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NASA Shuts Down X-33, X-34 Programs
abde writes: "Sad news on Space.com -- NASA has canceled the X-33 reusable launch vehicle program due to cost overruns and severe budget cuts. Looks like we are stuck with the aging Space Shuttle [?] and NASA has relinquished the quest for cheap space launch capability. But hey, at least rich people get a tax cut (even if they don't want one)..."
Did you read the Salon article? So then, are you saying that the 120 millionaires that signed Bill Gates Sr.'s petition don't understand economics? Are you saying that Alan Greenspan doesn't understand economics? Are you saying that Paul O'Neill (the treasury secretary) doesn't understand economics? And every other politician and so forth that opposes the tax cut... They all have no understanding of economics, but somehow you do? Yes, I'm using repetition to drive the point home. Yes, I'm using an appeal to authority to back up my stance. But I think it seems an appropriate response to your appeal to insult.
On a side-note, regarding your comment "So who does benefit from the tax cut? The middle class, primarily, especially professionals earning in the $50K - $150K range""... What about the statement in the article about how "David Stockman, shocked Washington by admitting that the administration's tax reductions for middle-class Americans were 'a Trojan horse' to disguise massive cuts for the rich" during the Reagan era? Are you suggesting that GWB's tax policy, which seems no different than Reagan's, is any different?
It really comes down to what you believe works the best. For example, trickle-down economics or trickle-up. Incredibly knowledgeable people exist in both of these 2 camps. Saying one or the other of them don't really understand economics is a pretty narrow viewpoint.
I modded the Troll Investigation and I got
I don't know where you got your bogus figures from. Clinton increased NASA's budget by 4.8% for FY 2001, and Bush increased NASA's budget by 2% for FY 2002.
0 02_010228.html
NASA's budget has remained approximately constant after adjusting for inflation since 1992; Clinton's budget increase for NASA in FY 01 was the first real budget for NASA since then.
See http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/ca01ag.htm#nasa
and
http://www.space.com/news/spaceagencies/funding_2
I didn't say anything about checks.
America provides laws, incentives, and business environment that made all these rich people.
Put Bill Gates in a garage in any other country in 99% of the rest of the world in the 80's and he would still be in that garage.
Put him in any other country in that last 1% of the world (Europe) and he'd be paying 50% of his income to taxes.
Success isn't "magical" and Americans certainly don't have any exceptional intelligence. It is the US government that created and maintains this country from extortion, corruption, outside invaders, and even from itself. Try to get a business license in India and your product will be two years obsolete by time your allowed to sell it.
- I like pudding.
Nasa's problems are not so much their own, but are actually imposed upon them from without. The government, changing every few years, sometimes headed with visionaries, other time by ignorant idiots (Bush, for instance). They cut the purse strings on a timeline that doesn't work with long-term plans as space exploration and development require. They don't see a real tangible result NOW, they think none can possibly be forthcoming.
Nasa is trying to do the best it can with pathetic resources it is allowed. If it was supported in any way along the lines it was in the 60s, we would be making great strides, would likely be well on the way to having humans on Mars, would be mining the moon, have large solar power satellites in orbit, etc. Don't blame Nasa because they cannot do this with $1.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Before you all go complaining about the "rich" and the "poor" and how everything's unfair, how true is that?
My family has been middle income for as long as I remeber, but as I married and my wife and I got jobs in the Information industry, we moved into what the legislators consider the "rich." I don't feel "rich," and having to pay more taxes (percentage-wise) I feel that I'm being punished for success. The more I make, the larger of a percentage that I lose. Being right on the bottom end of the "rich" part of the scale, I actually take home $7000 less than someone earning $2000 less than me.
Sounds fair to me.
Secret windows code
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
There is a simple solution for all of these sole proprietorship/family businesses: incorporate. A corporation lives on past the death of one person, and has other tax breaks too. No 55% tax at any single point in time. If my college roommate could incorporate in order to get a better deal on school supplies, it can't be too tough for a million-dollar business to do so.
People that complain about the estate tax just haven't realized yet that they are using the wrong legal tools to run their business.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The tuition measurement was the tuition at the time. Universities were a lot cheaper 25 years ago. :)
You should have read the URL.
You are living it up I have a '96 Corolla!
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This
That is part of the reform.
It sounds like your suggestion is to do nothing and throw your hands up in exasperation because another problem may appear.
That's not a very solid plan.
- I like pudding.
I live in Redmond, the same city as MS's headquarters, and went to a private school in the same league @ BG's (which is called Lakeside BTW)...the tuition is about 12-13K/yr, not 100K/yr (3x Harvard) as the poster states.
--matt Cowger
So many common day goods (flash freezing, microwaves, teflon ...) that we all know and love and depend on are direct spin-offs of the huge investment made in bleeding edge exploration. It is highly unlikely that any company could have afforded to develop these, had they even forseen the market.
SO in a way, yes. NASA is welfare for scientists, but everyone benefits.
In this light, I'd have to say that the budget cuts for NASA were the right thing. The ISS has never been that cutting edge or exploratary, so it is unclear what technological advances it would drive -- the earth is too close and will always be a crutch. A base on the MOON tho. Now that would be cool and useful!
Oh pardon me, so all your venom toward the rich was just for show and you didn't mean to insinuate anything about what they pay in taxes? give me a break. If you really believe that most rich people don't work for what they earn then you are an idiot. Maybe you should heed your own advice and read to comprehend what I was flaming you over. ;)
Well, there's at least one project that has a better possibility of reducing launch costs to LEO. Check out Scorpius by Microcosm.
Sure, it's not as sexy as new, untested wizz-bang technologies (like aerospike engines, composite H2 tanks, scramjets, etc.). It pretty much follows LEO on the Cheap by Lt. Col John R. London. After reading this book, you'll start to really wonder why projects like the X-33 and X-34 were funded in the first place. You'll start to see the massive politics behind the space industry.
Why does everyone who talks about this topic only mention family businesses and farms? THERE IS A VAST AMOUNT OF PRIVATELY HELD WEALTH IN THE US. This is not quantified by the cute charts you're pulling up from google, and the average estate size is a little bit over the tax cap limit--THAT'S WHY IT'S THERE. And anyway, if someone's dad wants to buy them a Porsche, do you want to take that right away just because yours never did?
Well, according to a presentation I saw by some NASA engineer at the University of Michigan earlier this year, the Space Shuttles are only 25% into their predicted lifespan. Meaning they think they can get decades more out of them. I don't particularly agree, but it looks like they'll have to at least try...
.. but I'm only a dumb hick, so what do I know, right?
/. poster did it too. I fully expected to see CmdrTaco or something up there.)
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Well, I dunno about that, but I do know that your complaint was badly aimed. Read the post again. That last line was still in italics, it's from the poster, not timothy.
(Don't feel bad, The obviousness of the irrelevant jab made me thing the
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
I work 33% of the year to support uncle sam, and yet during tax time i still manage to owe more money then the deductions normally witheld from my paycheck
Buying a condo was my tax break, being able to deduct my interest payments on my mortgage brought me to a manageable tax level
Why should i as a person who has never taken disability, never taken unenmployemnt (althought i have been unemployed) and have my own healthcare and medical insurance be the one fitting such a huge tax burden for the people who actually make use of these services? Why should i pay for people to be unemployed whenever i can pay for my own education to keep myself from being unemployed?
I make contributions to several different societies, from environmentalist to inner city foundations. I have my own life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan, savings plan, and cover my liability 100%.
Why again am i working 3 months out of the year to protect someone who doesn't do this for themselves?
Don't tell me they can't! I went to school, i did my work and still do my work and that is why i am here.
I would be more then happy with a 20% tax bracket that allowed 13% more investment in myself and my direct future as well as supporting people who are trying to achieve independance
This is totally off topic, but i'm glad NASA is streamlining rather then spending indefinatly.
Even though i didn't vote for bush, if he can get this tax break through and revive the economy he will get my vote! And if nasa, the military and the general technology aspects of the us increase during his term, i will vote him next time.
Until then, i'm fed up with how much i work to make everyone else life better when there is no one protecting my rights because i'm considered middle/upper middle class.
I'm the one buying shoes, clothes, staying in the hotels, buying the meals, paying for cabs, paying for trains, flying around and spending the cash that supports the economy so why am i being taxed so heavily to let a government dictate who gets my money
okay, offtope but i'm done hehe. some reason the tax part of this topic and postee pissed me off :)
- Set basic parameters for a desired launch vehicle: get x payload to y orbit for under z dollars/lb of payload.
- Guarantee to buy 5-10 launches from ANYONE who can come up with a viable launch vehicle (make them do a test flight first with a dummy payload of journalists). This gives them a chance of generating some cash flow out of the box.
- Provide legal/insurance umbrella for companies.
- Get the hell out of the way.
- There is no step 5.
Jon AchesonAll opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
There's nothing wrong with researching bleeding-edge technology, by all means we should do it. But when we're trying to build a "production use" vehicle, it should use proven technology.
The X-33 concept relied on many unproven concepts. They've found that they can't even manufacture fuel tanks for it that will meet the extreme requirements!
>Note that I'm not talking about specifying this >per project; I mean the WHOLE THING. NASA should >be a dozen people in an office in Washington, >most of 'em accountants, a couple engineers and >scientists.
Not quite; if you want to cut back NASA it should be cut to a bunch of researchers and engineers who basically do experimental research and testing. Along the lines of the x-plane program. Think up something, build a prototype, use the prototype, collect data points, and refine. Then once they work out the bugs license the tech off to intertested parties and begin again. And not just one big thing, like the X-33, but a bunch of different tests at once. Try a bunch of things, don't get fixated on the one true way (TM)
Contract out full scale development and launching. Then follow your suggestion on holding contractors to their bids, and keep NASA from being the aerospace wellfare agency.
Also, this should minimize friction between parts of NASA. Prevent what happened to the DC-X. What a waste. McDonald Douglas built on their own nickle a protoype single stage to orbit vehicle (note the protype was never expected to reach orbit, too heavy, it was just to gather operational data) tested it, validated parts of the flight envelope, had plans to build a follow on the DC-Y, which would be capable of sub orbital ballistic flight, and the after gathering data on that, build the final single stage to orbit vehicle. They turned the DC-X prototype over to NASA, who tested it for a while, but declined to have anything to do with a followup, becuase it conflicted with their X-33 program.
While Clinton is certainly corrupt, only someone entirely ignorant of American history would ever assert that he was worse than Nixon. What about the illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos that killed untold numbers or civilains? What about the assassiination of Allende in Chile? While Clinton was a lecher, a thief and a liar, Nixon was a War Criminal.
Man what a stupid statement.
without the freakin rich we'd ALL be poor and there wouldn't be big corps, or the millions of jobs that are created by these people, or the money they spend being put back into the economy... what a stupid shortsited statement. Those rich idiots who claim they don't need the tax cut? Ha they are just backing up the party line man, biased to the core. What a joke.
the more money rich people have (hence tax cut)
the more money they spend.
The more they spend,
the more the economy soars and helps us all, in the way of jobs, taxs, inductry, etc, etc, etc. I say be fair. The people who pay taxes (everyone) give THOSE PEOPLE the tax cut. Give them freedom of choice with their own money. If you don't see the benefit in this, you don't really understand a free economy. Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
The reasoning for this move are, although sad, is rather obvious. People are not as interested in the space program anymore. Why?
It is the combination of two things. First, the average American does not find space exploration exciting unless it is just that: exploration. Experiments and equipment testing, although necessary, just does not garner widespread public attention. This is an interesting catch-22 in our American society--the fact that people are so horrified when things go wrong (challenger) and blame lack of safety measurements etc, only to cut funding when not enough "exciting" missions occur in rapid succession. You can't have both, IMO.
More importantly, the American people, and their associated representatives have been brainwashed into thinking that any money given to NASA is a frivolous investment, the funding of which could be better used on other programs. The idea that "space is our future" rarely applies anymore unless people see incredible advancements on a rapid schedule or politicians can find some political reasoning to voice their support.
Which brings me to my second point. NASA has some real problems. Management fads are at the extreme in and around JSC. Politics and "pseudo-marketing" (hard to say NASA really "markets" anything, i hope you catch the distinction) have overrun the opinions and agendas of scientists and engineers. Which is where NASA's slogan of "better, cheaper, faster" becomes the biggest oxymoron in the world. NASA designs what must be some of the most complex, and most advanced machinery in the world. Not only that, but this machinery must withstand and incredible environment few can even fully comprehend. If you have read anything on the problems associated with building and designing the ISS, it is fairly plain to see that the technical achievment is very impressive. However, even with such incredible design potential, corners were cut that seem ridiculous in comparison to the money already spent. Likewise, the idea that "budget overrruns" are anything but to be expected in designing a reusable spacecraft is, IMO, ludicrous. Management yells, "we want safety and perfection!", and at the same time "hurry up!". The X-33 and 34 were great ideas that would have sped up and IMO, revitalized the space program. However, I'm sure that "public opinion experts" and budgeting gurus have stamped out these programs in favor of something more flashy like Mars exploration. Just don't be surprised if that runs way overbudget too.
--rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
I wish I could remember the details but it had to do with the fuel tanks
even the engeneers had a problem with they way the were doin it
there was a better solution (off the self or lower tech i can't remember)
http://Lenny.com
I see replies to this post threatening that nobody can be taken seriously in this forum if they have a conservatively slanted post or sig--so what, now this is 'hooray for Linux and liberalism website? Can we have no rational discussion that disagrees with /.'s status quo? You all can look forward to mediocre, static existences if you choose this path.
Now to add my own defense to this idea: the estate tax is social engineering. In the Salon article referred to in the original post, one of the billionaires even admits that it's about not transferring power directly from one generation to the next. Well guess what, if Gate's and Buffet's kids only have 30 billion dollars to spend instead of a 100, they're still going to have a few politicians in their pockets. It's the average WWII era blue-collar worker that saved for his/her whole life, and only wants to see their kids benefit, that is hurt the most. The estate tax is an easy way for the ultra rich to keep a large segment of the population from climbing the economic ladder. It is social engineering at its worst, and it hurts people like you--and those with less money--the most. You don't have to be dirt poor to get screwed by the government.
If these people really did care about America being a meritocracy, they would give away their fortunes like many of last century's elite did (e.g Andrew Carnegie).
In related news, about a week ago B.G.'s foundataion just happened to give $100Million to the aids vaccine project, which actually is on the verge of producing something (they've isolated a source of immunity, it's now just a matter of making a reliable vaccine from it). Do a search on Yahoo!news; I'm slightly too lazy to look up the link.
Don't get me wrong; I still think microsoft is crap just good enough to sell, and Evil(tm) as a business (I mostly use unix and occasionally macs for what I do, for so many reasons). But I do have respect for the man for doing that. Absolutely.
The reason these millionaires are fighting against the repeal of the estate tax is because it doesn't affect them. Bill will never spend all of his billions, and neither will his kids. He's trying to look like a hero by saying "We make too much money already - please keep taking part of what we have earned." The people that would be most affected by this repeal is small-business owners. Right now, if your dad owns a coffee shop (or any kind of business) and dies, his estate is taxed. You may have to sell the shop just to pay those taxes! This is ludicrous. People should be able to keep what they earn, no matter how much or how little it is. We're taxed all of our lives anyway, so why is that money taxed again just because you die? Yes, it would help the rich keep more of what they earned, but it would help alot more people in the middle class keep the American Dream alive.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
I understand NASA will get this project restored when they learn how to keep a balloon inflated! :)
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
What does that mean when the *rich* fight against getting a tax cut?
:)
That's seriously bizarre. Oh well, I guess they can afford it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
After all, it could start wars with small unpopular countries at random, decide to drill for oil in national parks, and dissolve separation of church and state, right?
I see the space future more boring than yesterdays ...
Is my bigest disapointment since the DeepSpace4 JPL program(landing and getting a sample from a commet!) cancelation.
:-(
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
You're wrong. Inflation currently is around 2% or lower, but over the last *seven years* it's been, on average, much higher than that.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Funny. The notion that "Georgie" was selected, as you and other liberals are *still* claiming, has now proven to be ridiculous, as any level-headed person already realized. But, for those who had doubts: using even the most liberal of decision-making for counting the ballots in question, GORE LOST. There has been much rhetoric over the people being disenfranchised, blah, blah, blah, but what about the military voters, hmmm?
Get over it, and stop lying about it. It makes you look stupid. There was no selection on the Republicans' part - if anyone should be talking about voter fraud it shouldn't be the Democrats - that's too close to home for them. The Democrats have a legacy of dead people voting for them, or people voting who live at addresses that are non-residential.
Oh, and I know of no economic theory that claims that a higher tax burden helps the economy. The Debt to which you refer was a direct cause of out-of-control spending by a Democratically controlled Congress in the eighties - well, actually the country's been in debt since WWI (or WWII, I forget) a fact which both sides conveniently ignore in the heat of battle. But in no way was Reagonomics responsible for that debt. Reaganomics DOUBLED the GNP over the course of ten years, if I recall - this is brought up time and time again when you see talking heads facing off over something, and Reaganomics comes up. When the liberal in question is faced with this fact, they always change the topic - I've seen it twice this week already on O'Reilly factor - they never refute it, because they know they can't.
I'm glad you concede that we need a tax cut now, thereby refuting your own claim that raising taxes helps the economy. In what way is Bush's plan not appropriate to help us out?
How can someone like yourself still defend Clinton? Even the ultra-liberal publication (from New York, name escapes me) is ALREADY calling for her resignation after the pardon scandal! Too bad a liberally-biased media only NOW has the balls to say something now, after eight years of sabotage. I mean, the man violates everything groups like NOW is supposed to be against, and they still turned a blind eye, and hinted that the women involved were bimbos/sluts/props of Republicans. Amazing how far someone will go against their idealogy to defend someone who supports the policies they like. Do you personally think it is right that a man in a position of power can sexually harass a subordinate? Why is it okay for Clinton? Why is it just his personal life, when it's on public property, on public time? Why is everything the Bill/Hillary team do that is called into question called a "mistake", and something we need to move past? How can you defend someone who has so obviously been bribed by anyone with money (Communist Chinese, Rich, the Hassidic Jews in New York)? I'm not saying that Bush is flawless. We need to, as a country, keep an eye on him, too, and make sure he's not watching out for only himself and his wife, while screwing over the public. Remember, I'm Libertarian. But so far, he hasn't made a wrong move (as in criminal activity) as Pres. Let's hope it stays that way. I know the media won't fall asleep at the wheel if it's a Republican doing the wrongs, so I fear less when it's a Republican in power.
The only time I touch Salon ("touched" is more appropriate now) is when /. linked to them. I read their tech/space stories, and that was about as much good as they did for me.
It isn't even likely to drive technological innovation.
I'd have to disagree with you there. Government money goes to public and private universities in research grants, which have resulted in numerous innovations and technological advances. Government money also goes to contracts, which then spur technological innovation. While no, our government has always shifted away from internal research, some is always being done. The work done at government labs, such as JPL, LLNL, etc., are all extremely advanced (check out NIF, or its predicessors such as Nova at LLNL). Government contracts have built defense industries, for instance, but at the same time others such as IBM, Sun, etc. IBM has made numerous advances (#1 patent holder) due to foriegn and domestic contracts.
Also, your notion that ADA was horrible is unfounded. There have been arguments both ways, but none I've heard saying it was not worthwhile or significant.
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"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
Many military people qualify for food stamps because they are paid little by civilian standards. One of the reasons they are paid little by civilian standards is that their housing is completely taken care of, and the value of their housing is not taken into account when calculating eligibility for Aid to Families with Dependent Children assistance. That doesn't mean that we have a military depending on AFDC to make sure their kids get fed. It is in significant part an artifact of the way compensation is given to the enlisted ranks.
Being as we're all concerned about blind statistics, and all.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Why does it seem like everything I read on ./ thats political seems to be posted by Dick Gepheardt?
This "we're trying to get along but those darned republicans make it so hard, mom!" attitude I read here can get a bit old, a bit quickly.
Am I wrong in thinking there a general democratic mindset here?
That seems quite amazing to me, considering I've always thought of ./ readers as people who worked hard to get where they were. I know I have. I want whats mine & the lesser government, the better. Hence, the vote for W. Why do I seem the minority here?
Okay, you keep a little more of your money, I'll keep the roads, public education, environmental protection, judicial system, police officers, air traffic controllers, and military. How much money do you think you can make without those services being there?
People who talk about the government's money vs. the people's money don't generally tend to talk about the people's debts, or the people's services. Think government needs to be scaled back? Fine, that's a discussion we can have. Let's not act as if taxation is a priori theft, because it isn't.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Lockeed's design was a radical step using very raw technologies, one of which was the the aerospike which was designed by Rocketdyne, another former Rockwell now Boeing entity. When Lockeed's win was announced, many at Rcokwell/Boeing felt that Lockeed's design would never work given the time and budget constraints. Over time we heard of various set-backs with Lockeed's X-33. There was even a rumor back in 1999 that if Lockeed screwed up again with X-33, NASA would kill it and would move towards a new project that was basically a major upgrade of the existing shuttle which would entail complete rewrites of all the flight control software and redesigns of internal systems. This was great news at the now Boeings Space Systems division (renamed to Reusable Launch Systems) since that would mean doubling the programming and systems staff since the original software/systems would still be maintained.
--Don't mind me, I just spent the last 2 hours in alt.beer
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just for the record, I think expansion into space is important, and if not done will probably lots of suffering and loss of life. However, I'm sick and tired of the Potemkin Village equivalents that NASA builds. They'd do nothing but cost us money and fail us when we really need good space launch... say, right before the next Tungusta event.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Thanks for the link--it is very interesting reading and excellent food for thought re: the purpose and future of NASA.
"But let's be clear, it is a form of sponsorship for scientists, whose results are of interest only to other scientists. The days of NASA providing marketable benefits to the average American citizen are long gone."
Mindsets like yours are extremely maddening! THE PURPOSE OF SCIENCE IS ***NOT*** MARKETABILITY!!!!! NASA was never intended to be a market research organization! Congress created NASA to put US space technology on a par with world-leading space technology, following the Soviet launch of Sputnik and the US launch failure in 1957. IT WAS NOT INTENDED TO PRODUCE MERCHANDISE!!! NASA EXISTS TO CONDUCT SCIENTIFIC SPACE RESEARCH!!!
It is only the grace of God that any form of science ever results in economic benefits. The fact is, whoever learns how the world around them works, gains a significant advantage in the use of that world. Quite often, that results in a financial benefit--but, that is not the goal of pure scientific research! The idea that all worthwhile science results in immediate economic gratification is a form of brutish ignorance, on a par with people who question the need for a smoke alarm or fire extinguisher simply because they haven't ever needed one.
NASA has a lot of problems, largely caused by people who don't know anything about science telling them what kind of programs they should be pursuing. For example, the United States probably should have a space station. However, the International Space Station is mostly a political and economic excuse, rather than the scientific research tool it might have been without outside interference. That's not to say that scientists always choose the most efficient way to conduct research; but at least scientists have a good idea as to the kind of research that should be conducted!
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
What good is it to put money into the research when the people dueing the research are getting stupid? Not mention all the "stupid" research project that millions are spent on just in the name of science.
Why should the government keep funelling our money into projects they are not as good as they were when they first started? They shouldn't. Why should the government keep my money if they over taxed me? They shouldn't. It is my money. I can spend it far better than the government where a lot of my money gets tied up in "red tape" and other beaucratic nightmares.
The fact of the mater are:
1. It's our money. We should get to spend it how we want.
2. We can spend our money better than the government.
How will Bush put us back into the Dark ages? He is not. He is put money in education. He wants children to be able to switch to a better school if the public school where the children are learning is not doing a good job of educating them. He doesn't want to just keep funelling money into programs that may not be working at all.
What good is the best science research if the next generation doesn't understand what the previous generations have done? It's no good. You have to have your priorities straight. We should keep the space shuttle for now. The replacement projects keep ballooning in cost and are over budget. With the international space station being built, some experiements will be done there. We can cut down the number of trips into space.
