out for more...'
Absolutely not, asshole.
Even if the majority voted for space exploration, it shouldn't be done. The U.S. is not supposed to be a democracy but a constitutional republic, where a Constitution is supposed to prevent the majority from forcing its will on the minority. You need to learn some basic political principles, concerning limited government and constitutional republicanism. How can you support majority rule and support Dr. Paul, who opposes it, at the same time? Moron.
Libertarian ideas are just so alien to you, due to a lack of education on your part, that you think everything's a troll.
Two words: Spacecraft One.
Two words: Spacecraft One. Look it up. Great example of private vs. govt.-funded space travel.
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"It is not the abuse of power, it is the power to abuse."
- Michael Cloud, Libertarian
SS1 vs Shuttle
BTW...The Burt Rutan designed bit of beauty that won the X-Prize is called SpaceShipOne...
it now resides in the National Air and Space Museum alongside the Wright Flyer...The Bell X-1...and the X-15A1...ohmy...
Some financial facts...
Each time that Shuttle Launch Control says..."you are go for Autosequencer start...." it costs between 985 MIllion and 1.25 Billion...
Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites built the launching aircraft "White Knight"...SpaceShipOne itself...and flew it 4 times for 25 Million...
An interesting technical fact...
SS1 was designed with an original "feathered reentry" concept...it enters Earth's upper atmosphere in an extremely high drag configuration...slows rapidly before the air has the density to transfer much heat to the airframe...
A Shuttle reaches nearly 3000 degrees during the hot parts of reentry...
SS1 was spotted with special color changing paints to see how hot it got...the paint only begins to change color at 600C...none did...
Burt Rutan is a freakin genius...
Dave
Teaching Flying...and talking Ron Paul...and Liberty!
indeed
indeed
Agree 110%
What happened after the moon? A bunch of satellites that gives us pretty pictures. No more ambitious goals of colonization, of going to Mars. We could have done these things 20-30 years ago. All that money down the sink. At least we still have a few pioneers out there. Lets see if they get into space before the boom comes down on the world economy.
Hey...
Don't knock the satellites to bring me TV...they're letting me watch my Pistons in high definition.
I agree...NASA lost their ambition years ago.
I agree 100%.
You might notice that my user name has a reference to space development, which has been a passion of mine for years.
I would invite anyone interested in space exploration and development of the "final frontier" to check out my brother's article:
Necessity and Incentives: Opening the Space Frontier
Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Space
at
http://www.geocities.com/...
NASA is beautiful example of the unintended consequences produced by a project receiving "help" from the federal government.
If NASA had used the same amount of money they have been budgeted over the years to create X-prize type incentives to fund private enterprise research and development, we would probably have resort hotels on the moon by now.
Instead they competed with private enterprise by subsidizing the incredibly complex, bloated, inefficient, and dangerous space shuttle which virtually insured that no one would try to get into the space business.
If you want to see a private non-profit organization's vision of what could be our future in space, check out:
http://ssi.org/
But apparently we are going to have to wait for NASA to get out of the way.
Isn't if ironic
That the Soviets have to teach us a thing about private enterprise?
Aren't they the first ones who toyed with the idea of selling a trip into space? There's something sad when a society of dedicated collectivists have to teach The United States of America a lesson on economic freedoms.
Couldn't agree more.
We should be much more advanced than we currently are dealing with space exploration and interaction.
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http://www.youtube.com/wa...
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We can all say what needs to be done, but who here led by example today?
What clause of the Constitution
authorizes NASA again?
Privatize it.
Let's Reign! (Rev. 5:10)
Hold your horses there buddy
First, let me state my personal relationship with NASA and space exploration. I'm an avid fan and follower of all governmental and private space exploration. I've been following it for about half of my life, don't worry I'm not that old, and I will tell you that your arguments are a little off and that you should be thanking to government for making some good investments (finally!)
First, we'll get technical. Launching things into earth orbit is very expensive and is often quoted as price per pound. During the early days, i believe the p/lb was in the $10,000's and has since come down in price with gaining technology. There are two ways to reduce costs in this scenario, first, get better rockets that can lift stuff cheaper, and/or second, make the stuff your actually lifting lighter and thus it is cheaper to launch. During the last couple of decades technology has been moving on both fronts but mainly on the miniaturization of technology. Why do you think cell phones, laptops, computers themselves, have become more compact and powerful at the same time. NASA is a huge reason that the United States is ahead of the world technologically and a big reason why this technology trickles down to the rest of the world in due time. The very computer your using right now might not even have existed if not for NASA.
For a list of other fields NASA has contributed towards check this http://www.thespaceplace....