We are far from heading into dark ages. If anything I would say the Democrats were sending us to into the dark ages with all there funnelling of money into old useless programs that may only work in a couple of states!
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
"The inmates actually DO have a say in whether or not they are forced to do labor."
It is left to the reader as an exercise to find the oxymoron in this sentence. And I'm not refering to the individual who said it.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
What kind of cookie? Chocalate Chip? I mean for Chocoalate Chip cookies I could probably find you one.
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This
I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but am I the only one who thinks that this isn't such a bad thing? I don't know if anyone else noticed, but there isn't THAT much wrong with the shuttles over all.
Their biggest problems are the costs of refirbishing the shuttle after every launch. If we could apply modern technology to develop new heat shields and more efficient boosters, the cost of launch could be tremendously cut! Especially when you consider that those are the only places you can make the launch cheaper. You figure after every launch/reentry they still need a full team of engineers to check the vehicle over top to bottom. Can't save any money there. Or how about mission control? Really can't save much money there either.
Where I would really like to see Nasa spend some dough, is on engines for space. I mean, imagine equiping the shuttle with an ION drive! Or allowing it to dock with a booster tank in space! We could stash a LEM in the cargo bay, and use the newly equiped boosters to take another trip to the moon! Imagine the media stir that would cause, considering that we haven't been there in 30 years!
But anyway, just my humble opinion.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Developed countries are facing the problem of underpopulation, not overpopulation.
I stand corrected. Perhaps if I had said "the initial development of Unix"? In any event, not all universities are publicly funded. Even though Berkeley is, the development of Unix by a private+university collaboration still serves to reinforce the point that government funding isn't necessary to drive technological innovation.
It isn't even likely to drive technological innovation. When you have a government funded technology project end-to-end, you're much more likely to end up with something like Ada than something like TCP/IP.
I work on the space program and the Shuttle does a damn good job. I have another question, why is it government has to re-invent the wheel everytime they decide to build something new? I've asked co-workers in the past, why don't we over time build new shuttles with upgraded equipment that would inturn be cheaper to launch?
Down here they build something then run it into the ground. Then they start over from scratch! The X-33 was bound to fail from the beginning! The X-34 was not a replacement, it was a test bed. Look at Columbia, its still flying but when they built the others they were able to make them lighter which enable higher orbit or more payload.
What do you prefer, upgrade old PC reusing some parts or buy all new stuff from scratch? When the bloodsucking auto makers build a new model do they start over with completely different brake pads and rotors or due they use the old proven design?
Maybe the shuttle could have evolved over 30 years into the X-33 instead of trying to start from scratch after 20?
Well, honestly, what do you expect from a guy who has never in his life left North America. No, I am NOT kidding. Before he became President, Bush went to Mexico a couple of times, and maybe Canada. IIRC, He STILL hasn't left the continent yet. It's not like he never had the opportunity..Obviously he never had the desire.
I find it really scary to think that the Leader of the Free World has absolutely no idea what "The Free World" is like; no first hand experience with it. Maybe that kind of shit was acceptable back in the "Guilded Age" of mediocre presidentry in the 1800's, but it's a real detriment now, if you ask me. Already, he's made several diplomatic faux pas because of his basic lack of "How The Countries Of The Rest Of the World" work.
Of course, I thought Gore was a real dickhead too.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
I have just finished reading "The Case For Mars", a book by Robert Zubrin about how to put humans on mars.
Insteaad of creating huge space infrastructure the idea is to go directly. The plan is to send a 'Earth Return Vehicle' to Mars that has the ability to extract fuel from the atmosphere of Mars. This is sent using a single booster - not assembled in space.
Two years later - assuming the ERV is ready to fly with full fuel tanks - the manned mission takes off in a second booster. Again no space stations or moon bases required. The manned mission arrived at mars, aerobrakes through the martian atmosphere into a mars orbit, and in their own time select the entry window to land near the ERV.
They land near the ERV. The ERV holds enough food and provisions for an extended stay on the planet - about one and a half years. The manned mission has brought with them rovers etc to make use of the time - and the ERV makes fuel which can be used by the rovers as well as for the trip back to earth. A year and a half later the climb into the ERV and return home.
How does this relate to the news about the X-33? The point of the above plan is that it doesn't require any technologies that are beond our reach now. The only reason a Manned Mars Mission isn't in the pipeline is political - not technical.
The price tag is somewhere between 30 billion and 50 billion dollars. I remember the excitement that the Pathfinder mission created - and find it difficult to believe that this kind of price tag is out of reach. With 'reality TV' these days I can imagine the profitability of giving earthlings a look into the lives of Marsnoughts.
but I don't think you actually know what you're talking about:
b uffett/index.html
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/15/
I believe that made Timothy post what he posted. Now, 120 millionaires aren't alot of millionaires, but hey, there's 120 rich people who aren't for a tax cut that directly favors them.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
NASA's budget, all their current resources, and all that they know from experience vs. $200M.
You and I both know that story isn't going to have a happy ending... Maybe we need to convince Bill Gates that space is a threat to Windows market dominance? Then we'll see $200B thrown at a private space industry. That'd be something.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Isn't it illegal for us to put weapons in space? Granted, it's illegal for us to build a missile defense system at the current time, but I think alot more people will raise hell once weapons are put into space.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
The point is to provide a basic minimal standard of health care. Something a humane and just society affords all its citizens.
What about a right 'not to be left dying in the street because you fell suddenly ill after your husband divorced you leaving you with no job skills in the market place and no money'?
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Delta Clipper didn't crash and burn. What happened was a tech forgot to reconnect a hydraulic line to one of the landing struts. DC simply tipped over on landing. A horrible, horrible waste. BTW: the 33/34 programs were an utter waste of time and money... the DC concept was workable and CHEAP. But it had no wings, didn't cost hundreds of billions, and made the reusable winged vehicles look silly and overpriced.
Ragging on Isaac Newton for not using the term Newtonian Physics in his documents would sound like an unprovoked attack. This sounds the same.
Is it me or does the shuttle design look a lot like this old GI Joe shuttle?
http://crimsonguard.tripod.com/defiant.html
aztek: the ultimate man
No sig for you!!
Actually, if there was pure refined gold on the Moon, using todays launch veichles, it would cost more that it would return to bring it to Earth.
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Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
It is not "illegal to engage in private spacefaring." There's a large launch-services industry (SeaLaunch being one notable one.)
You seem to be right. I couldn't find any reference to that ban. I know I heard space activists complain loudly about things like that 10 years ago, but if there ever was such a ban, it must be gone now.
I'm dissapointed in how the system is currently structured, yes. NASA has always been in a quandry due to it's untenable status. It's funding is completely at the whim of each administration and subject to a great deal of external manipulation & "adjustment". [...] Rather I see changing the status of NASA or some successor agency to a more stable one with a more reliable budget as being an answer.
But every government agency is subject to those whims. It's inherent in the governmental system. I think the difference is that most agencies delivier tangible benefits to large groups of voters, so they're harder to mess with. And you can't restructure that away.
NASA was created with the mission to win the space race part of the cold war. That mission is accomplished, so it's current purpose is pretty vague.
On the other hand as I noted I don't see any supposed "privitization" being preferable. Already many STS services are privately managed yet there seems little cost savings.
Is this odd? No - I don't think going to an extreme, particularly an extreme I consider an innapropriate response to be the optimal solution.
This rhetorical trick of pretending there is only my alternative and a very extreme and scary one is called "false choice". In reality there are of course many different options.
I found this article on a libertarian space policy. It makes a lot of sense to me. An interesting fact it mentions is that around 60% of space spending is already done by private industry.
http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0005/libsolutions.html
Favorite quote: "no government agency that runs with the efficiency of the Pentagon and the U.S. Postal Service will ever realize the dream of commercially viable orbiting stations or moon bases."
Tell me, do you find it odd that you assert falsehoods, competely disregard the point of much of my posting then misrepresent my position ?
Oh please. Don't be childish.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Who cares about social justice? I owe nothing to anyone, and you owe nothing to me. If I am forced to give up part of my life (i.e. my earnings) to someone or something else, that's slavery. That is Social Injustice. Anyone born to the "wrong parents" (what a bedwetting liberal idea! everyone's a victim of circumstance) can improve their situation. No one is stuck with the opportunities we have. I came from a relatively poor household, have no college education, but I learned how to program and I now make a decent living developing software. I'm not a multi-millionaire, but nothing is stopping me from becoming one except myself. Money is the most important thing in the world. It's what drives the world - whether it's paper money, gold, property, or whatever has any value. Property especially. Many countries don't have the kinds of laws the U.S. does concerning property, and look at them - whole countries living in squalor with wealth all around them! An estate tax (even on properties as little as $2 million) promotes the idea that you don't deserve what you have earned, which is Socialist in nature, and should be avoided by anyone who claims to be an American.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Thanks for the correction. Although I didn't take that into account in my somewhat oversimplified breakdown, I ALSO didn't mention the fact that, of course, the person paying 500,000 in taxes is also paying a larger percentage of his income to start with.
Ah....but who will Moderate the Meta Moderators?
Ever hear the phrase "Our system of government is the worst one possible, except for all the others." Pithy, but not unusual. Sometimes the best solution stinks, too. Also, I think that in both cases, we could replace 'possible' with 'so far.' (BTW, the quote is a paraphrase, and it may be from Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce, I'm not sure.)
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Guess where that 950millions really went to...
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
There is a tax hump between 20 and 27k? Where the hell did you get this information?
_ 02 5k.html
http://www.irs.gov/prod/ind_info/tax_tables/tbl
I'm not even from the US and I know that this is a complete falsehood.
Exactly. The same thing happened to Rotary Rocket. The original plan was to build a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, but after problems with the "rotary engine" concept, it was downgraded to a suborbital technology demonstrator.
Single stage to orbit rockets powered by chemical fuels are inherently marginal. Well over 90% of the vehicle weight at launch has to be fuel, so there are terribly restrictive weight constraints on the vehicle. (By comparison, a commercial airliner at takeoff is typically less than half fuel by weight.) This is the basic reason space travel is just barely possible.
In some ways, that's the problem. If chemical fuels with twice the energy density were available, space travel would be straightforward. If the best fuels had half the energy density, chemical rockets would be hopeless, and atomic-powered space travel (which is quite feasable, provided you launch from somewhere isolated enough for atmospheric nuclear testing) would have been tried by now. But because it's just barely possible to do it with chemical fuels, we're stuck with a marginal technology.
That's the idea behind the progressive income tax, but tax law is far too complicated to state that something like the poster stated couldn't ever happen.
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
If you believe that there is no right to property after death, but there is a right to property before death, surely you oppose the portions of the IRS code which prohibit people from giving away their wealth while they're still alive.
Your entire argument is based on a straw man: I never said that I oppose the portions of the IRS code which tax non-charitable gifts, a portion of the tax law that is entirely consistent with the position that one does not have property rights after death. It eliminates precisely the loophole that you use in your argument.
I believe that in a representative government based on democratic principles that there is both a moral authority for the government to tax and a moral authority for a person to own property. I would propose that these two beliefs are not mutually exclusive. The government provides services which require revenue to support, and, being a representative democracy, these are the services that the population by-and-large wants. This quid pro quo is entirely consistent with one's moral authority to own property.
Whether the U.S.A. is such a government is perhaps debatable....
Trust me, I've read Dragonfly and Crisis aboard Mir. While yes, some of the science is a bit skewed we still have learned laeps and bounds from their experiences (how to deal with fire, sudden decompression, etc) which would be extremely useful in future Mars missions.
NASA was extremely short-sighted in killing the Transhab module. That alone should have given us an economic way to launch larger structures into space. Most of the ideas that I've spoken of are in Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars", just slightly tweaked (adding a reusable 5 tons to LEO craft).
B
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
Autorotation is worthless if you are too close to the ground (to paraphrase someone who said the same thing about parachutes). I think Mr. Powers (of the U-2 spyplane fame) might have something to say about crashing fixed-wing vehicles (which he survived) as opposed to crashing rotary-wing vehicles (which he didn't survive), if he were capable of giving us a comment.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
One more thing. Why are non-liberal groups always perceived as the "haters" when it's the liberals who always talk about hate? I don't hate anyone - never have. Do you really "hate" Libertarians? I guess it's because liberal ideas don't hold up when logic comes in to the picture. Libertarians embrace logic, not sympathy, which is what drives the liberals.
Go ahead and hate us all you want. But your time would be better spent actually educating yourself on the issues and not insulting people and assuming every Libertarian and Republican is a Bigoted-Porsche-Driving-Filty-Rich Jerk. Liberals are by far the most racist people I know. (Affirmative Action, anyone? Implying that blacks and women aren't good enough to get jobs on their own merit?) And jerks? I don't even have to comment with posts like yours to back me up.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Was it really needed to make a cheap stab at the Tax-Cut plan? It relates to this story HOW? The quote stated they ran over budget, alot of projects that are over budget get canned.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Well, others have toasted this guy well enough, but I'd just like to add one point: The "possibility of recovery in case of failure" which he states the X-33 as having is non-existant.
With the engine design of the X-33/VentureStar, if you lose one, you cannot perform a de-orbit burn. This means you get to watch the pretty blue planet go by underneath while doing short thruster burns to kick your apogee (closest approach) into the atmosphere. That could take a while. A DC-XA type vehicle would use clusters of independent engines - lose one, two, three, or any number less than the half the full suite, and you can still land.
OK, so we've made it into the atmosphere. Our complicated X-33 has a problem with one of the gazillion hydraulic lines that operate the control surfaces. Now we get to land in whatever patch of ground we can find... But the DC-XA has hydraulics too. That's OK. Remember, it's symmetrical, so you can do thruster burns to rotate around, meaning you could land with only one working flap. It'd be tricky, and you'd probably get motion sick, but you'd still land at Canaveral, or wherever. Simply not possible with the lifting body design of the X-33.
Well, it's time to set this baby down. Our X-33 pilot can't extend his nose gear, so he's going to die when his ship smacks into the ground and snaps in half, igniting any fuel left in the tanks. It'd make a pretty nice big fireball for the folks at CNN to broadcast live. The DC-XA is still alright, because a full-scale design would use more than four landing legs - lose up to half of them, and you still stand up after landing.
This hypothetical scenario illustrates the fundamental principle behind the DC-XA: you can indeed have it good, fast, and cheap, if you stop designing spacecraft in a conventional manner. DC-X was built in less than two years for under $60 million. This is an amount of money that would simply be a drop in the bucket of a conventional aerospace program. The failure of the X-33 shows that the Cold War-era paradigm of spending billions upon billions to accomplish a mission simply will not work anymore. Better to let competition in the free market dictate which design is used. Personally, I think the descendants of the X-33 and DC-XA could coexist in a commercial space market, since the designs have different capabilities.
One design will, most probably, turn out to be the most efficient, most reliable, and therefore the most successful, at some time. Technology will always drive both designs, and many others, off of paper and into flying hardware. New developments will change what flies and what doesn't. But only if the current aerospace monopolies release their stranglehold on the industry.
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Vpered na Mars!
See, now you've refuted most of the other points you have tried to make for liberal causes. If this country fosters this business environment that makes people rich, why can't entrepeneurial poor folks make themselves rich? The fact is, that they do, if they have what it takes, and are willing to take risks. That's called the American Dream, and even most liberals think that's a Good Thing. How is this a problem?
I don't care about the situation in India/Ecuador, that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. That's why entrepeneurs in those countries MOVE HERE to get rich, BTW. Of course if Gates was in some socialist country he'd be punished for his wealth. You *do* realize that the highest tax bracket pays 39.5% of their taxes, here, in this country. You also realize that in socialist countries in Europe, the people in Gates kind of bracket would be paying something closer to 90% in many cases?
You are right; there is nothing magical about success. It takes hard work, and an environment that fosters success, so why do you want to punish the people that are successful by redistributing their wealth?
Oh, and I would argue that overall there *is* more exceptional intelligence within our borders, since people with more talent of all kinds recognize that they will be better rewarded here, and immigrate to our country, also considered to be a Good Thing, even by liberals. If you are talented, why stay in a country like India or Russia where the corruption or socialist policies are going to only hold you back...move to the States, set up shop, work hard, get rich. Are you saying the American system is not "fair" to other countries now? It sounds like that is what you are saying. You sound like some of the UN people who actually had the gall to propose equal taxes everywhere so businesses had no competition, and had to get taxed equally everywhere, in any country.
"freedom of religion also means freedom from religion"
Not true You have no right to be free from religion. You should never be forced to enter a church or get down on your knees to pray, but you have no right to never see or hear anything religious. Just like you have no right to not be offended (kind of the same thing for some, I guess). Too many people are such pussies. No one gets hurt if religious activites happen around them (human sacrifices excepted) - Deal with it and move on.
Oh, I see, so to hell with all the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists, eh?
Well, none of these religions were prevalent in 1789, but according to the Constitution, government can make no laws regarding the establishment of them. And how can you group agnostics and atheists in with religions? They are not religious by definition! So it's not "to hell with them"; The Frist Amendment guarantess that they'll never have to worship at a church. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
> which was demonstrated by the loss of the DC-Y.
Excuse me, but there was never a "DC-Y". The follow-on was the DC-XA.
I think it's pretty clear you don't know what you're talking about.
The Schlockheed X-33 also had a big problem: no control authority on liftoff. The thing had to burn at 100% throttle just to get off the pad. Add a nice 10 MPH crosswind, and your nice $1.5 billion vehicle tips over.
And, no Navy man would accept a ship made out of metal, because every fool knows that metal can't float. If the "Titanic" had been made of wood, more people might have been saved (given that the alloy used became brittle and snapped in cold water, the ship might not have even sunk if made of wood). So, why don't we make all passenger craft out of wood today?
Someone needs to point out to you that no US spacecraft has ever had a *USEABLE* flight emergency escape system. Not Mercury. Not Gemini. Not Apollo. Not the Space Shuttle. The escape rocket on top of the Apollo capsule was only usable *before* launch; once the Saturn was a second or two into flight, the escape rocket was useless. After the "Challenger" disaster, NASA investigated ways of providing an emergency escape system for the Shuttle, *but it couldn't find one*! (The best it could do was provide a low-altitude escape jump, or the likely-fatal emergency return-to-base maneuver). As one astronaut who flew on the Shuttle pointed out in a lecture I attended, NASA assured the shuttle astronauts that the Shuttle was virtually failsafe, even though NASA kept putting explosive detonators on the shuttle so it could destroy the vehicle in the event of a bad launch! Incidentally, all rockets require power to stay up in the air; the Shuttle is the only one used that can so much as glide without power.
Don't be too sure that Air Force people won't accept flight vehicles that have to be powered to remain in flight. And, if you think pilots don't like living on the edge, have a look at this:
http://www.solotrek.com/
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Yeah, and that's one aspect of the tax that really really needs to change. It's teh stupidest, anti-incentive I've ever seen. Ugh!
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
The Venture Star's fuel tanks are a very complicated composite structure, engineered to bear both pressure loads from the cryogenic fuels and some structural loads in the airframe. Unfortunately, during testing a manufacturing error (something to do with the insulating coating that protects the composites from the slushy cryogenic fuels...don't remember if it was the H2 tank or the LOX tank) one of the tanks failed catastrophically. It was a Bad Scene. Nothing that one wouldn't expect in testing (that's why you do testing, after all) but it was a big black eye for the program. Some people thought "Sheesh...if they can't build a gas tank, how the hell are they going to build a space ship?" but those people invariably don't have a clue as to the difficulties in handling cryogenic, and particularly slush, fuel materials.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Your stock options vested, and you exercised 10,000 shares at a strike price of $1/share, and held those shares rather than sell them immediately.
Now, for purposes of the AMT, your income from the option exercise is defined as the difference between the price you paid ($1 in this case) and the price of the stock on the day you exercised the options. So if the stock was, say, AMZN trading at $50/share a year ago, your AMT income from those 10,000 options was $490,000. Your tax on that amount will be maybe $150,000. Note, however, that you never actually made any money. Remember, I said you held the shares. And they are now worth $10 -- or about $90,000 more than you paid for them. Substantially less than your tax liability. Oops. What happened is you got taxed on paper gains that you never actually realized.
Yes, the tax law really does work this way. Here is a story The Standard did on a variation of this problem.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
The reason they haven't been entirely replaced, is that there aren't enough heavy bombers around for that mission to completely retire them. However, the heavy/conventional "D" models were retiredin the early 1980s, and the "G" models were retired in the early-mid 90's ("G"-model BUFFs were the primary heavy bomber in the Gulf War...).
This leaves approximately 4 squadrons of 12 or so "H" models, and the training Squadron, plus a few in Depot Maintenance.
Not exactly a "core" anymore...
We both know that Salon isn't exactly a paragon of unbiased news reporting, but the 120 millionaires thing still stands.
But to be honest, so many people have given so many dissenting opinions that I don't know what to think.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Both developments were underwritten by governments, UK/France for Concorde & US's DOD for 747.
The market went with super-large. Why? Primarily efficiency; Super-large turned out to be more economical in a fleet then super-fast. Cost per passenger-mile was lower as was cost per passenger-hour. As a primary limiting factor is gate access it proved easier to get a (then) gate-and-a-half for a single 747 boarding then three or four for equivalant Concorde flights. Finally after supersonic flight was banned over land many of the planned Concorde routes were closed to it (I remember the Concorde gate at the Kansas City airport sitting empty for years.)
The Soviets did fly their Concordski for many years though I believe they went out of service awhile ago. Aside from that no one has been able to figure out a model that would support wide-spread use of supersonic fight enough to underwrite development costs (Concorde has certianly never paid back it's R&D expenses.) Many countries have done extensive research on next-gen supersonic aircraft but none have shown a compelling economic advantage.
Indeed aside from Canada underwriting Bombardier's progress in mid-size/mid-haul aircraft (& revitalizing that market) the only major development is Airbus's mega-development A380 with 555 seats. Promising to out-jumbo the 747 it has a several customers signed up & is going ahead with production development. Boeing has responded with yet another extension of it's 747 platform but has declined to commit to an entirely new aircraft.
Many of the R&D projects on supersonic flights have now begun to be curtailed. As the industry moves further and further to giant aircraft and the problems of economical supersonic flight remain intractable a next-generation successor to Concorde becomes more & more unlikely. With it EOL'd at 2010 you better start saving now before the era is over.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
In concert with any tax cut, I want to see Tax Simplification! It shouldn't take me hours to figure out what taxes I owe, and three people doing my taxes shouldn't come up with three different answers. The more complicated rules should be abolished or simplified, and the rules should be made more consistent. The current system is utterly ridiculous. I don't WANT a tax cut if it's going to make it MORE complicated and make me spend MORE time trying to figure out what the real tax is I owe!
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
You may not be able to catch, especially as a citizen with no direct authority over the federal government other than your vote, the 'irregularities' which seem to inevitably pop up when there is a large-scale program, but I would also submit to you that you'd not be able to catch the small-scale 'irregularities' (aka theft/fraud) that occurs when such programs are instituted on a small scale. And, if the 'small scale' you are speaking about is on a town, county, or even state level, the total amount of ill-used money will probably be equal, or greater, than what would have been stolen with the feds.
Not only that, but there is a clear logical reason why one would want to insititute such programs on a federal level - namely, citizens who are equally needy in different parts of the nation are given equal benifits. Otherwise, the quality of social services would fluctuate from area to area based on the wealth and priorities of different local governments.
In short, federal funding of essentail social services has a clear benifit - more equal distribution of services - , and the drawback you mention is counterbalanced by a similar, and most probably equal, drawback when such programs are instituted on a local scale.
Unfortunately, Newt Gingrich had an idea for just this sort of plan for NASA, except that instead of funding on the front end, it offered bounties on the back end.
For instance, thinking about a manned Mars mission, the bounty structure would look something like this. (Note, the idea here I read about in Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" which is required reading for anybody interested in space exploration. The numbers, I pulled out of my ass.)
1) $400 million to the first mission to return to Earth with Martian rock samples
2) $100 million for a map of Mars with a specified resolution and specified percent coverage
3) $2 billion for sending an X person crew to Mars, and returning them safely to Earth after Y days.
He also suggested bounties paid to the astronauts per day on Mars. I like this idea a lot.
Unfortunately, this was before he was crucified by the media and rendered unelectable to anything other than dog catcher.
(PS, whatever you think about Gingrich's politics, the horrible press he got was just inexcusible. They made the man out to be the friggin' Antichrist...)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
To whomever submitted the topic:
(and I know I am about to get killed for this)
Who are you, or anyone else, to demand that one person bear a higher percentage of the tax burden than another. People that have more money pay more in taxes because their income is higher. Simple math. If you make 50K and I make 75K, and there is a tax rate of 10%, you paid 5K in taxes and I paid 7.5K. Why should my percentage be higher?
Actually what I am asking is what makes you think you have the right to take more money from some people than others. What's wrong with the rich getting a tax cut? Where does it say that someone with more should be required by law to give a disproportionate amout of help in a free society? How is that free?
endrant
He's saying that there is no real way to remove all the loopholes but eliminate as many of them and eliminate that nasty class warfare the democrats play with a flat tax.
Uhhh, wasn't North American Aviation the Apollo prime contractor? And about the time that Apollo 1 burned, Rockwell bought North American Aviation.
As far as the shuttle is concerned, it may be over-engineered, but it is also an extremly successful program that has been the workhorse of the space program.
--Don't mind me, I just spent the last 2 hours in alt.beer
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Not only is this article a patent propaganda piece, which intentionally and directly decieves the naive reader into believing that the NASA budget was cut, when in fact it has its first increase since the last Bush presidency ended, but it is also an obvious troll. Pathetic.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The X-33 project, like all the other proposed next-generation projects, were supposed to cut launch costs through the use of better booster technology.
Especially when you consider that those are the only places you can make the launch cheaper. You figure after every launch/reentry they still need a full team of engineers to check the vehicle over top to bottom. Can't save any money there.
Money could be saved there, if there were less testing and retrofitting required.
Or how about mission control? Really can't save much money there either.
It takes thousands of technicians to watch over current space flights. Notice the pictures of mission control, which shows row-upon-row of mission controllers; those aren't mere spectators! Each of those men (and women) is a paid employee. There are rooms full of those people all around the world (at least, across the US), who have to follow each mission's every move.
In contrast, the "Delta Clipper" made use of sophisticated control technology to slash the number of mission control technicians required. The first prototype vehicle, the DC-X, only required 3 people to control its launch, hover, horizontal flight, hover and soft, controlled landing. The "Delta Clipper" itself was to have required only a small group of controllers (I can't remember the number just now--I'm pretty sure it was well under 100, and may have been only a dozen). That, alone, would save millions of dollars a flight, in personnel costs and facility's costs.
Where I would really like to see Nasa spend some dough, is on engines for space. I mean, imagine equiping the shuttle with an ION drive!
Ion drives would be nearly useless on the space shuttle. No ion drive is capable of lifting itself from Earth--their most powerful thrust is only a few grams. Once in space, the shuttle is coasting most of the time, anyway. Ion drives are most impressive for interplanetary missions, not simple orbits around Earth--though ion drives have been used to keep some satellites spinning.
Or allowing it to dock with a booster tank in space! We could stash a LEM in the cargo bay, and use the newly equiped boosters to take another trip to the moon! Imagine the media stir that would cause, considering that we haven't been there in 30 years!
That is a possible stunt; but, that is all it is--a stunt. We have already proved that we can send a man to Moon. Now, we need to do something with that capability. We need to do more than jerry-rig something together to get us to Moon; we need a vehicle that is designed for the task of taking equipment to Moon, and setting up operations on Moon.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
You can choose to give $3 to the election campaign fund. What more do you want?
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
I seem to recall vectran fibers coming out a short while ago as a by product of NASA development. Now all of us bike weenies can spend mucho bucks on vectran fiber spoked wheels.
NASA still has a purpose to provide marketing terms to niche market, boutique shop hobbyists.
Terms like Space-Age material and Developed by NASA for the space program still have marketability points with the boutique crowd.
Anyway...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
It's not quite true that anyone who makes $25k pays no federal income tax. But if you are, say, married with two kids and make $25k, you probably pay none or next to none (I haven't actually done the math).
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
I have thought about it from both ends, thank you very much. Have you?
An inheritance is a particular form of gift that only occurs at death. Now I understand why they do gift taxes so that people can't just get around income taxes by giving and receiving gifts. But an inheritance gift isn't done for income tax avoidance purposes so that's not an issue. On top of that, have you thought of what these kind of financial concerns do to people in the grieving process? The kids want to fulfill dad's wishes to keep his dream alive but they have a very short countdown before they have to pay a crippling tax payment. Unless you are one of the super rich who can afford the expensive attorneys to finesse this, the process dumps a big burden to the grieving family. Now that's really fair and moral isn't it?
Furthermore, the estate tax collects just about enough money to pay for the people who harrass grieving families into paying it. As a revenue generator, it's a wash. So guess what, the money doesn't go to the kids, it doesn't go to the tar-paper shack family on the other side of the tracks, it goes to pay treasury agents who have an upper-middle class income derived from financially pressuring families who have just suffered the loss of a parent. Oh I can see morality written all over this, can't you?
The death tax is a form of institutionalized class envy enforced through state action. The last time I checked, envy, in all its forms, was considered a sin by most moral systems and certainly any system that I'd want to follow.
I suspect that you really don't know the libertarian line here and have a fairly prejudiced idea about what libertarians believe in. Let me give it to you in a nutshell. Libertarians believe that the government is an institiution that survives by applying violence to accomplish societal goals. Libertarians believe that the number of areas where this is appropriate is small and shrinking and we would like to reduce and eliminate the level of government violence from as many areas of societal action as possible.
DB
. ...or a personal-automobile fanatic who believes that simple maintenance of existing roads is a plot of pot-smoking fuzzy-headed greenniks.
The point is, it's easy to demonize this sort of thinking (that failing to adjust for cost-of-living is a cut in itself). But it's also virtually useless. If you ask the ordinary "citizen on the street", you'll find that, in their heart of hearts, they begin from a status quo assumption: Let's keep everything where it is now, EXCEPT...
Economists have dealt with this paradox for so long, they've come up with mechanisms to cope. For example, things can be quoted in "real dollars" or "constant 2000 dollars" or whatever. This is more than a trick. Since money is just a measurement of your ability to purchase, inflation really does eat into your money supply. This year, with the same $100, you buy less "stuff" than last year. Thus, your $100 is worth less than last year -- and so, you've been given less than last year.
As a child of the late 1970s, I understand inflationg real good... a failure to adjust for cost-of-living is a cut.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Right. So NASA should have canned the ISS and done something useful with their money, such as this X-33, or a moon base, or a mars mission, or... Well, there's actually a lot of things they probably could have done besides building the ISS getting their budget cut.
In that case - although I happen disagree with your premises (as for me, I wouldn't go so far as to say the two are "mutually exclusive", but I would say "very strongly in conflict with each other"), if I accept them for the purposes of argument, your argument becomes valid, and your call of "straw man" is entirely correct.
Excise taxes and tolls are COMPLETELY different than income taxes. I can choose not to spend on things that are taxed, but I can't choose not to give up my income when it is taxed. That is slavery. "the highest child poverty rate in the industrialized world is the result of a properly functioning society." No, that's the problem - it's not a 'properly functioning society'. Libertarians want to make it one.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Oh ye who understand so little. No one wold be "overthrown" because everyone would be free to make their own fortunes. Only the minority who refuse to work and depend on welfare would be upset. That's hardly enough people to overthrow a resourceful and intelligent group that the achievers are. Besides, if something happened where I couldn't make a living in this field, I'd go learn another trade. It's very simple - I achieve; I don't whine about others having more, or fret about others having less.
In the grand scheme of things, yes, only I matter. My own welfare comes first because I do not wish to burden society. If someone truly needed my help and I could give it, I would. But I am being forced to help people who won't help themselves. That is an insult to what America used to stand for - opportunity.
There is nothing wrong with arrogance. Arrogance and greed are not horrific traits, as "victims" would have the world believe. Arrogance and greed go hand in hand with ambition, which is what makes countries, businesses, and men great. If it weren't for arrogance, you couldn't sit at a computer, drive a car, or read your own double-digit IQ-test results.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Because the churches do not pay taxes, while lockheed-martin does. If they want to compete for government money, let them PAY TAXES on that income! I don't care if the gov't hires the Zoophile Association to clean the parks, as long as th eplaying field is level.
Blar.
You're dead on the money. Anyone who's read "Entering Space" by Robert Zubrin should have seen this coming.
Lockheed-Martin should never have gotten the X-33 contract, simply because they have a *huge* incentive to maintain the status quo! Lockheed-Martin is the manufacturer of the majority of the US's single-use launch vehicles. They make the Atlas and Titan boosters, as well as the LMLV and MSLS series. To create a reusable launch vehicle would be to slaughter their cash cow, and they're simply not going to do that.
Furthermore, through the United Space Alliance they also get a share of Rockwell's pie from shuttle launches. Again, despite the whiz-bang technology that they've developed in the past, they're motivated by *profit*, not progress. It's simply in their best interest to stifle these new technologies.
Now that NASA has finally gotten their head out of their ass and pulled the plug on a program that was set up to fail, hopefully they won't make the same mistake twice. Lockheed-Martin's stalling tactic has wasted a half a decade. Perhaps now we can begin making up some of that time. Is it too late to resurrect the Delta Clipper?
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Was wondering if you could help me with my tax-dodging church plan.
Blar.
"the people trashing Bush's plan seem to have no knowledge of economics."
His whole post is utter flamebait.
Despite that, I will counter his argument. I point you to Paul Krugman, a leading economist at Princeton. You can read his columns in the New York Times.
"I am a student. Please do not fold, spindle, or mutilate me." -Slogan of the Free Speech Movement, 1964.
Dont forget that when a liberal uses the term 'cut', there isnt necessarily a decrease in funds. To liberals, the term 'Cut' is defined as "If I want X amount of dollars, and I dont get it, it's a cut. And no, the fact that our budget is increasing doesnt matter either" Sheesh. You know what would really cut the fat in government spending? Making each burocracy(sp?)ify each expense they make to someone higher on the totem pole. Think about it, where else in the world can a buisness(the government) ask and recieve money without justifying the expense?
-Bucky
The few, the proud, the conservative.
-Bucky
How are the Chinese dangerous? Sure, they had problems initially, but their government is hardly that of the tao era. Socialism could probably work (look at canada) if we didn't come along and force any budding socialist country to spend >50% of its resources on their millitary. And don't say that we wouldn't attack a budding socialist country because they don't have a strong military. Look at Guatamala, Vietnam (though that hardly worked out), and Cuba. We essentially sanction or fight them just because they are socialist. Try and spare the crap about human rights violations as well. How many people are starving in africa or have aids? Do you have any idea how far this outweighs the deathtoll of the "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo? Hell, if a sect of the US rebelled, I'm sure there would be something very akin to Kosovo's ethnic cleansing. Oh wait, that already happened, go read up on Japanese internment. The albanians weren't that bad off, and they could have moved to albania if they really disliked the race-based class structure in Kosovo (hmmm... we have that too, not to mention that it's a way of life in India.) One thing though - albania is nearly a 3rd world nation. Of course they couldn't move there and help their breathren with their Yugoslav riches, they had to fight for their independence. Bleh. As far as learning Arabic. The United States probably has had the single biggest role in the recent (last 50 years) escalation of fighting in the middle east. First we get into a tiff with Iran. Then we arm Saddam. Then we fight Saddam. Then we take Israel's side on their abuse of Palestinians (which, btw, very closely resembles the plight of the albanians in kosovo) in order to get the Jewish vote. Now we're back at it with Saddam, who has not many any offensive move toward any of our ever-so-precious oil suppliers or made any threat of an attack with "a weapon of mass distruction." Not to mention that Saddam probably has one of the highest approval ratings of any leader in the world. Of course, you could point to how he got that approval. You'd have to realize that his approval subsisted through an astounding downturn in the Iraqi economy (thanks to us, hooray for making Iraqis starve.) The United States is STILL playing morality cop of the world. Heck, it's worse today than during the time of Roosevelt. Sure we aren't converting people to Christianity anymore, but we sure are molding international society so that they must follow Christian values and the American Way (tm) lest they be embargoed. If the millitary were focused solely on three things, defense, terrorist espionage (to prevent attacks), and technology development instead of fitting other nations into our progressive corporate mold, we really could cut the budget by 50%. Of course, that would mean 50% less money going to military sector companies, who are some of the biggest campaign contributers. We couldn't have that now could we? I'm not preaching isolationism here, only a lack of offensive meddling in others' affairs. International trade, etc, is just dandy and should be allowed, even with restrictions removed. People should decide whether they want to buy from slave laborers, not the government (who sometimes pins the "slave/prison labor" term on any nation who they feel threatened by in a given industry.) I know that sounds a whole lot like Harry Brown, but I'm not a Libertarian. We should definitely increase funding of education, the arts, grant-based research, etc in order to further our national character (not the characters of other nations.) We need social programs to get rid of barriers to market entry (as employees/students) once and for all. We also need to tax the bloody hell out of the rich and redistribute the wealth. Yeah, I guess I'm a socialist in some respects. A socialist that seems like a libertarian. My ideals, however, are not "pie in the sky." Look at what Johnson/Carter did during their presidencies. Sure, they fucked up social programs so bad that no one ever wants to try them again (HUD, Wellfair, etc), but they did get a lot done, regardless of how misguided it was.
The reason I ask if you read the article in detail is that it states one thing, but cites facts which imply another. It is an impressive achievement of spin, but little else. Bush did not win a statewide recount, he won the recount based on undervotes in the counties Al Gore tried to have selectively counted (according to the article you cited). The article implies Bush won the state, when in fact they only discussed a subset of the existing data and ignored a large portion of the data gleaned from recounts in other, more republican areas which surprisingly favored Gore.
Specifically, recounts conducted by the Orlando Sentinal and further discussed in the Kausfiles indicate that the overvote in largely republican counties, ignored by both sides, would have resulted in a win by Al Gore by several thousand votes, even using the most stringent recount standards. The reason turns out to be the unambiguous votes by many first time voters, who voted for Al Gore, then wrote in Al Gore and marked the write-in box as well. As unambiguous votes they would have, by law, been counted for Al Gore. Apparently many people misunderstood the write-in box as a "confirmation" box, a sort of check to make sure the vote was counted correctly (and is a strong indication that voters really do need to be educated in exactly how the ballotting process works).
The upshot is this: If Al Gore had gotten his way (selective recounts of Democratic counties) Bush would have been declared the winner. However, if the entire state had been recounted correctly, current data indicate that Al Gore would have won handsomely. It is an interesting ethics lesson, both that, had Al Gore done "the right thing" he would have won and no one could have reasonably denied him a recount.
By all indications, Al Gore won the election, both in Florida and in the US as a whole. The Bush camp knew (or at least suspected) that this was the case and pressed ahead, taking the presidency without a full and proper accounting of the votes in the state (contrary to every other close election in the country, where recounts were in fact conducted, including hand recounts of ballats unreadable by machine).
The fact that the opposing side behaved in a disengenous manner by not requesting a statewide recount and trying to select particular counties instead does not in any way diminish the fact that the Bush camp has usurped the electorial process and taken office in opposition to the explicit will of the American people. That makes him a usurper as far as I am concerned, and I strongly suspect history will, in time, agree, no matter the amount of spin his supporters may put on the issue in the short term.
Finally, I should note that my point in referring to Dubya as the Usurper is not intended to somehow "drive him from power", but to be in his face that he doesn't belong there, he has no mandate, and he'd better tread softly and not attempt to shove his right-wing agenda down our unwilling throats. It is important that we as a people show as much backbone as we can, in a peaceful manner, lest such behavior be repeated in the future (perhaps next time by the democrats). Our democracy is more important than either of those clowns (and for the record, I didn't vote for either of them), and it does not serve our democracy at all for us to take this sort of thing without comment, nor for our so-called "fourth estate" to curry favor in an effort to enhance their access to public figures by promoting such blatently biased spin.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
McDonald Douglas already demonstrated that the use of advanced control technology could drastically cut the number of control technicians required to support missions. You are mistaken in assuming that NASA would automatically use the most efficient or cost-effective methods for its operations, particularly when they are forced to use systems designed 40 years ago (namely, the space shuttle).
It should also be pointed out to you that it would be more expensive and much riskier to make fundamental modifications to the space shuttle (taking it out of its original design envelope) than simply designing a system that is intended to use the technologies from the start.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
While not NASA funded, two of the main contributors to Sea Launch are Boeing and Russia.
--Don't mind me, I just spent the last 2 hours in alt.beer
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
1) Everyone in Congress agrees that farmers should be protected from the estate tax.
2) Those who support the estate tax also say that the minimum estate worth must also be raised. (i.e. the trigger should be raised.)
3) Given 1) and 2), most of the posts that argue AGAINST the estate tax are essentially moot.
4) A simple reason to support the estate tax: to prevent another family like the Bush's (or the Kennedy's for that matter) from amassing power or wealth through inheritence and NOT merit.
"I am a student. Please do not fold, spindle, or mutilate me." -Slogan of the Free Speech Movement, 1964.
I think a few of my comments blew right past you. Let's go over them.
The X-33 project, like all the other proposed next-generation projects, were supposed to cut launch costs through the use of better booster technology.
Yes, but if technologies could be applied to the current space shuttle liftoffs, large amounts of money could be saved.
Money could be saved there, if there were less testing and retrofitting required.
Yes, that would entail better heat shielding as I pointed out. Most of the rest of the vehicle just goes through readiness checks and any damaged components are replaced.
It takes thousands of technicians to watch over current space flights. Notice the pictures of mission control, which shows row-upon-row of mission controllers; those aren't mere spectators! Each of those men (and women) is a paid employee. There are rooms full of those people all around the world (at least, across the US), who have to follow each mission's every move.
I am aware of this. However, I seriously doubt that a new launch technology would result in fewer mission controllers. NASA is extremely concerned about failure due to the fact that they are putting American lives on the line. While all those mission controllers are doing something, many of them are redundant so that things are checked, rechecked, and checked a third time. If NASA seriously could cut down on the number of mission controllers they would have done so with modern computers.
Ion drives would be nearly useless on the space shuttle. No ion drive is capable of lifting itself from Earth--their most powerful thrust is only a few grams. Once in space, the shuttle is coasting most of the time, anyway. Ion drives are most impressive for interplanetary missions, not simple orbits around Earth--though ion drives have been used to keep some satellites spinning.
Sigh. Space based propulsion, not liftoff propulsion. Right now, the shuttle is only capable of a fairly low orbit. In order to get any higher, they have to use precious cargo space for extra fuel. An ION drive (I was just using this as an example) or other technology might allow the shuttle to change its orbital trajectory without a significant fuel cost.
That is a possible stunt; but, that is all it is--a stunt. We have already proved that we can send a man to Moon. Now, we need to do something with that capability. We need to do more than jerry-rig something together to get us to Moon; we need a vehicle that is designed for the task of taking equipment to Moon, and setting up operations on Moon.
And? NASA already is having public relations problems. If they could recapture the public excitment in the space shuttle by proving that it is capable of more than going up and down, then they might be able to rally public support. Besides, NASA wishes to set up mining operations on the moon at some point. Having a fairly good/inexpensive option like this would allow them to complete that mission. The LEM could even be retrieved and stored in the shuttle's cargo bay for later refueling and reuse.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I agree with the poster of the story, too bad but George Bush has already made it clear that he doesn't care about the Space Administration. It just goes to show how dumb people can be. I work for a NASA subcontractor and most of those guys actually voted for him. Can you imagine voting for a president who will strip your funding, go figure? Now on the other hand if you work for Defense then you're not gonna have any problems with budgets. Maybe we will make it through these 4 years and get someone in there who is a friend to science.
I don't think not having enough AGL would be a problem with that aircraft. If you're going to
fly a rotorcraft, autorotation would be the easier to fly, than if it was powered. No torque, no translational drift, less problems. Still have the dissymmetry of lift to worry about, and I suppose the thing would have vortex ring state issues like all other rotorcraft. Flying any rotorcraft is not for the faint of heart.
I am disturbed by the aerodynamic properties of that fuselage. But I guess that's what test pilots are for...
Exactly. How can anyone try to run a company (insurance or whatever) making profit out of sick people. The NHS in britain has been run down for years by the Tory bastards who believed that everyone should have private health insurance, hence the poor quality of service. Now that there is money available for investment and we have a government that, despite its problems, at least thinks about the little people, things shoud improve.
They are incorporated, but that does not prevent the IRS from forcing liquidity, especially when they're majority shareholders. Now, in their case, it's an absolute necessity to incorporate, but you're simply ignorant if you think incorporating is a magic bullet. First, there are significant additional costs (e.g., getting taxed twice). Second, the structure does not make sense for every company and the liabilities run all over the map. Incorporating may free the investor from direct personal liability, but it does not free the shareholders/investors from losing everything they put into the company.
In any event, if you read my comments a little more carefully, you would have noticed words such as "shareholders". These, at the very least, imply that the companies are corporations.
Has it occured to you that perhaps NASA -- after ROYALLY SCREWING UP with millions of dollars of our hard earned cash -- simply does not deserve the funds? Their track record of late royally SUCKS. Anyone who has not been living under a rock over the past few years knows this.
But hey, you seem to not have any problem with giving them millions of dollars to blast chunks of scrap into space, so maybe you wouldn't mind sending NASA a check? Personally, I'd rather my cash go to something more useful, like feeding people or getting some books in schools that are less than a decade old.
I guess our priorities are different, huh?
these programs were not just nasa...they were ventures made up of several leading aerospace companies, many of whose shareholders are rich, and were hoping (obviously) for a nice production run, as well as high tech spinoffs that would keep the USA and her economy strong.
In recessive times, sometimes it's not best to go into production, but just stick with r&d.
the X34 and X33 were both fairly close to production, so a lot of r&d is already done.
Here are linx for anyone interested :
X33 and X34 and more in-depth stuff at x33 (nasa) and X34 (nasa)
What a shame. The linear aerospike engine was in test, the frame and skin were waiting for the tank, and the launchpad is almost done.
These technologies and programs would have created thousands of jobs as they trickled down through the US economy.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
get on with the job of exploring space.
and how do you plan to do that? Mars direct? remember, WE ARE STILL NEWBIES TO SPACE EXPLORATION. The point of the space station is to do tons of experiments, they got 15 years to do as many experiments as they want, not 2 weeks like most shuttle missions. plus, the iss is not U.S. only, many countries have put in tons of money, to dump it now that it is OPERATIONAL would just be idiotic.
and most prestigious black newspapers, the Chicago Defender, is about to be sold -- probably to a large corporation -- because of the stupid estate tax.
what, are they printed on a farm? i have only heard about farmers with lots of land be hit hard, anyone who doesn't require the land/mansion to work can merely sell off parts untill they go beneath the required limit.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
NASA's problem is that it can't do anything space-related without inventing new technologies to do it. Remember the outcry when it was insisted that NASA do things the way everybody else does, by using technology that actually exists today? NASA employees hated it, because it meant their jobs became less exciting and more mundane...results-oriented rather than process-oriented. Inventing new technologies, NASA-style, is fabulously expensive, and having defense contractors do the work for you is like having Microsoft take over development of Kerberos...they don't do what's best for the project, they do what's best for themselves.
i say tax the rich. i say, if i'm rich, go ahead and tax me, i'd deserve it. and i'd still be better off. but, this is a joke. i don't care at all how many hours a paycheck i get. because you know what? the more hours i work, it matters very little because of taxes. so, whats the point? i still get enough to pay rent, and dsl no matter what i do.
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"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
Government involvment in space exploration is a good thing...
I'm all for corporations getting involved in space, but without NASA real science will cease. Why? It makes no immediate financial sense. NEAR? Forget it, no one will go to a Gap on Eros. Pathfinder? Forget it, people want the SUVs, not the rover.