Now. The numbers. If you count the percentages of NASA's budget against the federal budget you'll notice that NASA really only takes up less than 1%, less than 1%. For ALL the benefits humanity sees from this agency I could never comprehend, i guess only ignorance, on why people complain so much about this agency. It is widely known that for every dollar "invested" in the NASA budget the country sees an actually higher return on investment in terms of economic GDP (products developed at NASA and sold to the general public). So instead of looking at NASA as a burden you should maybe ask yourself why they are not giving NASA more money???
By the way, just for comparison's sake. During the moon race I believe NASA's budget was somewhere around 3-5% the federal budget. So, over the years NASA has seen significant budget cuts, maybe not in hard numbers but inflation also hurts government agencies if they are not receiving the extra funds to compensate for it.
That is a quick overview of the White world of NASA. I could go into the BLACK world but I'm sure its something that isn't really needed in this thread.
I'm not questioning the value of the space program
I think we should have a space program...I just think that it could be run better if did not entirely rely on the feds for funding, and was not run by federal beaurocrats.
What i'm saying is that when run by private industry, things are done faster and cheaper. Instead of funding NASA to the tune of 16 billion dollars per year, perhaps it would be better to offer private grants to the first company to meet certain benchmarks.
Collectivism always looks pretty good when you have nothing to compare it to. We haven't begun to see what could occur with private money driving space exploration.
It would be an amazing leap in a short time. I'm picturing Marriott funding the first orbital hotel. They could run something like that for profit, and we'd get all the advantages of NASA and more.
I agree in a way
I've always been interested in our small attempts to explore our universe. Of course, not much has changed since the space race in the 60's and that's simply sad. A private organization could actually be progressing at a fast rate and we would be able to see amazing results. However, that's the only thing I agree with. There is no way that the Fed will ever privatize any of their departments because they have uses for them that have nothing to do with space or anything else they say. They need our money to fund all the compartmentalized secret projects, and NASA is in the heart of it.
Let's imagine for a moment.
That instead of wasting 3 trillion dollars on Daddy Bush's war the past three years we decided to put half that to the space program and half towards education.
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http://www.youtube.com/wa...
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We can all say what needs to be done, but who here led by example today?
Better math equasion
I know Bush's war has been a waste of money and lives, i've got thousands of my dollars and 2 of my loved ones in Iraq as we speak.
But to answer your question with another question...What if the 3 trillion dollars was not taken from us in the first place?
Education is a great thing and should be of primary importance, but to leave the fed in charge of spending that money...might as well just make a huge bonfire with dollars.
Nothing says that even if NASA were a private entity that it couldn't be funded by the feds. In fact, if we had 2 NASA-type private groups, then they would be competing not only for private donations, but federal money as well. Competition is a beautiful thing for innovation...and the space program has lost its direction since the Soviets fell on their faces.
Look at the X-prize. For only 10 million dollars, a plane was sent into sub-orbit by private enterprises. It was bankrolled by a lot of rich people competing for prestige and future funding.
NASA's 2007 budget was $16,800,000,000. For that money, we could have funded over 1000 competitions like this.
Take one year of NASA's funding, and make a competition to land the first man on Mars. It would happen within a decade.
Check these out
Check out Richard C. Hoagland's "The Monuments of Mars" and "Dark Mission". After reading all of Zecharia Sitchin's work, I started wondering how much NASA was covering up and found out that the answer is A LOT.
NASA has a monopoly on the space industry and is actually a division of the DOD. Anyone capable of starting a pirvate space industry will either already be in the govt's pocket or be summarily shut down before they even get started. There are too many secrets, too much power at stake.
"Doc" Holladay
Nashville, TN
thanks for bringing this in doc.
~peace
i'm not sure that others are ready for this though!!
please e-mail me so we can chat. you gotta check something else out-u will FREAK!!
Hey freespeach!
I may have your "handle" mixed up with someone else. Where can I contact you? If you are C D F, my apologies for the confusion.
Doc
doc n oruval
~peace
doc-you can just click my name-freespeech and e-mail me and oruval, i just e-mailed you!
DOC- i e-mailed you also
Hey I want in too.
Send me the info as well if you don't mind.
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http://www.youtube.com/wa...
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We can all say what needs to be done, but who here led by example today?
I disagree
Fortune Favors the Bold
NASA has done quite alot. I would actually make the case that space programs and scientific research are one of the limited areas that the federal government should be involved in, although perhaps rolled into the military. This is kind of a lengthy point though, and not directly related to ron paul.