Without NASA, we'd have never gone to the moon. We'd not have had Hubble. WE'D NEVER KNOW IF ANTS COULD SORT TINY SCREWS IN SPACE!!!
The very least they could do is send that money to education, instead of spending it on some other frivolous cause.. More than likely that moeny will go to our wonderfully worthless space defense system. I know! Let's void treaties with our allies to protect ourselves against a non-existant threat!!
end communication
While you make a good point, it's just... wrong to use the word rich as you are using it, and the fact the media uses it that way is not an excuse. True rich people don't pay taxes, to any significant degree. They have accountants and lawyers and investments and lots of write-offs and loopholes - they aren't people that work for a good salary, they are people that have so much money IT supports them.
The people that pay the most taxes, and thus the ones that benefit most from tax cuts, are not rich people - they are upper middle-class people that work for a living at well above average wages. They are usually professionals that have worked their way to the top of their field, senior database analysts, network admins, engineers, etc. Lumping them together with people that never need to work, that make far more money than they are likely to ever even see, simply by sitting on their arse and letting their money work for them, is bizaare and I dare say absurd.
Sure, a guy that makes say, 100-160k/year is better off than the guy flipping burgers - but he's a world away from folks like Buffet, Turner, Gates or Bush. And he's the one shouldering the tax burden - not them.
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Reagan cut taxes in 1981 even more than Bush is planning. But he also INCREASED spending on defense. The result was an increase in science and technology demand in the USA. This spured an influx of talent into science and engineering. I think the technology boom we've experienced until recently is in part the result of critical momentum established in the 1980's.
I'm not convinced that putting money into rich folks hands alone is enough to do the same thing. They are more likely to open new fast food restaurants and such than hire engineers and scientest to design and build things they cannot sell.
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~~ the real world is much simpler ~~
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Refurbishing the vehicles can only go so far - the original design was a test and we've never moved beyond it. We've learnt a lot about high-performance hydrogen motors, thermal insulation, airframe requirements, etc. but it's all for naught if none of it is ever applied to a version two.
Limiting the Shuttle fleet to 6 flights a year won't help things much. Sure it's less wear & tear but they're still getting long in the tooth and could be greatly improved on. Unfortunately there's been a requirement for some sort of great-leap-forward when really much of what's required is a simple evolution and refinement.
Much of the basic question of course is why we're in space and what our goals are. I (and yes I'm not alone on this, no need for a poll) believe that there's incredible opportunity there. I also believe that a national program is a good because many of the costs are larger then industry is willing to pay (most of the supposed privatization is pay-us-we'll-do-it-for-you.)
I don't entirely believe the folks that claim privatization is the solution-to-all-problems (Ride British railways lately? Electricity in California?) If commercial space flight truly *is* viable then why aren't more companies investing their own dollars into it and not trying to pry open the public purse?
This seems one of those areas that public investment will yield benefits for everyone, much like hydro projects and managed public lands. Too big & long-term for companies to pursue independently but suited to governments.
I don't see it being too long before we'll be able to 'capture' one of the closer asteroids (presumably one whose orbit brings it near to Earth) and eventually steer it someplace convenient. with it in place as a source of material we'd be able to construct nifty things like cost-effective power satellites and tele-operated mining & refining of materials for use on Earth.
All of this requires however that we have a reasonable means of getting reliably and regularly to at least low Earth orbit and that is slowly slipping through our fingers. We know there's something like a .1% chance of an accident every launch, with only 4 aging orbiters we're putting a lot of eggs in very few baskets.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Last I checked Earth is a complex rock. You can't kill a rock. You can alter the rock and make it uninhabitable to humans, but you don't kill the Earth.
Thank-you I am tired and I feel like complaining about something.
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so i says to mable, i says
I definitely agree that the market is fairly small for companies to really profit from going into space but one consumer market is already perfectly obvious. As a recreational rollerblader, I'd kill to have access to ball bearings manufactured in Zero-G.
-Zuchinis
(The Bushes, incidentally, are a wealthy, well-connected family with roots in the english monarchy many generations back. Their 'status' predates the formation of the USA.)
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
As I understand it, NASA has money under a program called the Space Launch Initiative (SLI). X-33 was funded under that program. NASA has decided that the X-33 wasn't using the money effectively, and has decided to distribute that money instead to numerous other related projects.
d ex2.html
Basically, they decided the technology wasn't there to put all there eggs in one basket (the X-33/Venturestar) and do so some more R&D. This is a smart decision and a Good Thing: pumping money into a project that's ahead of its time is exactly how we got stuck with the Space Shuttle.
(In fact, the SLI budget has actually increased 64% in this budget. More money is actually being spend to develop cheap launching technologies.)
Good article at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0103/01x33/in
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
I noticed that it is generally in the human nature, to be too short sighted when there seems to be no problem in the short range. It has happened numerous times before in the human history, that actions not taken in their due time had to be corrected (if there was such a possibility) when they became real problems.
In the case of NASA, I think they are making a most severe mistake. The X-33 and X-34 were the first steps to opening the space for the rest of us. I believe that humanity strives towards the stars, and a convenient (read: modern and cheap) shuttle system is crucial for our first step outwards.
Machiavelli compared the actions of a prudent man to an archer. The archer can not be sure that the arrow will descend too much during its flight. And the proper solution is not to discard arrows, but send them a bit higher.
The Right Stuff seems to paint the picture that in the 50's the Air Force had it right the whole time and NASA screwed it up. In the 90's, the AF seemed to have huge sucesses in space deployment, except for projects where congress made them do things NASA's way. Now in the 21st century, the Air Force is funding another round of low cost expendible rockets (they have too, they're running out of old ICBM's and the shuttle can't lift a MILSTAR), and NASA seems to only be interested in doing things the least cost effective way possible. I'm not saying that total militarization of space is the answer, but someone needs to do SOMETHING about NASA.
A simple question: if the budget doubled during the 80s, and we had big deficits, what is the other part of the equation? Answer: spending. And who was in control of Congress? That's right -- your buddies, the Democrats. And who controls the budget? Quick, consult the Constitution... That's right! Congress!
Oh, I forgot, if Reagan proposed tax cuts, and we had deficits, then it must have been the tax cuts. It couldn't have been the fact that government spending by the Democrat-controlled congress went crazy.
And now that Republicans have been in charge in Congress for the last few terms... guess what! The deficits went away! Ohmygod!
The Democrat's ability to ignore reality and the truth is absolutely unlimited.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Oh, Tom. It is cool to follow the rules isn't it? I wish we all could lead our lives like you. What a great world it would be.
"Hiddidly Ho neighborino Tom!"
"Top o the Mornin' to you too Tom."
- I like pudding.
The comment about NASA winning the cold war is complete BS. Reagen won the cold war by increasing the defense budget and scaring the soviet union into submission. And by the way nearly half of the national debt cannot be paid, because they are in securities. I do agree with the part about leaving Clinton alone. He was not a bad president, but he was the most immoral man ever in the white house. The trickle down effect does work in the 80's the defense budget was tripled, and the tax rate was cut from 43% to around 35%, and the economy held on fast and strong. You cannot blame the economy on ANY party or ANY particular policy. A nation's economy follows a cyclic pattern. It would be naive to think that prosperous times are going to happen year after year. You have to take the good with the bad. Just my two cents
I'm hoping that the Military will atleast get its act together and militarize space properly. We need obiting battlecrusiers. :)
The military is what kicked the airline industry into high gear. Before World War II, the airline industry was struggling to stay afloat transporting a few thousand passengers a year in old biplanes, hoping they didn't crash too often.
After WWII, the airlines got to use all the aircraft technology developed during the war. The first post-war airliners were converted bombers, which were larger, faster and more efficient. The airlines were now capable of the holy grail of Making Money! The military is much more interested in efficient development and use of technology, since the consequences of inefficiency are high (being blown to smithereens.) If the military decided they needed a much larger presence in space (for missile defense for instance,) chances are a cheap launch vehicle would be developed in a hurry. A few years later, the military technology would trickle down to the civilian market and we would have cheap spaceliners.
This almost makes me want a good Cold War style arms race between the U.S. and China, if it weren't for the risk of nuclear Armageddon. If Dubya decides to build a missile defense system, China and Russia would respond by building zillions of ICBMs, which would prompt the US to improve the missile defense, creating a higher demand for space launches, thus necessitating the development of a cheap, reusable, reliable, high-turnaround launch vehicle. Hopefully the civilian market for launches, manned spaceflight and colonization will develop before someone presses the Button.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Gosh, I scored higher on my SATs than others; maybe I should give myself a lobotomy so I can "level the playing field". Oh yeah, some athlete is faster than another, maybe we should hobble him so that the others have a chance on the gridiron. After all, it's only fair, isn't it?
You said that they "control" 38% of the wealth. That article seems to imply that they earn that...where's the problem here?
If you make the wealthy pay more and more as more years go by (tax burden is highest it's ever been since WWII), where's the motivation for the wealthy to get where they are at now?
The point is that the wealthy are already paying much more than their "fair share". When will you liberals ever concede that the wealthy pay too many taxes? Will you only ever be happy once everybody makes the exact same amount of money? This may be something your parents did or did not tell you when you were growing up, but let me tell you in case you forget or were not told: life is not fair. Some people have advantages. Some people have big headstarts on the food chain. That's just the way it works. You can try to give some folks who have a disadvantage a leg up, but that can only go so far, and then they have to do the rest themselves. You can't cut the wealthy down to middle-class level and call that fair. If people like yourself want that type of system, move to a country that is receptive to those ideals. More power to you if it works for you, no skin off my back. Revoke your citizenship NOW, and don't try to further spoil what this country is supposed to be about. Nothing personal, mind you.
Several points. First of all I think that you should read up on the tax situation and how it is working.
Second, these desicions are made within NASA, and with the cost overrun of the space station, there is just less money to spend on these projects. Why would NASA cut this project? Its simple, the technology has been proven, and in order to make something like this a reallity it will take huge sums of money. When the time comes that NASA needs a new reusable launch vehicle, they will recieve the funding to do it, and it will cost more than expected, just like the shuttle and the space station.
NASA does not like to take on more than one project, and have shown themselves to be best when working towards a finite and defined goal, with little distraction and lots of money.
There is also money in the budget for further development on new technologies, and when the time comes that they are needed, they will be given more funding.
This is how NASA has always worked, regardless of the administration.
Huh?
All I get out of your statements is that the politicians should leave NASA alone and not use them to do favors for their constituents. That doesn't seem very damning to NASA.
Uh-oh, after a second reading, I think that maybe you are just a troll and I was suckered in again. Damn!
- I like pudding.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Unless I'm mistaken, it said that NASA cut the programs. I find it hard to believe that the President got on the phone and called up the head of NASA and said "You'd better cancel those expensive programs". More than likely, they realized that it was over their budget, which again, is set by Congress, not the president. It's so easy to blame everything on the President isn't it?
I actually would not even grace it that much. Reality check (with statistics from Time/Newsweek etc):
;-) (C'mon... I dare ya).
Myth: The poor pay most of the taxes in America
Reality: The lower classes in america do not pay any taxes. As you go up, the tax burden goes up.
Just look at the tax cut. The bottom run of the tax scheme goes from 15%->10%, a 33% cut. The top rung goes from 36%->33% about a 9% cut. Further realize that only about ~120 million american's even pay taxes in the first place. The others actually get money back, even though they never paid anything.
Myth: But they just deduct everything.
Reality: Ever heard of the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax?)The AMT is an amount that you can not deduct under, and as usual, it is a very high number in the higher brackets.
Here is a good argument about the mostly liberal billionairs that spoke up. The wealthy are conservitive, but right now, no changes is a liberal position.
BTW, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are about to loose the JSF. GE did make a bonaza on the air market a few years back, but that's clinton's territory, the defense industry is getting ready for another round of base cuts, and budget cuts (Bush's new money goes to get our millitary people off of food stamps... yes you read that right).
BTW, the Economist has a pretty good write up.
BTW, one of the things that Bush is trying to do is get rid of the hump in the tax code between 20k and 27k where there is strangly a 31% tax, surrounding two 16-16% ranges. Oh... yes.. now I remember why that is there, so the poor stay poor.
As for the rest and the entire argument about "payroll taxes" thoose taxes are social security and medicare, programs that are completly seperate. If you don't like that tax, repeal Social Security
Why should there be a tax cut? The percent of the GDP that is being eaten is the highest it has ever been.
I suggest people who start complaining about tax cuts being focused on the rich try giving it some thought instead of just shooting from the hip. You may think that you could make a tax cut that isn't aimed at the rich, but it just doesn't happen. You see, when you focus a tax cut on the lower tax brackets, you might think that the poor can take advantage of it, and the rich can't. But that simply isn't true.
First, the lower and even middle class do not have the resources necessary to take advantage of tax laws. How many of you have known someone who barely jumped passed a cutoff for a tax bracket, and ended up with less money than if they had earned less? I had a friend in college who made $4000 less because she earned $2000 more.
So, a tax cut for the lower classes would not make much difference for many people. But how about the rich? Could they take advantage of them? Hell, yeah! The more money you have, the more likely it is you have a full time accountant working for you. That means they can take advantage of all of the best tax dodges - perfectly legally, too, although they don't always stop there. It's fairly simple for a millionaire to be in a low tax bracket, especially after retirement. Remember it's income tax, not bank account tax.
The point is, it doesn't matter for which tax bracket you intend a tax cut, it is for the rich.
That statistic is quoted from the American's for Tax Justice. As you might imagine, they happen to be a rather liberal partisan bunch. Their projections were done ignoring the fact that Bush changes tax ranges as well, and also the fact that Bush does not change the AMT (which they failed to take into account).
Well, let's assume not. Though I don't approve of government programs in general, I've got to say that the cut programs would be ones on my personal save list. But your comments on taxes betray a real lack of understanding about what is going on. Rich people pay more taxes, so OF COURSE in a straight line cut, they are going to save more. Let's see: If I pay $500,000 in taxes, a 10% tax cut would mean I save $50,000. (Though still paying, please note, $450,000!) Whereas, if I pay 5,000 in taxes, my savings would be $500. Duh. Is this horrible? I think not. People with a large income tend to be the most productive people. What do you want to do, give people a disincentive to be productive? We already do way too much of that, imnsho. Jeez....next you'll be telling us that government actually makes good and efficient use of our money that it takes.....
Ah....but who will Moderate the Meta Moderators?
FYI: I work for NASA. Please explain how NASA is taking these massive cuts, when we all got an email today saying that next year's budget has been INCREASED two percent. So +2% == Cut?! The dropping of these two programs have nothing to do with tax cuts.
All I get out of your statements is that the politicians should leave NASA alone and not use them to do favors for their constituents. That doesn't seem very damning to NASA.
That's where you are going wrong. You still think of NASA as they the same dedicated group of engineers who went to the moon. They are gone! NASA is just another government agency that happens to have more engineers, but the people in charge are politicians.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
On what do you base this statement? My understanding is that the heads of NASA are chosen much like any corporation with a board of directors. They are not appointed by the president or congress.
The highest uppety up is Dan Goldin who worked at TRW Space and Technology group before starting at NASA in the early 90's. That doesn't sound like a very political job to me.
- I like pudding.
--
Good idea, it's too bad you weren't around right before WW II--i'm sure my grandfather would have liked to watch someone land on the moon in 1950 right as a Russian nuclear bomb took out the German headquarters in New York City.
The world is a different place now, it's MORE dangerous. I sure don't want to have to learn chinese or arabic, so please take your pie in the sky idealism elsewhere.
All space programs really are aiming at an ultimate goal; the eventual exploration and colonization of space. First off, let's get one thing streight: the current government doesn't want a space program. If it weren't for the chanches of being able to mine asteriods, or use of zero-gee for manufacuring purposes (something that our government shouldn't have their collective fingers in the pies of in the first place, but that's another story), NASA would have no budget. Why? People moving off the planet = less jobs on ol' Terra = less of a job market = less profit (optionally inputed step: = less incoming taxes) = less paycheck = less yachts. And we know Dubya, Inc. couldn't survive without his yacht.
/dev/trinity
Colonizing a planet is not like colonizing a country; you have to take along alot more than 100 some odd people. And I highly doubt that the US Government is going to somehow maintain connections with Alpha Centauri (to pick at random) enough to collect taxes (a five year taxation lax? what happens if you have a refund comming or an asteriod blocks the radio transmission along the way?), so they wouldn't be able to control it.
Therefore, we should a) be happy that NASA has a budget at all (that doesn't mean stop complaining; by all means keep it up) and/or b) overthrow the current government and install one with the goal of making sure mankind doesn't distroy itself stuck on this terrestrial ball... (Technocracy anyone?)
-MQBS
cat helicopter/B212 >
The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life- the terror of art. -Franz Kafka
All I can say is -- "What's the matter? All you 'superior aryans' can't compete against us uentermenschen?" Biter.
--
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
There are certain endeavors that will necessarily have to be government programs. The military is an obvious example. I would submit that space exploration is another. The reason for this is that there is little about space exploration that is profitable. Now, there are some space-related tasks that are always going to be in demand for example, such as launching satellites. But let's face it -- there's not much innovation involved there. You strap your spacecraft on top of a Delta 2 (which is a Boeing vehicle, BTW) and launch the sucker. It's been done so many times that it's become routine and (relatively) inexpensive.
.. but why aren't these same people complaining about Congress spending billions of dollars on aircraft carriers the Pentagon doesn't even want simply because the contractor building the carrier happens to reside in a key Senator's congressional district?
For other fields related to space exploration, such as the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Next Generation Space Telescope or the exploration of the outer Solar System, things are a bit different. I find it hard to believe that if NASA were dissolved tomorrow, aerospace companies would be falling all over each other to spend considerable amounts of money to do research. It's not profitable, and that is the paramount concern when a company weighs the merits (and demerits) of a particular venture. Lockheed-Martin is not going to spend millions of dollars to send a vehicle to study the atmosphere of Pluto. Raytheon is not going to spend millions of dollars to develop space-based instruments to study the effect of gamma-ray bursts.
Now, I would submit that these are important areas of study. Many people would disagree. But the end result is that if we want to do these things, we have to fund them publically. There is simply no profitable way that private companies can do these things on their own. The result of this is people that are unhappy about the way that their tax dollars are being spent, and that's fine. I cannot fathom a government that could spend its tax revenues in a manner that is acceptable to every last one of its citizens. The question is whether or not the expenditure is justified.
In the grand scheme of things, NASA's budget is a tiny fraction of the entire federal budget, and it is for this reason that I am continually puzzled by those who make NASA their favorite whipping boy when it comes to government waste. If people want to complain about NASA, fine
Now, I am not claiming that NASA can't do things better. There's a lot of red tape that can be cut. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Bill Gate's net worth is equal to the net worth of the bottom 50% of the people in the united states. Rich people do pay more taxes, but thats because they can afford to do so. Would you rather the government place the same tax burden on everyone and force the poor to starve to death?
Many taxes are not proportionate. The social security taxes are collected primarily from low and middle income people, but these funds are often "borrowed" to pay for other government programs. Property taxes are linear. Sales taxes are linear and often affect rich people less. Use taxes like vehicle registration, fishing permits, park passes are paid mostly by middle class and poor people. Many rich people hire accountants to create tax shelters or divert their funds to non-profit organizations that operate as charities to promote the causes of rich people. Dubaya's daddys rich friends put him in office. This tax cut is for them, the ceos of enron, philip morris and time warner and as a result a larger portion of the tax burden will be shifted to middle and low income people. Rich people are not special people crowned by god, they often got rich because of oportunities they were afforded by living in this nation, because of our system of laws and government infastructure. Its only fair that People who reap the bennifits of our system pay their share.
The worst part about this proposed tax cut is that in the future, when this money could have been used to fix social security and improve education, the poor of our country will be the ones really hurt by this. Bend over america its time to bow down the ruling class.
Thank god dubaya wasnt able to produce a heir to the throne.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Hint: It's not just the rich.
Pension funds and mutual funds own major portions of our country's wealth. They are the ones pushing for more profitability. And they are accountable to the "working poor", as you put it.
The "means of production" is owned by the workers through their pension and mutual funds. And yet we still need profit, and we still need management.
-Stu
But what you don't say is that the top 1% in this country have 90% of the wealth! The bottom 50% have about 5% of the wealth. So if they're paying 4% of the taxes, then they are paying their fair share easy. And the taxes on the top 1% should be quadrupled.
So sorry, but it is not "fair" that the rich should pay so much less in taxes when they have a greatly disproportionate amount of wealth. It is unfair for all the rest of us.
Lets cut welfare by 1% and we could fund NASA for ages. Dammit, this crap really pisses me off. Why do we pay people to sit around on their drug addicted asses and produce children?
Kevin
So US where are we now? Where's the Moon base. Where is the permanent all-mighty Space Station? Whereis Man on Mars? Where is the Hypersonic plane? Where are the powerful and dynamic Shuttles, the space robots + probes + telescopes + ++++++ that you promised long ago and which would roam every corner of our Solar System and look further and further into the Universe? Where is the XXI century on the edge of the Future?
/. talked bout masers and Marines... And anti-ICBM whoopla is running full-steam on Pentagon.
Sincerly, the only thing I see from those tons of popular science that you guys gave as "sure" for this time, is the attempt to create the "weapons of the future". No matter the absurd, the danger and the stupidity. Sorry people but I do remember what we had as "promised" by 1975. Masers, lasers, anti-ICBMs and some other stuff was already on study by then, and there were predictions that our damn XXI century would see such weapons. Well, just a little ago
So let's predict what we will see 30 from now...
The remains of ISS rising from a Florida swamp... The budget was to tight to reach the Atlantic and Russia was always cash stripped or Europe din't give a bunch or Japan was to afraid to see falling in the Pacific. Anyway, after so many years the ship was not only fungy but also radioactive. So finally no one will mess with Florida swamps.
A mess of small and useless high-speed rockets for US taxpayers happyness. And to help other taxpayers not to forget their own military.
Shuttleland, the only solution to this piece of technological scrap. Well at least kids will be happy.
A whole trashyard of commercial, subcommercial, protocommercial and ex-commercial satellites. And a few military satellites for commercial purposes (I'm not kidding! That's started to happening now!..). And all debris that come from them.
Man on Space. Man on Space... Man on Space? That's a hoax! And you believed that we got to the Moon? Yeah, and tell me that we reached Mars with space probes...
Star Treck will be a long forgotten series and Star Wars turn to a silly fantasy film. 2001 will just be what it was - some madness from some schizo. Aliens will no longer bother us so we calmly close X-Files and go play basketball.
On the other hand, Buffett wasn't the only one to endorse the ad (actually, he didn't sign it, but he was quoted in the Times as saying he thought it didn't go far enough -- or something to that effect). I bet that most of the people on the list had nothing to do with insurance.
I have no idea where this misinfomation came from, but, here goes.....
:)
Bill gate's father is a well-known family in Seatle. Bill Gate's had a million dollar trust fund before he even went to Harvard. Of course, before he even went to Harvard, he graduated from a prep school (who's tuition was 3x harvard's). His father was, and is ``one of the richest and most prominent lawyers in the state of washington.''
http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/
If that's not a privileged family, I'm not sure what is.
I realize that all of the Slashdot.org (tm) staffers are dirt-poor, and are also therefore Democrats, but jeesh--posting inflamatory and critically erroneous info about the proposed tax cut only propagates the rumors and mis-information.
The last major tax cut that we (U.S., Americans) received prompted one of the biggest economic expansions in U.S. history.
You see, when people pay less taxes, they have more money to spend.
When people have more money to spend, they spend it on goods and services (thereby creating more taxable income for someone else)
When those goods and services people have more money to spend (because they got more from other folks who had more to spend) they spend more...(thereby creating more taxable income for someone else)
and they told two friends
and they told two friends
and so on......
and so on.....
So, get off of your high horse, Slashdot editors---after all, you are all worth millions....don't you want to save some of your $$$ for your retirement?