I counter your disagreement, partly
I would agree with a military aspect of NASA, but the scientific functions should be funded privately. Maybe NASA could be leased by private researchers to finance their space related experiments.
well
Fortune Favors the Bold
if you want to discuss this, I'll admit, it is a difficult question in the context of libertarianism and the constitution. But scientific research is one of the few areas in which private enterprise can't compete with public funding. Paradoxically, for the very same reason that private enterprise is so much better at everything else. Scientific research has to be INEFFICIENT, or it ceases to be science in the sense that we know it. I would say, the rate of progress was actually better in the fifties/sixties because of the large degree of military funded research.
When private companies fund research, they have a specific purpose in mind. Take the pharmaceutical industry, this is the worst example of this. By having the conclusion they want BEFOREHAND, the scientists who can produce that conclusion are the ones who get paid. The thing here is , conclusion, not result. Now, if you deregulated the industry this would certiainly help. But generally, the only way science work is if you do general research. General research does not benefit anyone SPECIFICALLY, because you don't know what it will yield. It benefits everyone generally. The space program produced tons of scientific breakthroughs, although no one could have predicted the practical applications in the specific. This is why we have a brain drain problem here in the US, increasingly, China is snatching up our scientists and treating them like rockstars. Now, how you work this out in the constitutional framework is a tough one, Maybe a voluntary taxation program? I don't know. The truth is, if america didn't do scientific research, all the scientists will just go to other countries. it's a tough one.
Evidence?
"But scientific research is one of the few areas in which private enterprise can't compete with public funding." A great deal of scientific research is funded by the federal government. Why? I would argue that not only is it an improper function of the government but that it is both inefficient and counterproductive. Let free markets and profit motive power the inventive spirit.
well
Fortune Favors the Bold
i'm just not sure how you get around this: Let's say a company has been developing a drug for depression. Now, they want to show that this drug has a high efficacy profile. They hire a researcher. The researchers' results: It doesn't work. They hire another research. He uses methods of statistical analysis that yield a succeful profile (he ignores those who dropped out because of side effects, and chooses a set of criteria on the DSM IV arbitrarily that best meet his test results. He also chooses a favorable window. For example, lets say the highest percentage of responders was in a four week window, so he makes it a four week study after the fact. He also asks question that are loaded, favoring those who are more likley to respond to placebo, ie., those who have recent symptoms as oppossed to recalcitrant symptoms). This is actually a common industry practice, and as i have mentioned before, I do off the books research for a doctor who is aware of how deceptive the drug reps can be. Now, obviously, a company is more likely to higher the second researcher, based on his previous experience, then the first, more objective researcher. There is market incentive for bad science. True, lacking an FDA backed monopoly, this wouldn't be a good long term business model. And yet, the realtively ineffective SSRI drugs continue to dominate the market, while the older, off patent drugs that are more effective have a tiny market share. You see the dilemma.
Also, since "pure" research can't produce specific technological advances, but is very expensive, what incentive is there for companies to fund it? A physics researcher for example, may do an experiment that shows how to use metals more efficiently. That's great, but what did it have to do with the plastics company who sponsor his physics research? I am not talking about the morality of publicly funded research here, just that market incentive may not drive the best research.
You say: "Since "pure"
You say: "Since "pure" research can't produce specific technological advances, but is very expensive, what incentive is there for companies to fund it?"
Potential profit is the incentive to fund it. Look at the biotechnology field. Most of the funding, including basic research (i.e. non-specific research) is private.
Look it up if you don't believe me.
What John Galt describes, to a point,
is the story of Viagra. This drug was originally developed for an entirely different reason but was a failure. It did not "work". However, at a meeting discussing the failure it was revealed that a common side effect was erections. The rest is history but only because this was a private company that could/would act on the information. They saw $$$$$$. That's called profit motive. Imagine if this had been a government funded project or overseen by a government agency.
Nasa already is privatized
I recommend reading Dark Mission. Nasa is a typical government set up. Nasa in the public eye doing "great" things with JPL in the wings to do black work funded through Nasa. Started by nazi ss Von Bruen out of world war II. Nasa and JPL are 50 years ahead of what we know in the general public under the excuse of national security. There is no money, so it does not matter who funds it, but I suspect if you guys think hard enough some similar organizations will pop up. The public is aware of little or nothing of what went on on the moon, and nothing since then. Don't you wonder what they are doing up there? They don't wonder. They have good reason beyond what your average Joe thinks. If anyone thinks that Nasa is for the good of mankind they are saddly mistaken. All societies are taken over by supression of technology and knowledege. Nasa in coincidence with black ops are the forerunners as far as the U.S goes. Private, public- no matter. They are motivated by the false powers that money brings and have an unlimited supply of it. Do more research, anyone who defends Nasa and the "space program" is ignorant, though we could find some good in any organization at any time, any place.