Don't count on your govt to 'give' you a retirement....save your own money and make things happen for yourself.
Robert
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
But hey, at least rich people get a tax cut (even if they don't want one)..."
Not sure whether this is offtopic or a troll, but it's definitely not relevant to NASA. As someone pointed out, NASA got a 3% funding increase this year--the first in 7 years. I fail to see how Bush's tax plan has anything to do with the cancellation of X-33, X-34.
That said, the people trashing Bush's plan seem to have no knowledge of economics. First of all, really rich (and even some moderately rich) people will be unaffected by the plan. They already dodge estate and income taxes through tax loopholes and offshore investments, etc. I know this because my ex-girlfriend's parents sheltered a good chunk of money in Luxembourg, and now live happily on their yacht without paying any substantial taxes. If they die, no estate tax will touch any of that money. The only thing affected will be their house. In other words, with an estate tax, if you're rich and you want to leave a fortune to your kids, no problem. If you want to bequeath your farm or family home, tough luck.
So who does benefit from the tax cut? The middle class, primarily, especially professionals earning in the $50K - $150K range. Lower income people do benefit, too, just not as much.
Finally, I suggest you study the Laffer Curve to see why tax cuts can actually increase net tax revenue, as they did during the Reagan years. "What?" the liberals shriek, "the deficit increased during the 80's!" Yes, but that's because spending drastically increased. Tax revenues actually increased in response to tax cuts, just not enough to keep up with spending (Reagan poured tons of money into the military in an effort to win the Cold War). Look up the stats if you don't believe me.
i think you have it backwards. the public isn't interested because we haven't done anything worth being interested in.
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
Wouldn't population control take care of itself if the earth was "full?" zo.
One word: inflation. A budget increase of 3% is meaningless if inflation has increased by more than that amount over the past seven years (the time span since their last budget increase).
And I always though salon was a innovation-related page, not a DNC soapbox ah, well to all good things...
Isn't it the Democrats that always want to cut Defense spending? Methinks the entire Internet would not be here if it were not for DARPA, hmmm?
Much of computer research was funded via military spending (DoD), as well, eh?
Now, as a Libertarian, I would like to see gov't REALLY reduced to only the essentials, but the DoD would definitely be one of the essentials. I think I've seen stats that Democrats grow gov't at a rate of 6% when they get their way, and Republicans (despite talk of small gov't) grow it at a rate of 3%.
In any case, I'm glad we have a Republican in office rather than some crazy land-grabbing double-headed monster (Billary) like we just had.
God, what a pair of hucksters. It's funny that the mainstream media is only now waking up to the fact that they are a pair of criminals, and belong behind bars. Even other Democrats are starting to distance themselves.
Now that Bush has been elected President, it feels like the adults are back in office...not the child-like coup d'etat of the past eight years. Granted, I'd rather it were a Libertarian prez, but a Republican is the next best thing.
BTW, name one policy that Clinton put into effect that improved the economy. Other than leaving in place the Reaganomics he inherited.
Favorite/funniest answer I've ever heard to this question (from a liberal): "he raised taxes". I laughed so hard I nearly fell over...this guy didn't have any understanding of economics. When Clinton raised taxes (1993?), the economy flatlined at about a 2% growth rate until the Republicans took over Congress.
Timothy if you are going to post inciteful comments, try and think a little before you post. Or better still do us all a favour and stop posting your pathetic asides with the story and post your comments along with everyone elses.
/. staff get a bonus for how many comments each of their stories generates?
/. but only the few get to select the stories and post inane comments on the front page.
/. staff read their emal let alone the comments.
Does
We all submit stories to
Go on mod me down, see if I care. It's not like any of the
There seems to be a recurring theme in high technology where an already-existing, simple solution that solves annoying problem is passed over for the promise of some ridiculously complex and grandiose scheme that never materializes.
Do your part and start smoking.
Who's been the biggest beneficiary of the US government's actions as of late?
Why that would be those who get subsidized heating oil, food stamps, and diapers for their little brats they shouldn't have had because they knew they couldn't afford them. Based on the amount paid in vs. benefits recieved the lazy, unproductive leaches of society (i.e. the unworking poor) are certainly the biggest beneficiaries.
dividends and increased share prices, which are already taxed at a lower rate than earned income.
BZZT! wrong! 'Capital gains' is taxed at 20%, thats' after the corporation pay's its tax rate of 36%, an effective tax rate of ~50%
When will people like you realize that punishing the productive of society (i.e. the rich) while rewarding the unproductive (i.e. the poor) taken to it's logical conclusion results in a society where everyone is unproductive and society crumbles.
Get a fucking job like the rest of us busting our asses to get ahead.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I like pudding too!
The solution to the problem you talk about though has nothing to do with a tax cut.
Your point is that the politicians are greedy and wastefull. So your logic is to cut taxes to give them less money to waste. Unfortunately, I think this will work like sactions on Iraq. The people at the top of the government will still get whatever they want, and Joe Crackhead's parks/schools/kids will end up getting screwed. So all the rich stay rich and the poor get screwed. What else is new?
I think a tax cut is irrelivant to the problem. I think McCain's campaign finance reform will have a lot greater effect on getting dirtbags out of government and corporations out of government. Then, cut 1/3 of the goverment, all pork fat (sugar subsidies, corporate wellfare, etc.) then everyone, including the poor down trodden millionaires, can get a tax cut. Everyone is happy.
- I like pudding.
Without regard to fairness, it's mathematically impossible for "the rich" to not get the bulk of any tax cut; taxes could be eliminated completely for the bottom 50%, cut very slightly for the top 10%, and the bulk of the reduction would still go to top.
If there isn't the potential to profit, why are we still blindly throwing money at it? Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot potential benefits from space exploration; but we need to be more careful with our money and maximize what we DO invest. I really hope that NASA is intent on streamlining their operations considering all the other domestic and foreign issues we have on our plate.
I expect a number of people will be distressed at this. I am not. The Space Station was an ill-designed nightmare. The US space program desperately needs on-orbit assembly capability. To do that we need space suits that don't require pre-breathing before use. NASA has known this for 20 years, and has had such suit designs available since 1980. I have a signature in my log book of a NASA test subject in a 12 psi above ambient suit, signed after about 6 hours in it, attesting to general comfort. Of course he was a 22 year old rigger not a 45 year old Ph.D. which is what NASA sends up. The whole manned space program is a shambles because we don't have decent suits.
Without on orbit assembly capability -- I mean real work in space done by riggers who can do a day's work -- things have to be pre-assembled and taken up in big chunks, which means shuttle which means a BILLION DOLLARS A FLIGHT for 50,000 pounds or so. What we need is 20 million a flight for 10,000 pounds and that would be achievable but "there is no urgent need for that" because -- well because the stupid space station ate it all. The shuttle and the space station ate the dream. Make no mistake about that. Those monsters need to GO and be replaced by smaller, operations driven, flexible re-usable designs.
- - -
In 1989 Gen. Daniel Graham, Max Hunter, and Jerry Pournelle went to then Chairman of the National Space Council VP Dan Quayle and persuaded him to start a small reusable rocket program. That became the DC/X and the concept was proved with 11 successful USAF flights before NASA took it over and destroyed in on the first flight, thus eliminating any threat to the Shuttle.
A fuller discussion of all of this by the same author is found here, entitled "Why Have NASA?"
But the bottom line is that NASA has gone the way of the boondoggle, and may in fact be committed to a body of technology that is in fact stopping us from getting the show on the road.
Gee, but this sounds very familiar in a slightly different context.
Understand, I want them to get going, and do it right. But are they going about it all wrong?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
As someone who has myself worked on government contracts, I can say I've seen companies screw up royally and then turn around and get the next contract to fix it. In the space business, this is especially a problem because there are so few companies with the necessary qualifications to perform the work.
But it goes even further than that. There are indeed incentives within a government contract situation to do the job "right." There are also disincentives and waste (most of them motivated by politics.) The question is, with those incentives and disincentives, does the federal government on balance do a better job than the private sector does (or would). Look at the astounding successes of the private development of early airplane technology and the relative lack of success of government funded space technology for your answer. The government had the ability to send an airplane into suborbital space over thirty-five years ago (X-15), and now can't duplicate that even with a multi-billion dollar budget.
At any rate, it just irks me when people (not you) try to portray NASA as some sort of Cash Black Hole where the taxpayers' money is sucked in, never to be seen again. The majority of that money is pumped right back out into the private sector.
And if the program were cancelled and taxes reduced accordingly, all of the money would be in the private sector, not just "a majority" of it.
I am a single, professional developer and I make decent money. Is that a crime? I don't make crazy money but I still paid almost 23,000 in taxes last year. What did I get for it? I got a 10K performance bonus and do you want to know how much that means for me after taxes? 5,790. Is that fair?
they'll reinstate these NASA programs. Yeah, right. If they keep my tax cut, they'll just shovel my money down the same deep dark hole they're already putting it in.
Post your flip comments about people choosing a tax cut over a NASA program when I actually get some sort of CHOICE over where my money goes.
I don't see anybody on either side of the asile giving a shit about any space programs right now, they're too damn busy pandering and handing out entitlements. Even if they kept my tax cut, they give it to someone else, not to NASA.
Let's post a one-billion dollar prize for the first group to recieve good data back from a probe at Pluto containing XYZ instruments. (One billion dollars may be too high or too low, adjust as needed.) Why wouldn't that work?
:-)
Who pays the one billion dollars?
Or, more succinctly: how is this (conceptually) any different than a government contract?
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
No, you are a troll.
As opposed to your pointless rant, he at least presented some arguments.
That's the idea. Spend (taxpayer) money first, then get people excited later to justify expenditures. A perfect description of government spending.
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
Clinton was a wiz at garnering soft money contributions. The Law was passed in 91, he was elected in 92. What else can you say he was a natural. :)
Clinton is the symtom, (not that that obsolves him) soft money is cause. He was just shead of his time
Wave goodbye to the last non-bought politicians. A few more elections and there won't be any non-corrupt politicians left.
I can't wait for nanotech (point out Moores law to people.) in this level of corruption. Well maybe they will think I am smart and not low level format my brain (yea right)
Until Soft money is stopped NOTHING WILL CHANGE! EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO SOFT MONEY!!
If Jesse Ventura(sic?)reruns for Govenor of Minn in 2 years he won't take any monetery contributions. His logic is the prior 4 years are his resume. Do you think Bush or any of the incumbant republicrats can or will say that. Na nobodys that nieve.
Don't blame me I voted for Nader (in NY)
This was test and only a test, if it were a real rant people would listen, get really pisssed of and do somthing about it.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
So you're saying that the Pluto mission, the X program, and any further improvements to the I.S.S. were all going nowhere fast? They don't have enough cash. Face it. Personally, I'd just as soon slice the millitary budget in half and then slice that in half and give it to NASA and education. Their 14 billion dollar budget is barely above the cost of one week of that little worthless skirmish in Kosovo a little while ago. I'd rather spend the money on something to advance the human race than something to demolish innocent albanians/serbs.
It's kinda sickening to see obviously intelligent people like yourself going along with the politicians' vote-buying schemes. They are very nearly to the point where a majority of the voting public will pay no taxes at all (the reason Daschle keeps bringing up how a person making $25k will get no cut is because that person, right now, pays *NO* federal income tax. Sounds good 'til you know that, right?).
Once a majority of the public is recieving government handouts and paying no taxes, they're in the pockets of the politicians and lobbyists, and they'll start passing corporate/government control stuff that makes DMCA look tame. There's a very important reason the US was not designed to be a democracy (it's a representative republic), and it's being subverted as we speak.
Your "freebie" larceny-supported space program got cut back again. Boo hoo. High time, says I - have you seen how much money that lot pour down the drain?
If you want a better space shuttle, make a business case, get investors, and build it yourself. Personally I thnk that's the future of space travel; privately funded missions, either direct prospecting for profit, or advertising supported. There's a lot of raw materials, a lot of real estate, a lot of business opportunities out there. And with the constraints of business, there will be no temptation to waffle around trying to Invent Nifty Technologies instead of getting the job done - which if you recall is why NASA dumped the mostly working "delta clipper" in favor of the "more technological" X33.
Heck, you may recall they named a famous spaceship "Enterprise"? Not "Tax funded".
President Bush should just auction off NASA. At which point I suspect that our 1960s style Progress Towards The Stars would resume, full-pace.
>> they pay farmers to let food rot so they can keep prices high Mmm... well that's true in part: adjusting for inflation, ag prices are lower now that at any point since the 1950s.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I'm 21, and I've already given up all hope of getting social security. Instead of a tax cut, fix that situation and then the national debt. Everybody is so greedy they don't see they are fucking themselves in the ass in the future!
Rich, poor, everyone. Poor people will use it to eat for months and rich people will eat out for a night. Or maybe we should give lexuses to the very rich(cause they need em) and let the poor keep on getting screwed.
We have the best government that money can buy.
> But hey, at least rich people get a tax
> cut (even if they don't want one)..."
http://www.attackcartoons.com/estatetax.GIF
... and if we're about to blame Bush (not that I'm implying you are) for only increasing the budget by 3% this year, is the Clinton administration at fault for not raising it at all for the last 7 years?
NASA is inefficient and tends to do things poorly.
.. let's not attempt to marginalize NASA's successes by shining the spotlight on their failures.
I wouldn't say this. NASA has had some well-publicized failures, but how quickly we forget July 4, 1997. The Pathfinder Mars mission was an incredible success, far exceeding the mission parameters and expectations, and it came at a price tag that was a minute fraction of the tremendous cost of the 1970s Viking missions. Humans fuck up from time to time, and because NASA is run by humans, NASA fucks up from time to time. But please
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
No it will not. Corruption will simply take on another forms like independently sponsored ads etc ...
You are making some huge assumptions from a one sentence jab.
There is nothing in the Republican platform that is not based on selfishness, punishment, or fear. I would be happy to discuss any plank of that platform that you feel does not match this statement.
Libertarianism shares at least one aspect of the Republicans that is best summarized by "every man for himself." I respect the libertarian reason for this, but not the republican. Libertarians live by this because that is the basic philosophy around their party and not subject to any exceptions. I just feel like it can be a little cold to someone who is really at a disadvantage of some kind. (Correct me if this is not an accurate assesment of the Libertarian philosophy.)
I do not respect the republicans who believe in this only when they are powerful and at the top of the society where they then saw, "OK, everythings even. Every man for himself." Clarence Thomas is a good example.
- I like pudding.
Maybe, maybe not. There is actually a considerable body of evidence that it was not properly ratified. If you are interested here is a place to start.
There are also a couple of completely separate arguments for the same conclusion - if you are interested I am sure you are capable of doing your own research.
At any rate, the income tax originally took a tiny percentage of the top couple of percent of wage-earners income - and of course the politicians that came up with it swore it would never get bigger. Yeah, right. Anyhow...
Rather quickly, I imagine... I wonder if someone has posted that they own all your italian bases yet?
But seriously, if topic is x, and x leads to y, and y leads to z, is z off-topic? Of course not. This is a discussion site isn't it?
Your english is fine, at least in this post - remembering that most native speakers are atrocious at it these days. I believe you misused the colon (":") - should have been a semicolon (";") but that's one most natives seem to get wrong so don't feel too bad...
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Como se "zitto" y "stronzo" en ingles?
That's spanish, not italian, but I've been told they are close enough that an italian will generally understand at least the simpler stuff... in case I was told wrong I was asking what "zitto, stronzo" means...
Sardinia in the spring... beautiful no? Enjoy it...
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
What a bunch of shit.
Brav-O. Fascinating response.
But... actually, he's right about the intent of the fraimers, AFAIK. I'm not sure it makes much of a difference, though, considering the body of case law that over the years has given us the "liberal myth" that most subscribe to today.
Hey...maybe I can start my own church for tax purposes.
Perhaps so. Let us know how it goes.
--
Tweet, tweet.
No we are not. ...
BTW. Just because you call him stupid doesn't mean he is.
It might be you who is truly stupid here
Two words: Class Mobility.
Two more words: Class Warfare.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
This is basically, a "me too" post, but I have :)
much more to add....
Ah, class warfare.
I think the stats go that folks who make 115K or more are in the top 2% of earners in America. Now, the Democrats class warfare looks even more preposterous when you know that - hint: that's not really that much money, and if you are a struggling small business, the tax break can really help - if they stay in business, a lot of the "poor" will still have jobs instead of standing in unemployment lines.
Re: the death tax:
The folks who are coming out against repealing the death tax are either ignorant of, or do not care, who the death tax really affects, and it is not the folks who have billions. It is the small farm owners. It is the small business owners. So stop the bitching, it's not about GIVING money to anyone, it's about not showing up and STEALING what is already rightfully theirs (and they've already paid taxes on that which is rightfully theirs).
Picture this: your parents die in some horrible accident. As if it's not terrible enough, someone knocks on your door and says, hey, I'm taking up to 55% of your money to give to other people. If that someone was anyone other than an IRS rep, you'd be justified in shooting them, because that is called theft by most people's definition. But it is the gov't, so you have to roll over. Wasn't
oppressive taxes what the Am. Revolution was about in the first place? Let me reiterate: the death tax is taking up to 55% of what has already BEEN TAXED. That's shameful. And you know, I will never be in that position, but I recognize that as wrong. It's not me vs. the rich, because I know the rich provide a lot of benefit without institutionalized stealing and "progressive" taxing. BTW, "progressive" is a liberal's code word for socialism, IMHO.
And all this talk about "creating an aristocracy" is just nonsense. The people coming out against repealing it are probably qualified for an aristocracy anyway, death tax or no (45% of billions still leaves you a billionaire), and don't want the next guy on the totem pole to have a fighting chance - or to teach the unwashed masses to rely on a gov't that will keep them in poverty and in the dark (literally, apparently, in CA).
Democrats shouldn't be lambasting aristocracies anyway; what the heck are the Kennedys if not an aristocracy?
Well, if you read the article, the X programs they cut were DEFINITELY going nowhere fast. Massively overbudget without any signs of success.
Yes, but doesn't also make sense that the US is providing the rich with a better way of life than the poor, and therefore they should pay more? Taxes are a lot lower in Ecuador. If Gates was born there, how do you think he'd be doing today?
Also, I think $10,000 to someone that makes a million a year means less than $10 to someone that makes $10,000. Like in engineering, your can't scale up linearly, it has to be exponential.
- I like pudding.
"The top 1% in this country pay 23% of the federal tax bill." Which is neat trick considering that the top 1% of the country control 38% of the wealth. (Other sources cite similar or larger numbers, it's admittedly a hard number to measure.) So, when are the rich going to pay their fair share?
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Note - My interpretation of 'top 1%' is the 1% of the population (ie 2.8 million people) with the highest incomes. I am happy to be corrected if it means otherwise.
However, what proportion of the total income does that top 1% really earn? probably more than 23%
Also, how much of the total capital wealth does that 1% control? probably more than 23%
In Australia, it is typically the case that the wealthy pay far less as a proportion of their overall wealth and income than the middle and working classes, mainly by virtue of having greater access to tax minimisation devices and highly paid financial advisors and tax lawyers.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
It's true what they say. Republicans are the most open minded and kind hearted people. Feel the love?
- I like pudding.
Actually, there is not a single company in the US that pays ANY tax. Zip, nadda, nothing. Oh, they might get a dollar figure from accounting and then send in a check to the IRS ... But those costs are then passed on to us in the form of higher prices. So you see, we get screwed no matter what.
there would be mining colonies on the moon, and human expeditions out to Jupiter by now.
But cutting their budget won't help at all. Higher government has to allow spaceflight without consulting NASA, which has become a hideously bloated incompetent bureaucracy which barely manages a handful of projects through gratuitous spending. Cutting the budget without removing them will only hurt the handful of projects they do manage.
If you have any doubts about NASA, look at the shuttle. Look at it's original purpose as an experimental vehicle, and look how they've ignored the data it brought in and its lousy performance and how they've made it their main launch vehicle.
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On Wednesday, a nation on Earth slashed its space program, gutting the Pluto, Solar Probe, and X-33 programs.
In retaliation, we have destroyed one of their cities.
Reinstate the space program, or we will be forced to destroy one city per week.
Klaatu barata nikto.
Ahh, that was a good read. Thanks for the snappy reply. There are some folks here who don't know anything about history, except what other liberals spout.
At least Reagan didn't sell himself out to the Communist Chinese, either. At least Reagan didn't have allegations of cocaine (ab)use. At least Reagan didn't have allegations of having people killed that were in a position to testify against him - or terrorize people who could be witnesses (killing people's pets, for example). At least Reagan did not abuse every power given to him like Clinton did (pardons, Presidential orders). At least Reagan did not sexually harrass (how many women is it now with Clinton) the women around him. At least Reagan really loved his wife. At least Reagan didn't cause $200,000 in damage to public facilities (White house) on the way out. Now, with all that, I still think we should have gotten to the bottom of the Iran-Contra thing. No one is above the law, Republican/Democrat, President or no. We should pursue Clinton to the maximum extent of the law. Letting him off the hook, and "moving on", as so many people suggest would send the wrong message to those who hold office.
Reagan did not have hardly any scandals until that Iran-Contra thing, and that was even WITH a very oppositional media that wanted to bring him down at every opportunity. God, they STILL hate him. Good to know that most Americans weren't fooled by the past 12 years of spin, though: Reagan was voted most popular prez by a mainstream poll. I was blown away. Of course, Clinton was on there (4th or 5th) so I didn't get all that excited. That guy doesn't even deserve to be called a president, much less be the most popular. History will probably show him and his wife to be what they really are: common criminals that pulled the wool over many folks eyes.
The analogy between modern western civilization
and the fall of Rome has occured to me as well.
But, the million dollar question is: If you were
sent back in time to the beginning of Rome's fall,
how would you stop it? How many voices are needed
to reverse the momentum and how do you organize
the voices to turn the hearts of the majority?
That the phrase "Separation of Church and State" doesn't appear in the text of the constitution is a red herring.
Your claim that the founding fathers were only interested in protestantism is suspect at best in light of their public tendencies more towards deism than Christianity.
har har har,
If you read my post again, you'll see that I never accused the President (moreover: his cabinet) of stupidity. only suggested that he holds the american populace and the pursiut of science in contempt. and then I suggested he might be justified, refering to network television and alluding to it's low-brow nature.
then you posted, and validated my final statement, by suggesting I shouldn't refer to the president as 'stupid'. I believe poor reading comprehension is a subset of 'stupid'. thank you.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
The DC-X got off the ground and flew around. They demonstrated vertical powered landing and crossrange maneuvering with it, and they managed to fly it twice in 24 hours; killing two of the "but that's impossible" objections to VTOL RLV designs.
However, I don't think it even broke the sound barrier; the DC-X was a tiny rocket compared to the Delta Clipper design. The DC-Y was the proposed suborbital follow on, which got beaten by Lockheed Martin's "gee whiz" design for the X-33 contract (you'll notice I'm not arguing with your "NASA == ignorant slut" assertion), and the Delta Clipper was the orbital rocket that would have been built with the lessons learned from DC-Y. The Delta Clipper never got past the initial design proposal phase. In fact, the company proposing Delta Clipper got merged into Boeing shortly thereafter; don't expect to hear anything about it again.
Since when has NASA started running short of money? And what is the cuts for? Is it to send a psuedo message to the taxpayer that he will not be paying NASA? So maybe now we will be shown as paying taxes for employment insurance or such social service stuff, and the money will actually go to NASA. Or are they cahnging the name altoghether?
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
Apart from the Declaration and War of Independence, you mean? :)
Why don' you shut the fuck up.
This is not a Soviet society when any politicial can call on "popular" support and simply rob other people of LEGALLY earned income, or is it ?
Get NASA out of the space elevator business!! NASA has outlived its usefulness, and it's time to encourage private space vehicles.
And by the way, it's MY money, not the governments. And I want my money back. Spending it on more useless NASA shuttles that cost 10 times what a private effort would cost is not an efficient use of MY money.
Get the government to stop road-blocking privatization of space!
It's incredible to me that there are people that think the government can spend the surplus more efficiently than private citizens. And yes, that includes rich people -- in fact, especially rich people, because they a) invest the money, and b) have a lot of money to spend back into the economy. Just because there are rich people that are too stupid to understand economics and don't want money back doesn't mean we should listen to them. Rich people do not put their money in mattresses.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm sure you understand economics much better than Warren Buffett
It was said earlier, Buffett makes a good deal of money from his Insurance company holdings. Insurance companies that sell 'estate tax insurance'. Thus very obvious reasons for him to oppose the end to the estate tax. No?
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
The truth is that single stage to orbit vehicles aren't economical at all in their current. The payloads they take up have to be small due to the amount of fuel they require.
I recall that a group from Stanford presented a concept for a single STEP to orbit vehicle at last years's Mars Society conference. Here the vehicle refuels in-flight at a high altitude negating the need to carry all fuel at take-off...
Uhh, that looks OK. We haven't seen that number yet.
On the contrary, he's smart -- smart enough to wrap his cynical motives (attempting to squelch rising competition from the next lower class, which in his case is the million-, as opposed to billion-, aire) in Mom and flag and apple pie.
As you say, Buffet (and the other really rich) can cloak their assets fairly easily. The people a few steps down the totem pole are millionaires on paper, but have most of their assets tied up in businesses, land, etc, which will get the anal probe as the owner assumes ambient temperature.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
you shouldn't have posted this as AC. I would like to discuss it. See, the US President is typically the singlemost influential person responsible for the political mood here in the US, and if Nasa is suddenly scrapping a bunch of projects in response to the new administration, who better to blame? and it seems obvious to me that all the recent news about NASA projects facing the axe is more than coincidental to the new administration finally getting a head of steam on.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
A few bits of reality intervention here:
The X-33 is a scale-model prototype, not a functional space plane. That is the X-34, which hasn't even left the drawing boards (or CAD system, whatever).
The X-33 program isn't even relying anymore on NASA funding (go to their site at VentureStar.com and look for yourselves. So what if Space.com claims NASA pulled the plug? On a program they don't fund? Big whoop. I'm pulling the plug on Microsoft. Oh, wait, I don't give them my money.
My guess is that Space.com is trolling for public reaction, because even though NASA's budget increased, the money isn't going toward what they (the folks at Space.com) think is important. Here's a hint: they hate NASA, always have, and think they could do a better job of guiding our country's growth into outer space. Remember that their founding members came out of the aborted L-5 group from the '70s.
The X projects will continue, as they primarily have, to be funded on private monies. If they get cut it will be because the corporations decide to end them, not NASA.
I am tired of all the DC-X supporters here: the DC-X was an unbelievably cool idea that was executed well, but had one major flaw: no failsafe, no possibility of recovery in case of failure (parachutes don't work if you're close to the ground) which was demonstrated by the loss of the DC-Y.
Now, the X-33 (I forget LM's moniker pre-approval) could glide back into earth, had craploads of power to get to orbit, and if successful, the technologies that would have been developed around it, would have revolutionized space travel (the aerospike engine would be enough).
The curse of the X-33 was those damn cryogenic tanks and that old foe of aero engineers: center of gravity. The X-33 is basically a triangle, with a CG at about 2/3 of the way back. Now, if those cryo tanks need to work, they need to be big and strong. And where can you fit big, heavy tanks? in the back of the plane of course, which will cause the CG to move even further back, say 70-75% of the fuselage length. That's, for all intents and purposes, unflyable.
However, the X-33 did develop some kick-ass new thermal tiles, it proved the concept of the aerospike engine and it will still give us great technology for the next generation of spacecraft. What was basically disproven (and it was its demise) was lifting-body spacecraft (that CG thing again).
My guess: Rockwell's entry to the old X-33 competition, which was basically an updated Space Shuttle, would have been the prudent, conservative choice. If that idea is combined with what NASA can salvage from the X-33 technologies (aerospike, monocoque design, thermal tiles) the 3rd generation (in effect) shuttle will simply kick ass.
" You have yet to produce one smidgen of evidence... "
Provide evidence to someone unwilling to provide even a smidgen of identity?
besides, my only real point here is the similarity of G Bush Jr. and the pandering antics of the Roman leaders during the time of that republic's collapse. And I don't see that there's much to argue there.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
Whining about how the incredibly modest proposed tax cuts are going to affect your favorite government programs misses the point entirely. The bottom line is that other peoples' money is not yours to do with as you see fit. People who support taxes are basically saying "I'm willing to take money from you by force to use as I wish." There is a word for that: stealing. If you think the space program is a good idea, work on getting it funded through voluntary means.
Three areas that may prove profitable to private for-profit businesses: space tourism, microgravity manufacturing, and mineral mining. Others will doubtless arise as we actually get private organizations into space and they begin to discover what can be done. Oh, one more that's really ancillary to space: two-hour point-to-point Earth travel (valuable for both humans and packages). Don't be so quick to discount satellite launches, either. By developing more efficient ways to accomplish the boring things, and by increasing launch volumes, you can reduce the costs associated with the other activities, which brings more and more projects down to the affordable range.
Also, don't forget that not all private activity is for-profit. A tremendous amount of valuable research is funded by private not-for-profit organizations. And less wastefully than the public sector projects that are often funded for political reasons instead of scientific ones.
There will always be isolated examples of low- and mid- income people and buisnesses that are hurt by the estate tax. What you should keep in mind, however, is that a repeal of the estate tax would help all wealthy citizens, while helping few poor citizens. In short, look at the bigger picture.
Secondly, your argument oversimplifies the situation drastically. It's not like country's divided between those who earn a few thousand per day and those who earn a few thousand per year. There is, generally speaking, a small group of very rich people, a very large group of middle-income (comprimising the lower, mid, and upper - middle class - around 70% of the population, afaik) earners, and a small (though larger than the 'very rich' group) group of low-income people. One's options, when planning tax cuts, arn't limited to either Bill Gates or Bill Gates' custodian. A tax break given to middle-income earners would give most of them a perceptable improvement in life, be it through long term or short term spending. A tax break for the 'rich' (for the sake of argument, those whose access to non-paper money is greater than $1m.. but don't hold me to that) would probably give them any significant improvement in life. The difference between eating two meals a day rather than three meals per day is much greater than the difference between taking 4 trips abroad per year rather than taking 5 trips abroad per year.
Finally, taxing the rich more than the poor is not exploitation of the rich by the poor. It is taxation according to need, and ability to pay - the only rational way to organize a tax structure. Simply put, were the tax system to be based on absolute equality, tax rates would be set according to the lowest economic denominator, the poor. Were this to be done,and you taxed the everyone as much as you taxed the poor, you would either have a destitue government, or a destitue lower class.
I believe that most people (excluding /.) are not as interested in space anymore. Granted, there are those who salivate over the idea of mining asteroids and getting rich, but the general public really doesn't give a hoot about space. Space used to be a nationalistic thing. The moon landing (which did occur) is probably the one thing that really brought together the US as one nation. Since then, there's been interest in space, but it has been dwindling. Truly, there haven't been any large media events attributed to space, with the exception of the International Space Station.
But go out into the general public (which doesn't include /.) and I'll be you that there'll be more than one person who believes that tax dollars would be better spent on education and civil services than on space.
The government does have some business in space, but as of late, there have been a large number of private corporations that, I believe, will take over getting people and things into space and onto other celestial bodies. The government already depends on private contractors (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin), and it very well may relinquish its space influence to legislation.
However, I am all for space exploration, because once we kill Earth off with the various negative global influences, we're going to have to find somewhere else to live.
so duble-yuh has made it clear that science and technology mean nothing to him. I think he is eager to buy the american mindshare directly than by way of succesfully governing, much like Crassus or Caeser during the fall of the Roman Republic. I urge you all to make your voice heard, to let the arrogant slimeball know that the status quo isn't as stupid as network TV makes us seem. Or are we?
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
Getting an accountant to do your taxes once a year does not qualify as full time.
The whole concept of "separation of church and state" is a ridiculous liberal myth. Nowhere in the Constitution will you find the words "separation of church and state." What the Establishment Clause means to do is ensure that the government does not establish a Federal Church. It has nothing to do with prayer at football games or nativity displays on lawns.
It is pretty clear that the founding fathers intended the First Amendment to protect the right of Americans to practice whatever flavor of Protestant Christianity that they desired. This intent is obvious when you read their correspondence.
I've read for years that there were viable reusable designs that would be significantly cheaper to run than the shuttle if implemented. The reason for not using them has always been high initial cost--as is cited in the current cancellation. To me, this seems shortsighted--everything points to more and more space flights, which means volume savings will be even greater.
OK, I don't claim to know anything about NASA reuseable launch program, or the psychological guilt factor of being 'rich' . I don't claim to know a hell of a lot on taxes, politics, or economics. What I do know is that if the Bush tax plan is approved then I will be paying five percent less, my parents will be paying six percent less, and my girlfriend's parents (who support seven kids on about $30K/year and can barely keep up) will have to pay NONE.
/RANT >
I suggest you avoid bringing up topics you apparently know nothing about, especially if you are considering it in jest. Leave ignorance to those people who don't care about things. I'd like to think that we slashdotters would like to be informed and accurately informed, and to form our opinions based on truly legitimate information, not just some crack editorialist for Salon.com. I had observed that the website containing the article does not list any of the author's credentials, save for "editor." I do believe I would much more likely trust someone described as "veteran economist," or (wink, wink) "masters in business degree from Harvard."
Now, in true slashdot fashion, if anybody would like to get the FACTS and make an INFORMED decision, try following this link. It is on the House of Representatives website. While I couldn't find a copy of the actual tax proposal itself, feel free to browse house.gov and even better, c-span has loads of information on everything that the house and the President does.
If somebody happens to find a link to that tax proposal, please post it!
BTW, Now that I think of it, this whole tirade could be considered off-topic... but I believe that a call for awareness of the facts is highly important, and core to what has made slashdot so great.
-- < RANT > I propose to the IETF that the surrounding tags become official identification for slashdot.com readers! <
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
We have two problems. One, NASA is inefficient and tends to do things poorly. Two, private companies have no incentive to explore.
Let's post a one-billion dollar prize for the first group to recieve good data back from a probe at Pluto containing XYZ instruments. (One billion dollars may be too high or too low, adjust as needed.) Why wouldn't that work?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
The rich get a larger proportional piece of the cut because they pay a much larger proportion of the federal tax bill.
The top 1% in this country pay 23% of the federal tax bill. The top 10% pays 45%. The top 20% pays nearly 75%. The top 30% pay 90%. The top 40% pay 94%... and the top 50% pay nearly 97%.
That's right... the bottom 50% pay less than 4% of the total tax bill.
Given these stats, it is completely fair that the rich get their fair proportionate cut of any tax break.
Well done, looks like you fooled timothy.
All your event are belong to us.
What a bunch of shit. Hey...maybe I can start my own church for tax purposes.
Blar.
Instead of goin with proven technolegy they had to push the envelope
I saw a story about it on the learning channel it seems they tried to go with
all the cool hitech unproven crap injstead of off the shelf
you can thank al Gore for that
http://Lenny.com
Reagan did not have hardly any scandals until that Iran-Contra thing
Oh yeah, we'll just twist the past a bit and forget about the election scandle. Do you remember the little side deal about giving arms to the Iranians for holding Americans prisoner until after the elections? They tried to ask the Carter Administration for funds too, but were neglected on the grounds that is was utterly sick for the U.S. to do. Many historians have argued that Carter could have won the election if it was not for this scandle, which of course the Republicans must have believed too. (Iran was at war after they took the hostiges, and needed supplies desperately)
Carter talked about the hostiges for months, making it his prime concern, both publically and privately. The fact that his hands were tied hurt him considerably at the polls. So sure, Reagan was simply innocent and cuddly.
-----------------------------------------
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
There were 12 men who walked on the Moon. If there was friggin GOLD there we very likely would have gone back. But there was no gold and the surface of the moon was described - by eyewitness testimony - as "essentially grey". Or is it "gray"? Whatever.
Gold on Mars? Let's go!
..you guysa rgue semantics way too much. Whichever way you look at it - this is a DARK day for the space program. Any cuts like this, signal dark days. We already, do not have enough resources dedicated to our future. And, space IS the future. You are not going to get any Heinleinian space messiahs coming along, no big business man with a vision that will lift us off this mud ball. No, stop arguing semantics - any cut to the space program, is a devastating cut. God dammnit, I want to get off this frikken rock before I die, and at the moment, nasa and its exploration is the only hope for private enterprises to follow.
Faster, cheaper and safer ?
I don't think so.
The selection of Lockheed Martin for the X-33 was contraversial at the time. I believe NASA even stated that it chose that proposal _because_ it was the most technically challenging. It is perhaps not suprising that it turned out this way, the only pity is the ammount of money spent. If they just demonstrated aerospike engines, or just developed composite LH2 tanks or just worked on a lifting body design we may have got value for money. But X-33 was to be all things for all people.
One of the other proposals was based on the DC-X (Delta Clipper) which concentrated on price and reusability rather than cutting edge technology. If that had been selected we might now have a reusuable unmanned launch vehicle for Space Station cargo runs instead of being tied to the Russian Soyuz LV and Progress cargo vessel.
<satire>
Bush's proposals are very nice.
I, for one, would love to have a new Volvo.
Who cares about space? It's Empty!
</satire>
(I guess Bush don't realize that the satellites to project his gross image transglobally are the product of the space program.)
/* Rant follows. Flamebait fresh from the oven. */
What you are witnessing now, ladies and gents, is what happens when you incarcerate a sizeable percentage of your population.
Prisons are the most important thing in the US, as can be witnessed by the private prison industry's exponential growth.
Schools are not important.
Why?
Prisons are a source of cheap labor.
Neo-slavery, if you will...
We're in a country that thinks that public health care is a 'socialist' idea, whereas every other industrialized nation has realized in law that health is a basic human right.
Sorry about the rant.. I just got started...
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
I am astounded that many people are upset that taxes are being lowered, and as a consequence their pet government projects might be canceled.
There is nothing stopping any group of people from getting together to donate to the government project of their choice. I would hope that any democrats who are against the tax cut are going to do so with the extra money they get to keep. And I further hope that democrats who are for incrased taxes lead by example in donating even more of their money to the government.
When I hear of large percentage of democrats undertaking such action, I will consider take their views seriously.
The DOD is notorious for being the best prepared to fight the last war.
Once again NASA/DOD demonstrates its intention to go the B-52 route by keeping a fleet of shuttles in existance which were built before the pilots were born.
There is a difference though. The B-52 was optimized from nearly two decades of war time development starting from the B-17. The Shuttle is our B-17.
If commercial space flight truly *is* viable then why aren't more companies investing their own dollars into it and not trying to pry open the public purse?
This article from the Dallas Observer tells the story of Beal Aerospace. Billionaire founder Andy Beal put about $200M of his own money into creating a private launch services company. Warning: it's not a happy story.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
He was refering to the technology involved in making the shuttle, and how much electronics technology and industry was created as spinoff from the initial shuttle project(s). Something like 80%, I believe?
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Try asking any of the following to the average joe on the street:
If you can get a scientifically accurate answer for just one out of these five basic questions, you're batting above average. The number of people out there who can answer all five intelligently is probably about 1% of the US population, if not less.
But more to the point, and here's where NASA budget cuts (among others) come in: the average joe will also tell you that this stuff just isn't that important.
What is important? The 234986 different awards organizations for music and movies... Tolerance of serial killers, bimanual transsexuals and the non-working poor... Survivor... The 234986 different types of [bastardized if you ask me] martinis that you can get at a club... Getting out of the club with company after downing all 234986 martinis...
Science isn't even on America's radar any longer.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
This is just sad; we can see that Bush will put us into a new Dark ages.
Bush should actually be putting more money towards deficate, not tax cuts, and keep the money flowing to science research.
I see now where Bush is getting the money for his "tax" cuts, from science reseach.
Thanks,
Andrew Pinski
3) They're not really fighting against the tax cuts.
"essential public-service programs "
We had these for 30 years and where are the results ?
"What you should keep in mind, however, is that a repeal of the estate tax would help all wealthy citizens, while helping few poor citizens. "
It matters not. It is their money, already taxed once and, unless you can prove that it was illegaly earned you should keep your hands out.
Simple as that.
I hate to sounds like a tight wad, but there are a lot of people in this country (US) that can't spare $50. I realize that to you and I $50 isn't really a big deal, but to many people that covers to cost of food for a week (if not more). Maybe you're blind to this side of America. I know that I didn't see it for a very long time. The community where I grew up is/was a nice mid-upperclass community. Kids don't worry about how they're going to pay for college, they worry about what type of car they're parents are going to buy them when they turn 16.
It wasn't until highschool, when I went out of county to a better school, that I realized that poor people really do exist... and not in some far away city. You understand this when one friend gives another friend his old pair of worn shoes... and they both feel good about it. You understand that $50 means the difference between a good Christmas and no Christmas. You understand that $50 means the difference between eating for a week and not eating at all.
Perhaps once the poverty problems are solved then more people would be interested in things like the space program. This is a harsh thing to say, but it's reality. I grew up in Brevard County (where Kennedy Space Center is located). I understand what happens when there are budget cuts to the space program (hell, my dad works for a government contractor). But none-the-less, there are more pressing issues than space research.
-Andy
Warren Buffet's a moron. He can afford the lawyers to do fancy tricks with his money, meanwhile one of the oldest and most prestigious black newspapers, the Chicago Defender, is about to be sold -- probably to a large corporation -- because of the stupid estate tax.
As for space, the obvious solution would be to eliminate the stupid space shuttle program and reallocate that money toward a space program that actually made sense. Ditch the ISS too which is incredibly wasteful and will accomplish almost nothing. We need to wean NASA completely from these maxi-cost, mini-results programs and get on with the job of exploring space.
But hey, at least rich people get a tax cut (even if they don't want one)..."
From the article:
The decision to terminate both X-33 and X-34 were made internally by NASA and were not a White House decision, Stephenson said.
Just because you don't like the current administration doesnt mean that they are the root of all things evil, hell NASA just got its first budget increase in 7 Years. They felt that the funding nessecarry to fix what was obviously a flawed design from the beginning, could be put to better use on other projects.
NASA should be applauded for wanting to put thier funds where it could be more effective instead of throwing money at a project that doesn't work.
Ahhh. A breath of fresh air in the clear thinking of libertarian (at least one at heart). For some statistics posted by the house itself, read my other comment to this discussion nad follow the link at the bottom.
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
Providing ?
How ? Did Gates and others get huge goverment check in 80s ?
NO, they started in garrage, some of them made it some of them did not.
Give it some time. Eventually you to will start to wonder were all your money is going. And then you'll do some simple math. And you'll get it.
The only thing sadder in todays news if from Afganistan... but I put them both in the same league...
h an _statues_dc_18.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010302/ts/afg
NASA is the art our current government should support.
Look... If the government is going to play favorites in an arena as crucial as space technology development, then why don't they just take full responsibility for meeting specific objectives, and if they fail in those objectives -- poof -- terminate the government program in total and let the private sector have at it for a decade without any footsies with the guvvies; and no excuses?
The only thing worse than people wanting government technology development is people who want some government technology development.
Seastead this.
Actually, the tax cuts necessarily benefit primarily the people who pay the taxes. People who are poor pay no federal income tax so they cannot possibly benefit from a tax rate reduction. Since people who earn more than $50,000 a year pay essentially all the income taxes in the United States, people who earn more than this, (the population that people like you tend to define as "rich" in order to make the "only the rich will benefit from a tax cut" statement true,) are necessarily going to reap essentially all of the benefits.
Myself, I'm one of those "rich" people who pays my share of those income taxes and probably a goodly chunk of yours, too, and I'd like to point out that it isn't the government's money, it's mine, and I'd like to be permitted to keep a little more of it.
Let me guess..
You are
a)a student
b)live at home with your parents
Don't forget, Gates does not pay taxes!
I am one of the people who will benifit from this tax cut, house,kid and we just get by. No SUV for me, I drive a 97 civic. When the reality of life sets in, space is well... just so much space.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Just about everyone (in the US that is) is getting a tax cut, based on what you payed originally. Is that unfair? Pay more, get more back? No?
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Um, yes. And so have you, I, and everyone else. You see, NASA is a government agency and a lot of what they do is public domain. They don't compete with anyone so they have mountains of freely available research (check out their websites). According to their past statements they kind of like it that way.
This really ends up being pretty boring as conspiracies go.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
I guess the Chinese Communists are our only remaining viable hope for a space program that can prevent the human race from dying out the same way the dinosaurs did.
The U.S. Government is taking from the programs that would have saved the poor workers from meteoric destruction so that they can give money to the upper class and secure future campaign contributions.
Is it time for American Revolution 2.0
Actually a Gates is involved so that should probably be MS Americain Revolution XP
The scary thing is that although I am writing this drivel tounge in cheek, I'm not sure I'm that far off reality.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
The point is that these anti-business arguments often seem to be overly naive and often forget where the majority of wealth really lies. I was offtopic.
-Stu
This is a very interesting point, and sounds very convincing. The only problem is that history gets in the way. During Reagan's 8 years, his proposed budgets had a total of $16.1 billion more spending than the ones Congress passed. Sorta fucks up the picture as Democrats as tax-and-spend nuts who wrecked the economy.
As much as I want to see a replacement to the shuttle, I have to agree with the reasoning behind this decision. The capability of the X-33's aerospike engines has been demonstrated, why build aluminum tanks just to flight test the engines? Its a shame they waited so long to make this decision, a lot of money was spent that need not have been.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
The X-33 program was a result of a top leven NASA directive to push single stage to orbit (SSTO) as a supposed means of cutting cost. This is the same pipe dream that the Shuttle followed, only without the benefit of strap-on boosters. It is a holy grail. It is not realistic, or technically feasable at this time. It is definitely NOT a way to save costs.
The X-33 has provided some useful research, including some really cool engine technology. However, it was not a particularly good way to lower the costs to get to space, or to move our manned space program forward to the next level. There were no meaingful trade studies performed for the X-33 program, just a top level directive to make the concept work. As someone who works in this industry, I am glad to see it cancelled before it wastes more money that could be better spent on planetary exploration, basic research, or heck, even the station....
Given the choice between landing on Mars and a fiber connection to their house, most Americans would choose the bandwith. Of course science isn't an either-or proposition, but my general point is that taxpayers don't see a payoff from space research.
Hahaha.
That was quite funny.
On the other hand one can easily forget how bad it is out there, after all, it does not affect your safe little world here..
The X-33 is actually a pretty cool little craft that would have proven extremely useful in NASA's future plans. (The X33 site still features a very positive status report regarding the engine testing mentioned in the article, and no mention of the program's termination...yet.)
One happy byproduct of the current US administration, I had hoped, would be that NASA would gain a bit more funding--if for no other reasons than new technology development for defense/military concerns. From the few actions we have seen regarding the US space program so far, however (not to mention the problems eternally plaguing the deployment of the ISS), it looks like the hope many of us harbor for a renewed push toward deeper and more pervasive space exploration will have to wait awhile. Again.
props to all dead homiez
With WHAT? Russia can hardly keep its lights going and they're going to build up for an arms race? Yeah,with Iran maybe.
Get a grip.
If we don't go to space, who will ?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
The trick to making it cheap was to use existing technologies, far from the bleeding edge and accepting some loss in absolute performance, and small launch teams to fly often. A dozen people launching once a day would be reasonable. This is in direct contrast to The NASA Way of developing high technology to squeeze out the maximum theoretically possible performance for rockets that take tens of thousands of people to launch every month or so.
A prototype vehicle, the DC-X, was built by McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. It flew several times, demonstrating such techniques as vertical take-off and landing, rapid turnaround and operations with a small launch crew. It was highly successful, and Congress was impressed and allocated more money to continue development.
Unfortunately, the money never got there. It turns out that BMDO (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization--Star Wars) was developing the DC-X because they had use for getting into space cheaply. This was 1994, Clinton was now in office, and anything that helps Star Wars was inherently evil. The money was choked off by 'the unknown staffer'.
Renegade forces at NASA managed to rescue the DC-X program briefly. But it was a flight test program, things happen, and eventually the test vehicle toppled over on landing (landing gear problem) and burned. That's why you always make two or more flight test objects if you can afford it.
But the demonstration project was so visibly successful that NASA announced a competition to build the next step X-vehicle, the X-33. This would be a single stage vehicle that would not necessarily get all the way to orbit, but would reach certain performance levels (mach numbers, etc.) while demonstrating the technologies needed. It was explicitly stated in the announcement that achieving the goal with the lowest technology risk, staying within the state of the art as far as possible, would be favored.
McDonnell Douglas proposed a follow-on to their DC-X vehicle, using achievable technology. The contract went to LockMart, at a ceremony where Al Gore (remember him?) praised all the technology developments that their version would require.
The LockMart X-33 had quite a few technology requirements that were hard. One of them was developing the large composite cryogenic tanks required for the high-performance (but bulky, low temperature) liquid hydrogen they would use. When people questioned their ability to make the tanks, LockMart said, effectively, 'We can't say--wink wink--that we have ever made tanks like these, but--wink wink--we are a defense contractor with experience in various classified projects.'
They were lying only by implication of course, but the tanks they tried to build delaminated due to shoddy workmanship and their apparent lack of experience with building large composite cryogenic tanks.
To cut a long story short, they were 3 years and about a billion dollars away from high-mach number flight when they won the contract in 1996. Five years and about a billion later, they claim to be within 2 years and a bunch more government handouts to being able to possibly fly at a much lower speed, maybe achieving some of the requirements.
LockMart is raking in the bucks with their current high cost expedable rockets. Some cynics have suggested that they have no interest in developing a vehicle that will cut launch costs by one or two orders of magnitude.
Sometimes, it's best to just cut your losses. Ever hear of the space station (estimated in 1982 to be completed by 1990 for $8 billion)?
Paul Ehrlich made a good point about this in a talk I saw once, years ago.
The human population grows exponentially. That means that once the earth is full (whatever that point may be) we need to find another earth within the next doubling interval (right now, 30 years). 30 years later, we need two more earths. In another 30 years, 4 more earths.
Pretty soon, we would need to find and colonize 100s of new earths every year.
This is obviously untenable. Zero or near-zero population growth is the only solution, and we may as well start now, before things get too ugly.
Claim your namespace.
The government has too many domestic problems to figure out how to explore/colonize. The head of state changes several times, balance of power between him and the representative body changes contstantly. Rather than try to allocate funds for exploration/colonization, the government is more than happy to let private enterprise do the job.
Publically shared companies first explore for resources to exploit... then send in colonists to do reap the rewards... money is made and everyone is happy. Except the government doesn't pay attention to which of its citizens are being picked for colonization.... it doesn't pay attention to what goes on in the colonies.... a couple hundred years go by. The colonists have had to govern themselves all this time then the government steps in and pisses on everyones parade.....
And the Sam Adams leads a bunch of vigilantes to dump tea in the Boston Harbor. Thomas Jefferson drafts the Declaration of Independence!
Okay.... a little off topic at first glance, but the point is, maybe government should step back and let private enterprise take the risks. If it can be done cost effectively, businessmen like Trump and Gates (only mention him because he has money.... don't flame me ) can do it. Let these guys get a foothold on mining and manufacturing... hell they would problably build a resort on a space station or the moon for the wealthy to help pay for the expense of crew/worker quarters.
True, no one corporation would have the capital to pull off a Space Program, but pulling resources together, raising venture capital... it could be done as easily (IMHO) as by taxing us... I think it would cost significantly less. The government would just have to offer some incentive... much like Henry VII did back in the 1500's to convince joint stock companies in England to start exploring America.
Cheers
cfeagans
Maybe I support research into space... but what about some parent who can't afford to feed their family? Is it valid to spend all their taxes that they work 6 jobs to earn on space ships? Not even on space ships, their money would go to pay the secretary who does the paperwork to setup paying for the spaceships. NASA should really work on securing private funding- and we shouldn't whine about "the rich" getting a tax break- What happens to their money when the government doesn't have it? Does it get put in a mattress? Or maybe they spend it.... and whatever could they spend it on? That money is going somewhere... buying products keeping other people employed or building sweatshops in china to bring us cheaper nikes or being invested in some mutual fund that invests in YOUR startup.
For the Lord gives wisdom, from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
I see your point about government and rights, but I don't entirely believe the whole minimal government thing. We should only allow government to do things in society that are better done by them than by individiuals. Hence justice systems, armies and the like are all run by or report to governmental agencies. Things like the Health Service and public transport fall under this heading.
How often do we have the need to launch 20+ tons into LEO ALONG with 5 guys to strap it to the side of a bunch of pressurized tin cans? While the idea of having someone in orbit for the forseeable future is nice, what is the purpose? What is the science that is being doine (besides it being a duplicate of the science done by the Russians during the Salut/Mir missions in the 80's?)
If you are commited to keeping people in orbit, here's (IMHO) what needs to be done?
Develop a new HLV (Heavy Lift Vehicle) that could lob 100+ tons into LEO on a regular basis. This would have to be an expendable vehicle since the development costs of a reusable vehicle would probably exceed the costs of 20+ launches of any expendables we could build.
Develop a reusable vehicle that could put around 5 tons into LEO with a smaller turnaround time. That would be the perfect vehicle to do your basic crew-swaps and resupply missions. Make it easy/autonomous to fly thereby reducing the exposure of crew to flight failures.
Just my $0.02.
B
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
As for the estate tax, let's get rid of that one. My parents aren't rich. They may make about $30k USD a year, but I doubt it. What my father has done, however, is save for his retirement since he was in his twenties. What people don't seem to realize is that the estate tax isn't just on cash monies left to your children, it's on everything from your parents' home to that 300-year-old piano that has been passed down from generation to generation. All of that is the estate. Under those guidelines, my father's estate could easily reach the $675k limit. So is my mother supposed to give up her financial security, forking over the investments and savings in order to keep the roof over her head? HELL no! Why should she be punished because her husband had the presence of mind to prepare for his future so that he wouldn't have to rely on Social Security to put food on his table or Medicare to pay his hospital bills?
The definitions of "rich" and "wealthy" have become far too liberal in this country. It's time we gave them a closer look.
Personally, if I'm ever elected President by the Supreme Court I would slash the military by $100 billion and funnel it directly into NASA. I want to see more microgravity, aeronautics, and biotechnology research. I want to see a plethora of ground-to-space single stage vehicles emerging for high speed supersonic space based intercontinental civil transport. I think it's time we stopped spending so much damned money (to the tune of what.. a quarter of our budget?) building weapons of destruction and concentrate more on science and the arts.
Though remember that a single stage to orbit or sub orbital transport also makes a perfectly good weapons delivery system...
Is anyone going to ask for a cut of
the money Lockheed makes off the
Venturestar spaceplane, considering
that the X-33 was effectively its
prototype? Or has Lockheed just been
given a whole load of free R+D?
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
You are wrong in the particulars of this situation. The Usurper, for all his faults, is actually increasing spending on the SLI program sixty four percent. NASA has readjusted its spending priorities.
That having been said, you are correct in pointing out that the Usurper is buying off public opinion directly through tax cuts which give everyone a small break (but the wealthy a huge break). It is a popular tax plan with many people (even I like the idea of having a few extra grand in my pocket at the end of the year). Your comparison to the fall of the Republic is interesting, and the parallels quite striking: a man usurping the democratic process, buying off the people with gifts and emerging a popular force despite his despotism.
He has little choice. He and his administration are demonstrably usurping the authority of our democratic process, as press sponsored recounts in Florida have demonstrated. We are stuck with him for four years (at least). What is important is what happens in four years: do we get our democracy back, or suffer more of the same?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
...no more well-funded Space program. I seriously doubt this administration is interested in the pursuit of science. The only reason they'd shovel money into the space program would be if we still had a Cold War enemy like the Soviet Union to compete against.
Go China Go! You're our only hope (for a better space program).
--Bernie
Not quite. If you break the rules, you know that you have the face the consequences. Consequences include labor. The inmates actually DO have a say in whether or not they are forced to do labor. If you don't commit the crime, they can't incarcerate you, and you don't have to do the work. Simple.
whoever modded this down is an idiot.
don't you dare mod me down.
But hey, at least rich people get a tax cut (even if they don't want one)..."
So who is this mighty Timothy who deigns us with his apparently oh-so-correct opinion? Is it fair the wealthy pay more % in tax then you? Why? For what earthly reason? Or are we simply assuming they deserve to pay more simply because they must have obtained it through some improper means?
I come from a farm background, and if you look at the balance sheet (including assets) we would probably be classified as 'wealthy' to you. Does that mean it's fair we have to fork over 70% of those assets to the government if my father dies? Is it fair we are paying ~45%+ in taxes compared to your measly ~33%?
I seriously suggest you go somewhere and take your foot out of your ass.. and while you're there consider what actually makes our capitalist sociecty (in the US) actually work. If you continue to punish the wealthy you will stifly any true progress in this country (I would dare say we see some of that currently).
OBPotshot: Go tell Linus he owes more taxes. Doubt he'll give you a peck on the cheek.
.. but I'm only a dumb hick, so what do I know, right?
-'fester
Grow up, all you liberal fanatics. If I hear "unfair", I am going to barf (too late). When was the last time you were "forced" to "share"? Who determines what is fair?
/. viewers that live in a liberal wet dream, wait till you get a family, and you have to support them first and foremost, every day is about THEM, not about YOU.
NASA has had alot of waste in the past, only recently have they discovered off-the-shelf for cost reduction. Alot of that waste could have been used today (re: fat cat beaurocrats)
Why should I work hard just to re-allocate my income to someone whom probably did not work as hard to earn an income? No one gave me anything (no college money, no free ride), so give them the tools to do better, then f*ck off.
Some of you younger
You will see (if you are willing to make a commitment).
End rant
I'd argue that it's not so bad as it sounds: "...NASA has relinquished the quest for cheap space launch capability." I'd say instead, they may have taken an important step to get closer to cheap launches. Chances of the X-33 ever flying were slim at this point, and an commercially-viable follow-on funded by LockMart corporate funds (VentureStar) even slimmer.
What actually happened today was that NASA refused to add funds to the sinking program from the Space Launch Initiative, which is intended to actually develop viable launch options for the future. There's more in the NASA press release at spaceref.com. NASA intends to spend 900+ million over the next couple of years on access to space--that hardly sounds like they are giving up. I suspect that they can find more promising projects to fund than X-33. Of course, there are probably more wasteful ones, as well...
Mod the parent of this up!
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
they could always donate the money they would normally pay in taxes to nasa. i would suspect that they could get credit for next years taxes. so what i got from the submitter of the original story is this:
if the rich arent forced to pay for stuff they wont. even if they want to they have to be forced in order to do it?
whatever.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
"The overall budget request is $14 billion, up from the $13.6 billion NASA got last year -- the first increase for the agency in seven years."
See!!! It's an increase, not a cut. Someone needs to go back to school and learn math. Not only is it an increase, it's the first one in 7 YEARS!!!!
But Nasa realized that they need to do a better job of spending their money, so they axed programs that were going nowhere fast.
Quite right. The billionaires in the article probably oppose the estate tax cut because it would make the middle class significantly more wealthy and make their billions less noteworthy.
Also, give me a break. A $1.6 trillion tax cut over 10 years is practically nothing. $160 billion a year ? The government's yearly budget is a few trillion dollars. The tax cut is a couple percentage points.. a drop in the bucket.
-Snoot
Hmmmmm....
Let's get one thing straight: People LOVE free goodies. The old timer Repulican who voted for Reagan because he wanted "smaller government" probably went to school on the GI Bill, got land from government assisted funding, draws Social Security and Medicare, etc etc...
Quoth Heinlein: TANSTAAFL. People say they want less taxes and smaller Government, but if we offered to give them true, Libertarian style "small Government", they'd flip out completely. They wouldn't be able to handle the freedom, and the RESPONSIBILITY that comes with it. People are too addicted to feeding from the Government Trough.
When Repulicans say they are in favor of "smaller government" it means they only want to cut stuff that Democrats like. And vice versa.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
I think dumping the income tax on individuals for a national sales tax would do nicely. The more you spend; the more you pay taxes. It would encourage savings.
:)
:)
Of course, this would have the protection that several states already have with their sales tax laws, which do not tax basic food (grocery store items) and clothing. The poor would not have to pay a single penny in tax, while all the rich people would not be able to hide their money.
More importantly, the IRS would have to be downsized. Oh, the humanity!!!
P.S. I don't really envy people making more than me. I just want to know where I can get a job like theirs. I average about 50+ hours a week with spikes around 60-70, but I don't make anything close to you. I think I will be looking for a new job.
Since when was information "hate"?
When the "information" is used to attack and said "information" is not really information at all, people will take it as an attack from hate.
Read the Constitution and find the phrase "Separation of Church and State". You will not find it.
The original concept behind the X-33 (and faster/better/cheaper) is to do what was done in the early days of aircraft and spaceflight: Make cheap craft that test one or two new ideas or technologies and do it quickly - in small leaps that only take a couple of years each.
Many of us believed ten years ago that it is impossible for NASA to do this. They are driven for reasons beyond their control to pack as much new stuff into a single program/platform. To wit, it took NASA years to define X-33, another year to choose a prime and then it ran late, late and late. Hell, I think it was originally suppose to first fly in 1997!
The BMDO program of the 1980's was able do to this through good leadership, strong project management on a tight budget, good but loose oversight, and lack of forty years of "if not invented here, forget it" history. DC-X tested two or three new ideas (vertical takeoff/landing, workstation control by just a couple of people, fast turnaround between missions).
In normal fashion, NASA stuffed more and more new technologies and concepts into X-33 (just not new lightweight tank materials, but tanks formed to odd shapes to fit into the aeroshell, for example - a fatal push since tank failure was a BIG problem for X-33, revolutionary aerospike engines that were late, late and later (duh)) and then answered critics by saying "oh, private industry, LM's skunk works, is going to work all that out for us, so don't worry about it, they never fail."
Yeah, right.
Please note that under Bush's budget, NASA's Space Launch Initiative (the program to replace the shuttle) got a 64% increase over it's $290 million 2001 budget.
Also note NASA's talking about axing some modules and parts of IIS in order to make Bush's budget.
Yet, Bush is proposing to increase NASA's budget by 2 percent (perhaps a larger increase then during all of the Clinton years (Clinton reduced the NASA budget 7 years in a row).
Anyone else get the sense that NASA's been over promised in recent years?
I'm thrilled to see Bush's budget pushing for more Mars exploration, yet keeping keeping ISS under control.
Pease 1
I ain't rich, but I can't wait to get some of my money back - it's about freakin' time
It occurs to me that NASA is canceling these programs while operating under it's current fiscal year budget. This budget was signed into law by Pres Clinton. Pres Bush's proposed budget has not even been debated yet, much less become law. When it does become law, in whatever form, it will be the budget for the next fiscal year. I figure that they have either ...
a) Blown their current budget, which was signed by Pres Clinton.
-or-
b) Reacted out of fear as to what might or might not be in the next budget.
If it is due to B, then I would say their actions are irresponsible. NASA, along with the rest of us, has no idea what the actual numbers will be until the next budget becomes law.
If it is due to A, which I fear it is, then I would say their spending actions are irresponsible. Hmm, a common theme.
As far as the tax cut goes, I want my money. I would like to pay my own debts. If Mr. Buffet wants to pay more than required, he can mail a check to the US Treasury and specify that the funds be used to pay against the national debt.
In DC, they baseline the budget. Basically, everything will increase by 10% for the next year. If they reduce the amount of increase from 10% to 5%, we hear them screaming about a massive 5% budget cut when they are actually increasing the budget by 5%.
I know that last summer when gasoline went up so much and again this winter when natural gas went up so much, I had to cut my budget. The difference is that my household budget cuts were actual reductions is spending ... not a reduced amount of spending increase.
Politics, like sausage, is not a pretty thing to watch being made.
It's not like canceling the projects destroys all of the things that we've learned from them. The X-33 alone gave us new, much-improved thermal tiles, and I believe that both projects made major improvements in the concept of the aerospike engine. We may not have a "cool flying triangle thingy", we do get real knowledege that can be applied to the existing shuttle, and to other projects. As someone mentioned earlier, these projects were canceled in order to save money that will be spent on other NASA projects. I don't think NASA will just give the money back to the Congress.
Nate
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
who have whole documents at the ready for cut and paste in an attempt to refute any pro-religous post.
Amazing that they are so filled with hate that they have to go out of their way to prepare for anyone stating religon isn't bad, or defending it from simple hacks.
Sorry dude, but you never did refute the original posters claim, mainly because you know you cannot. Hence, you take the standard liberal-religon bashing rules by poking at them with non-related non-issues.
Gee, who comes off the worse here?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Someone earlier floated the idea of this being a good thing. That the private industry is more capable and better suited for pushing mankind fully into space.
I do not disagree.
The only problem is that right now, there isn't a good enough REASON to go into space. The only reason business will go there is because there is profit to be made. I don't think Zero-G manufacturing is going to be reason enough, concidering the immense ammount of capital that has to be paid up front.
The really big businesses have the resources, but not the guts to expand into space. Smaller companies have the guts, but not the resources.
Perhaps, despite their mismanagement, we still need NASA. For the simple reason that they need to slowly push us forward until an economic space-boom becomes viable, at which time you won't be able to keep private industry rooted to the ground any more.
Mettle may have got us to the Moon, but Money is what will get us to Mars...
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
wouldn't that be nice... but too bad it isn't allowed.
... huh? The Bible Study group operated in a room behind a closed door!, the other group got to use a GYM... during class hours...
However, a local school allows those of muslim faith to use the gym for a morning prayer, yet recently kicked the Bible Study group off campus.
and the leftist "fair in your view probably" court agreed that the Bible Study group does not have a right to be there, but upheld the muslim group because "they kept to themselves"
I will stop supporting Christian rights when they are allowed equal rights to the other religons.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Please, Nasa and cheap access to space? This turkey was never going to fly with out cubic increase$ in budget. Too many new technologies with lots of unknows to ever build on a fixed price contract. X-Prize is more likely to get you cheap rides and besides, I can do much more good with the money than Nasa. Good riddance.
6F 9E A9 1E 96 9F 74 27 ED B8 81 6D 0C 4E 1E 78
My other Sig is a 229.
(Gates Sr., by the way, says his son Bill is "sympathetic" to his cause, but hasn't signed his petition. He ought to.)
Of course he won't sign it. I'm surprised he even admitted that much. The last thing Bill wants to do as his appeal begins is to get off on the wrong foot with the Bush administration.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Thanks a lot GW for that extra 11 cents a month. don't blame me... i voted with the majority...
One Bourbon
One Scotch
and One Beer
See, everybody wanted to build a single-stage-to-orbit spaceship. If you do the math, you'll find that it's just barely not impossible to do this; but to do it you have to cut every possible corner. So, fairly quickly it was determined that the X33 would not actually reach orbit, but would be a hypersonic technology demonstrator.
That would have been fine, if Lockheed had then gone to a more conservative design; but they didn't. The obvious straw that broke the camel's back was the LH2 tanks. Now, these could have been normal aluminum tanks (like the space shuttle uses, say) but Lockheed insisted on making them out of a composite material -- and they failed more or less the way that most experts predicted they would. But, if it wasn't the tanks, it would have been something else.
Single-stage-to-orbit can work; and they will be built. It's will be one of the advantages of living on the Moon or Mars.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Now tell me, how quickly will this thread head off-topic?
But I really want to know: do you love my English? I've been studying it for many years now. If I make a mistake, please alert me. I'll correct it. I'm very obsessive about these things. It's gorgeous here in Sardinia -- I'm on vacation, dreaming up my next book --
Ah, taxes. Do you you that a century ago in America it was your farmers who demanded taxes on the rich? Times so change. Now neo-peasants like Eric Raymond want to abolish taxes. In Italy we'd say zitto, stronzo and tax his guns.
The sun's going down, I can't see the screen, time for dinner.
"It must be something truly enormous, Trismegistus"
That is a stupid comment... if they don't want the money, send it to me... if they want the money to go to NASA, mail NASA a check, I'm sure they will put it to good use! Maybe they should send their check to one of these start ups that are trying to win the X-Prize... or maybe my personal favorite, Rotary Rocket
The last time we tried your little "experiment" the result was crippling debt...
I assume you're talking about the 80s... You might want to notice that the revenues to the Federal government almost doubled between 1981 and 1988 (from about 500 billion to almost 1 trillion). Now what we're you saying about this "failure"?
Yeah, that huge economic expansion during the 80s (again, causing the revenues to nearly double) must've been everyone's imagination.
Yes, you have been lied to by the Democratic party. Maybe you should look up facts for yourself rather than rely on their propoganda?
But we both know you won't.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm so freaking tired of hearing people bitch about this tax cut. If you don't want to keep more of the money you earn, DON'T! Trust me, you are perfectly capable of getting off your ass, finding a charity or program you support and writing them a check! Its a very simple concept. One that works a hell of a lot better then ANY bureaucratic government money pit.
If buffett doesn't want to keep his money, HE CAN GIVE IT AWAY. He is perfectly capable of doing this without the governments help. I, on the other hand, want to keep as much of my money as possible to help what is important to me. My own family (kids especially) and friends.
As for NASA, no love lost there. They have had many projects over the past decade that have been complete failures costing millions upon millions. Let me ask you this, how much are NASA executives paid? You think they are 'rich'? You see them taking pay cuts to help fund NASA programs?
Really. This is strangely satisfying.
___
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
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Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I pay a over 37% to the federal government, all because I earn nearly 70k???
...
and that makes me rich?
I don't think so.
Before you go off on your insensible railings against the rich why don't you reach the frigging tax code.
No one should pay a higher percentage than anyone else....
The working poor by the way PAY ZERO FEDERAL INCOME TAX. What they do pay is social security and medicare, let me guess, they should get this free too?
Like hell. My taxes are more than the a third of my pay check, and I have been busting my ass for the last 5 years to get to this payscale only to see more of it disappear to a federal government who the democrats use to buy votes by giving away my tax money.
You want it one step worse, figure this out, all these mega-corps and mega-rich you complain about pass their tax costs down to us in the form of higher product cost. It is estimated that the cost of a new car is more than 60% taxes when you figure in sales taxes, salary taxes of all involved, property taxes on all manufacturing facilities, taxes on energy (electricity, gas), and special local option sales taxes.
According to this wonderful government I CAN NEVER OWN MY OWN HOUSE! Why? Because if I don't pay my yearly 1% tax on its value they can take it. If I don't pay my yearly ad-valorem tax on my car I can't drive it. I paid sales taxes ON BOTH WHEN I BOUGHT THE DAMN THINGS.... and forever will be paying it over and over and over.
Get the damn government off our backs.
One reason the rich have so much money because it costs too much in taxes to spend it... what better thing to do than just keep it
as for the "estate tax" - basically your saying its okay to tax money that was taxed when earned and taxed while intrest built up....
and you don't see where this type of abusive federal government is leading do you????
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
First of all, the post made by timothy was really two posts: one belongs on /., the other belongs on some political board.
As far as the project is concerned, the situation does not surprise me. The broad range of technical projects in America outflow their boundaries around 50% of the time. The fact that new technology is being used increases the out of bounds factor. The project most likely died due to bad planning or incompetent management. If the project was just a little over budget do you really think they would've given it the ax?
What the hell do tax cuts have to do with NASA projects?!?!? I personally think that if some people do not get their insult in on George Bush every day they aren't happy. I like dubyah just fine. I don't post stupid messages about political issues on this site, because I have the ability to stay on topic and talk about TECHNOLOGY.
Sure, the infobaun lends itself to hyperbole, that's it's nature. So a little rhetoric is certainly par for the course, but people are grandstanding like this was a congressional hearing in search of a witch hunt. Not that this is bad, it's certainly been entertaining, but there are no cameras here. This leads me to the following non-assertion which also happens to be a proveable (and maybe proven) fact. If you have ANY sufficently large population of people, that population will mirror the society that spawned it. This means you will find shockingly ignorant people here at slashdot, and you will also find shockingly brilliant people at a Christian Science reading room. Once more you will find them at the same rate you find them in the larger world. There is a slashdot user with an old pickup, with a gun rack, a pair of antlers for a hood orniment, who uses a confederate battle standard as curtains, and cousin he wouldn't mind kissin'.
Everyone has their blind spot. I'm sure everyone has been asked to justify a view point on something, wasn't able to point to supporting evidence, but could hear the little voice that insisted despite how things appear, I AM right. I have my suspicions that the type of people who deny the former are the same people who say they smile at everyone: liars.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Fun fact about the DC-X: NASA didn't build or fly it. All NASA did was get handed a successful program and crash the damn thing!
The DC-X was a program started by the BMDO: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. I don't want to start an argument about whether it's a good idea for Bush to spend $60 billion on anti-missile systems... but if they do get handed $60 billion, wouldn't it be nice if they spent $1 or 2 billion on finishing the Delta Clipper research to put some of those defense systems in orbit?
[place clever signature here]
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
HERE,HERE I agree with you whole heartedly, I'm in the tax bracket if I had 2 kids I'd get all the FUCKING money back I gave the government. I could care less if a someone gets a million back, they might buy somemore gold plated geegaws for their corporate aircraft, which gives me and 300 more people money where I work at. And those communist rich bastards that say they dont want tax cut, if it werent for inheirtance and capitalism they'd be flipping burgers too. If they really believe thier tax money helps then they should request to get all of it back and give it to charity, the trickle down from government programs is only 30 cents on the dollar. Sure some private charity might take some off the top but they aint taking 70%!
You might be interested to learn, the reason all these NASA projects are suddenly getting canned might be that the International Space Station (ISS) last year ran 4 billion over budget (monitoting of contractors was non existant) . Given the total NASA budget is ~12 billion (which is capped), some things probably had to be cut to allow this debt to be paid. There are still more cuts to come I believe. I am suprised the main stream media have not picked up this story yet! For years now NASA has been mismanaging the ISS project, wasting billions of dollars that could be far better spent on more directed research projects. Hiring a few decent project managers might be a good idea too.
I think the problem that hurt the X-33 program was the fact the centerpiece of that program--the composite material fuel tank--failed several times in testing. It was going to be too expensive to redesign the X-33 to incorporate a metal fuel tank, anyway.
I think the new Bush Administration may take a new look at the McDonnell-Douglas (now Boeing) Delta Clipper design, given that cheap space access is necessary to implement missile defense.
By the way, the Space Shuttle is still a ways from being obselete. NASA has studied the idea of replacing the current solid rocket boosters with either a longer booster (so it can carry more solid rocket fuel for a longer burn) or completely replacing the SRB's with two winged booster stages fuelled by a combination of liquid oxygen and kerosene. I think the winged booster stages could become reality, since that will allow the Space Shuttle to fly high-inclination orbits or carry payloads well above the current 50,000 lb. limit.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
The X-33 program was not intended to be the inflated, over budget, over deadline corporate welfare program that it has. The purpose was to reduce the cost of getting into orbit. The program was started after the success of the DC-X, a Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) test vehicle that flew 10 times without a hitch under the USAF's BMDO (ballistic missile defence organization) before it was given to NASA as a test vehicle, whereupon they destroyed it on the first flight due to negligence. The DC-X was capable of doing sub-orbital flights. A full size vehicle (3x taller @ 120ft) would have been capable of carrying 10,000 pounds to orbit, or after undergoing orbital refueling, taking a trip to the moon. It's important to note that the DC-X had already proven most of the technologies needed to build the full size Delta Clipper ship. The ship would have been capable of having a turnaround time of only hours instead of weeks or months. This was a prime requirement of the DC-X.
President George Bush seems to be listening to his advisors about the space program. The original creators of the X-33 program were sorry to see it turn into a corporate welfare program and are happy to see it axed. Remember, President George Bush wants an SDI program, which means that he needs a real space launch capability with short turnaround times and costs of $5000 a pound or less. If the Delta Clipper idea was brought back, we could get a few DC-X test vehicles built in short order. Remember that the original was designed and built in two years, truly a record. The plans exist, the manufacturing facilities exist. Just do it.
TANSTAAFL - There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
From Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"; the acronym stumped me for a moment, so I thought I'd save others the bother of doing some Google digging. Yeah, I know, karma whore and all that. Just ignore me rather than mod me down, please!
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Wow! This is just like back in the late 70's, when they had that diet candy called AYDS.
I'd like to meet the marketing exec who had to explain to his boss that they named their crappy new drink after a Hewbrew word for big sin.
The taste sure is appropriate to the name....
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
NASA already has the shuttle, and they'll keep using it until it blows up again (which I think is just a matter of statistics - it's going to happen again someday). What would be the use of a new vehicle? I think they ALREADY have one in the form of a Black Project and they're using it, so there's no need for a publisized version.
And that final tally includes all of the Gore votes manufactured by the Democratic canvassing boards.
So you are saying that the estate tax is okay even though it represents double even triple taxation of the same assets?
The money is taxed when earned, it is taxed again when intrest is earned on it, the items it originally purchased are taxed constantly and worse when they increase in value?
So, its okay for the Federal Imperial Government to re-tax and re-tax?
Get real, its a criminal act.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There are no big surprises here. NASA continues to try to build the most technically advanced craft possible, instead of actually building something that works. For a detailed description of how NASA screwed up and why X-33 is dead (written a year ago) see: http://www.space-access.org/updates/sau91.html
The real problem here is that NASA has become an enormous entrenched bureaucracy. They aren't interested in any solution that doesn't require an army of 10,000 engineers and technicians because then they won't be able to justify an legion of bureaucrats. The DC-X craft was built and tested on a shoestring over the objections of NASA. A scaled up SSTO based on that would require a support staff on the same order as a 747 (hundreds of people rather than tens of thousands as is the case for the shuttle) and would fly daily to weekly. For a detailed description of how we could have built such a craft as early as the '70s, see Halfway to Anywhere: achieving America's destiny in space by G. Harry Stine.
Another problem we have run into along the way here is that NASA has done everything it can to squash the independent, privately funded space transportation startups (Rotary Rocket, Beal, Kistler, etc.). NASA administrator Dan Goldin has made disparaging (and untrue) statements about their technologies which have contributed to their funding difficulties. In addition NASA continues to propose initiatives that would compete against these companies.
I still think NASA's planetary/space science programs (Pioneer/Voyager/Galileo/Cassini/etc.) are something to be proud of, but they have had to take a back seat to the "shuttle-station complex" (sing to the tune of "military-industrial complex") and that really disgusts me. What can you do about it?
Don't reply to this post! Instead, write, call, fax, or email your congresscritters (all 3 of them) and demand that we get NASA out of the launch vehicle development business.
Small Business owners get an exemption that protects something like 2 million dollars of the business from the death tax. Farmers recive an additional protection beyond that to something like 4 million, and lets not forget the debt load most farms carry. And it should be a simple matter to show that family squables over how best to profit from the labor and death of others is more at fault for tanking small businesses that the IRS. Seems to me plenty of small businesses around the seattle area have survived being handed down to succeeding generation with the "death tax" in place. That's what's so funny, it seems now that the Republicans have a better grasp of how to spin the media than the democrats currently. They do a wonderful job of framing the debate in the language of their choosing. "Those democratic bastards! If they wantin' t' tax me for my death they can move to China and bill my poor, Walton lookin' family for the bullet too." The marrige penalty tax. Come on! Let's give credit where credit is due. I've got to give them props for spinning the media, and still claiming to be the victims of biased reporting. Those per child income credits are sweet. Awww but the children.... Awww. As if anyone has kids to make the world a better place. Please it's an act of egotism. A desire to leave a mark, something of ones self behind, a good desire, but it's far from a magnanimous gift to the world. So you have poor and middle class single childless people subsidising the children of others. A choice mental picture is that of say a dirt poor black kid working part time at McDonald's while s/he goes to high school. In the hope they might just be able to scrape enough together to get to a junior college, because the government programs that put Newt Gingrich through college have been reduced to something like a 1/3 of what they were by the very people who benifited. Now picture that kid looking at the money deducted for taxes, unemployment insurance, social security (which they may well never be able to collect) on their first pay stub. Yeah, a family of four making 72 grand a year does deserve a 2 grand by on taxes. Now I'm not one to buy into 'white guilt', but, at least for me, comparisons to slavery ain't that far off base.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
You are right, but he's referring to the Estate Tax (or "Death Tax"). And if Warren Buffet doesn't like a tax cut, nothing is stopping him from writing a big fat check to Uncle Sam. Apparently, having billions of dollars is not enough; he wants to control my money, too.
at least rich people get a tax cut
Seeing as how I get the Hell taxed out of my paycheck every two weeks I figure I should get to choose what I pay for. And so follows this list.
I dont want to pay for:
The NEA (National Endowment of the Arts (or something))
While I don't find pictures of Crucifixes in urine particulary disturbing (or ingenious) I don't think I should have to pay for them. Let the private sector fund this sort of thing.
NASA
Love outer space and rockets and the Air & Space Museum and Cape Canaveral (sp?) and all that stuff; I don't want to pay for NASA. The Smithsonian, now there's something I can get behind. Sending people into orbit to see if plants will grow without gravity... I think we should probably be working on keeping the Earth livable as opposed to finding life out there.
The Department of Education
I think education is the single most important resource we, as humans, have. Seeing as how since its inception the DE has made absolutely no gains in the education system and has mostly failed as a government entity I don't want to pay for that.
Anyone to got to College
Except my kids.
In short I work hard and long and seeing my money wasted annoys me. I am sure many of you will think differently. It is disheartening to know that 1/3 of my earnings aren't even fixing the roads.
---
This
Should we infer from this that the missile defence the Bush administration wants to put into effect lickity-split is going to be boost phase theatre defences only?
I'm not sure this is the peace shield being sold to Amercian people.
If not, it's hard to see the rationality of this decision - surely one stage to orbit reusable vehicles would reduce the cost of placing massive defensive infrastructure in space dramatically.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The flaw in Goldin's logic is that you can never attain all 3 of the "better, faster, cheaper" catch words. Especially not when human life is concerned. Sure, you can develop cheap reliable space transport, but it would take decades to perfect it (i.e. the Space Shuttle is 60's technology built in the late 70's and still operating relatively cheaply today and it's definitely proved reliable. Only 1% failure rate.) Now, to get faster and cheaper you're going to sacrifice "better". I.e. we need to expect 66% of our Mars probes will fail but hey.. they only cost a fraction of what they would have if we would have done it "right" and only launched one. So the effect is we spend a little less than what we would've spent on one, have 2 out of 3 failures, and at least get one there. That proved to be a huge success, though the 2 failures look like huge black eyes for NASA. But hey, it's better, faster, cheaper remember? You have to break a few eggs. Personally, if I'm ever elected President by the Supreme Court I would slash the military by $100 billion and funnel it directly into NASA. I want to see more microgravity, aeronautics, and biotechnology research. I want to see a plethora of ground-to-space single stage vehicles emerging for high speed supersonic space based intercontinental civil transport. I think it's time we stopped spending so much damned money (to the tune of what.. a quarter of our budget?) building weapons of destruction and concentrate more on science and the arts. We're only 1 step out of the stone age here folks.
My conception of how these contracts usually works is as follows. Please correct me if I go wrong at any point.
::cough::
Government decides that a mission ought to be done. I suppose some kind of feasability study is probably done, just to throw out all the ideas like crashing the moon into the sun to see the pretty fireworks. Now, bids are requested. If one of them is acceptable, the company gets the contract and begins work on the project. Hopefully the project is completed on-time and under budget.
The government still puts up the one billion dollars. The difference is that they don't choose somebody to work on it from the start. They wait until everything is completed, and then give the money to whoever got there first. Also, the money is invariant with the cost of the project. Your company's project got there first and only cost a hundred million dollars? You just made a thousand percent profit! You had some overruns and spent a billion and a half? Too bad, better luck next time.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
"are the pictures really free?" No, as you point out they are paid with by taxation. "is it worth it"? Hell yes. It beats hiding under a rock while being ever so slightly (to the tune of a couple of dollars) richer, even if you ignore the fact that the money gets ploughed back into the economy to build this stuff, rather than disappearing into thin air.
That couple of billion paid for some pretty snazzy research, some quite stunning engineering and a whole bunch of people worked their asses off getting paid not unreasonable sums of cash to do so. These taxpaying citizens then give some of the money back too, and so on.
I'm sure others can give some more detail; suffice to say that most taxes end up back in the hands of others, be they government employees or companies hired by them.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Freakin liberal morons. IT all trickles down hill from the rich U idiot!!!
Woooaaaaaa! I thought you said you were a female?!?!?! Sorry I ain't into that!!!!
Bravo... The voice of reason.
I'm sure we'll both be flamed mercilessly for our beliefs.
Here's an expansion on your argument. According to my sources, in 1990 the richest 1% of households paid 25% of our nation's taxes. In 1998, the same 1% paid 35%+ of our nation's taxes. With this tax cut (if it goes through), the same 1% will pay 33% of our taxes. So, this ain't a helluva cut.
Our problem isn't that the rich aren't being soaked enough. Our problem is that Congress (who controls spending) throws our money away to buy votes. They subsidize pointless medical treatments through Medicare and Medicaid as a way of padding the pockets of hospitals, they pay farmers to let food rot so they can keep prices high (forgetting that there are people starving in this country and elsewhere), they use the small business funds to help fund small Mom and Pop shops like AT&T and Sony, etc... And to top it all off, they slip pay raises for themselves in on page 534 subsection A paragraph 1.8 of a bill that would approve spraying for killer bees.
All of you out there who think the solution to our problem is to bleed rich people dry, guess again. Until our money is spent correctly, bleeding the rich will just translate into more bad spending policies. Fix Congress. Leave the rich alone.
I'm hoping that the Military will atleast get its act together and militarize space properly. We need obiting battlecrusiers. :)
While I'm off topic, can we dispense with the liberal bickering? I'm really sorry that Nader didn't sweep the nation, but perhaps Slashdot could run a story every day going something like this?:
Posted by CmdrTaco on 02:19 PM March 1st, 2001
from the socialism-works!-really! dept.
An anonymous coward submitted this story: President Bush announced sometime in the recent past that he would put into action a tax cut that some people like and some people dislike but are generally divided about along party lines.Well, being liberal, I'm going to say something opinionated but slightly witty here.
While you're at it, a poll would work:- ---------------------
I like money
I dislike money
I dislike having money, but if everyone else had the same amount of money it'd be like money didn't exist at all, right? What? You mean this isn't a perfect world?
I dislike CowboyNeal having money
------------------------------------------
Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey...
-------------------------------------------------
Everybody's got something to hi
An aging Space Truck that costs bazillions to launch, and they cancel it's replacement, but not before driving any competion into the ground. Your tax dollars at work, friends. Check out the mess at Love and Rockets
Display some adaptability.
Getting bent out of shape over the "multiple taxation" of estate taxes is silly. Practically every dollar you make is taxed multiply. First you have payroll taxes, social security, and medicare, all of which deduct a percentage of the net dollar you earn, so all three "multiply tax" the money. Then you take that remaining 50 or so cents (if you are in the top tax bracket, as I am), and you buy a candy bar with it, and in so doing you pay sales tax on the already-multiply-taxed money. Where's the moral outrage?
Please explain the moral foundation of one's "entitlement to property" after death, because I've never heard a convincing moral argument for the deceased to indeed have a right to property. I think (and I'm in good company, as so did Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith) that of all the possible taxes, the principle of taxing someone who is no longer in existence is perhaps the fairest of all taxes. (A recent Salon.com article makes this point very eloquently).
I'm continually amused by those who claim that social programs to aid the poor should be abolished, that the "American Way" is for everyone to be self-made men and women, yet in the very next breath they feel entitled to wealth (their parents wealth) that they themselves did not earn. What could be more egalitarian than requiring that everyone make his or her way in the world without the privilege of wealth greasing the wheels overmuch? Wealth already buys one's way into the best schools, it purchases face time in the best social circles, it provides one with access to the highest reaches of government. The children of wealth already enjoy numerous advantages over the poor. As well they should--one incentive for parents to work their tails off to become wealthy is to provide for their children in the best way possible, to give them the biggest possible head start in life. However, once their children are no longer children, it is only fair--nay, it's the American Way--for them to make their own way in life. They have the best preparation for success that money can buy. Now let them go contribute to society and build their own fortunes.
No doubt the estate tax needs to be modified so that the family farmer's family, the object of so much pithy rhetoric, doesn't lose the farm just because the hapless farmer fell into his combine. But this is an entirely different matter from setting up a government system that perpetuates an aristrocracy built upon old money. A need for reform is not a call to abolish a system. Social security needs reform--does that mean we should abolish it altogether as well?
Since when was information "hate"? Personally, I thought the info that was cut and pasted was quite interesting - I never realized that many of those words weren't in the bible.
BTW, I love the way *you* make up a group, generalize about them, judge them, and say why they do what they do; I think it's kind of cute.
Nope, Clinton has beat Nixon by a long shot. Nixon had one screw up -- a big screw up, but just one. With Clinton, it's just one big long string of corruption.
Actually, Nixon had a very nasty reputation before Watergate. He was one of the most brutal of the McCarthy witchhunters, ran his early campaigns basically on character assassination, became involved in very shady campaign fundraising, lied to Congress about attacks on Cambodia, evaded taxes, used the presidency to line his pockets, and formed the shadow organization that conducted the illegal breakins in the Ellsworth case, and eventually Watergate. And the Watergate affair wasn't just one big screw up; it was a series of screw ups that were each far worse than anything Clinton did. Altering tapes, interfering with the FBI investigation, ignoring subpoenas; the list goes on and on.
And what did Clinton do? Was semi-involved in a fraudulent land deal, the investigation of which found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Every time an accusation came up, Republicans started snivelling about how they wanted an independent counsel. And after investigations into travelgate, Whitewater, filegate, and alleged fundraising abuses, after millions of dollars, what did they find? He lied about sex. That's it. But the right is so consumed with hatred of the man, that they've managed to paint him as some sort of Democratic Nixon. They're scared of him because he's smarter than them, he's more charismatic than them, and he was an effective president. That scares the hell out of them, so they launched an 8 year smear campaign, which the media jumped on.
And, like many Democrats, I didn't really approve of some of those last pardons, but I didn't approve of Bush's pardon of the Iran-Contra conspirators either. But I can live with it.
--
That's the simple truth, my friends. All commercial statellites are now deployed by commercial launch systems. NASA is now strictly a research organization, albeit a benevolent one. But let's be clear, it is a form of sponsorship for scientists, whose results are of interest only to other scientists. The days of NASA providing marketable benefits to the average American citizen are long gone.
That actually might be enough to get the politicians off their collective asses and get them to fund space development.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
But his estate would have to liquidate a large amount of stock holdings. Much easier than shutting down a family business because you had to sell your land and equipment.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I believe that while having someone spend their valuable time taking care of me is nice, it's far from a basic human right.
My rights run to what other people or the government cannot do to me. I have a right to not be killed. I have a right to not have the government censor my speech. I have a right for self-incriminating testimony not to be demanded. I have the right to not be thrown in jail without just cause and a fair trial.
Now comes along health care. Health care does not fit in the above category. A right to health care does not involve preventing people from doing things to me. Rather, it involves having people do something for me. Ergo, not a basic human right.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Read closely. The X33 program has become a boondoggle. Just another idea that looked real good on paper, but the details got in the way.
The flying wing was one of those. Back in the late '40s Northroup tried to build a flying wing bomber, but it just wasn't stable enough. There were all sorts of stories flying that cried conspiracy, that the govenment was 'bought' by interrests wanting to promote the B36 project instead. Truth was the flying wing was just a little ahead of it's time. Technology finally caught up, the B2 proved that the flying wing was real.
Maybe in another decade the aerospike engine will finally be ready for flight. Meanwhile, we need a replacement for the shuttle, and a more conventional approach might be better. A larger shuttle, two stage if necessary (get rid of those pesky solids!). Nasa made the right move here. The X33 project is not going to produce a shuttle replacement any time soon. Move on and admit it. It's not a popular idea, but the right one. Now only if they would take the money and go to Pluto!
Yes, NASA faces budget cuts. NASA is illegal. It shouldn't have a budgegt AT ALL.
Of course, the legality of NASA clearly has nothing to do with its budget. And the word you're looking for is "unconstitutional", not "illegal".
The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 justifies the establishment of NASA by stating "The Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that adequate provision be made for aeronautical and space activities."
The Congress was given by the Constitution "Power To...provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States".
The tenth amendment does not abridge that power.
Here's a transcript of an excellent panel discussion on the concept of federalism, states' rights, and the enumerated powers doctrine; with such gems as:
and and and perhaps most to the point: Here's some notes on the enumerated powers doctrine.--
--
Make mine methylphenidate.
I hate to respond to this so late in the thread, since it's likely that no one will ever read this ... however I think all of the posts I have read so far have missed a point here.
... or so I hope. :-)
The cancelation of the X-33 and X-34 doesn't mean the projects were a failure! The amount of data and experience gained on these two project is very large. Hard to measure even.
Remember these are X planes. They are experimental. The goal in these programs is not necesarily to produce a production ready space/aircraft (that's what the next phase called EMD is for.) These were essentially research programs. People throught that the technology and processes to develop this type of spaceplane (in the X-33s case) existed and were solid, but they were not entirely correct. If you recall they had gotten to the point where the original fuel tank design had to be scrapped, they were now carryin fuel in what was originally the cargo space and hauling payloads in external pods, etc. It was turning into a kludge. (IMHO anyway.)
Canceling this program now is good because it means that someone higher up in the management food chain recognizes that continuing at this point would cost more than starting over. They realize that some of their base assumptions for the project are wrong, and think that now they know enough to rethink it and do it right. This must have been a hard decision to make, but I think it was the right one.
In summary, don't think of this as the end of the effort to produce this type of spacecraft, just a slight dip in the slope of the learning curve. (Errr
Sigh. Must now return to doing "real" work. The horror.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
Ok, first let me point out that these rich people are but a small handful of rich people. Second, some are some of them are the richest and most famous, they have the least to lose in many ways. Third, in any group, you're going to find a small percentage that disagrees, but that doesn't mean they're right. Fourth, maybe some people get more enjoyment out of putting their name in the news then they would out of giving their heirs (if they have any that they care about) an extra billion dollars or so.
That said, I don't think you truely understand the situation. The way the estate taxes are currently arranged businesses and farms are at threat. This is not just a myth. I am "rich", or rather my parents are. If either of them were to pass away tomorrow, the IRS would, in essence, demand the present value of their share of the company in cash OR they would be willing to "loan" us the amount, which we would have to pay back later. Neither solution is acceptable. The first essentially demands that a fire sale be done in the company. Both companies are currently privately held and are not in a condition to be sold so rapidly--the assets simply are not that liquid. In effect, this would essentially hurt all of the other shareholders in the company. In other words, it makes the already risky (and very much worthwhile) investment much riskier and forces my parents to do things like buy specialized life insurance policies to cover just this kind of event for the company and herself and consult a great many lawyers. All of these things are horribly inefficient and have the net effect of depriving their startups of valuable resources. (I can only imagine what a family farm or smaller family owned business must go through). The other option, taking the "loan", is totally unacceptable because the interest rate and the manner in which the value is company is appraised do not necessarily compute with what I can sell it for. In essense, if they valued the company at 90m dollars, but I was only able to eventually get, say, 30m for it, I'd be up shit creek.
What's more, I think you lack an appreciation for even the basic mathematics involved here. So I'll give a quick and dirty run down of it (ignoring the previously mentioned issues). Ok, let's suppose my mom just sold her company for 100m dollars. Then she dies tomorrow. That estate would be taxed at 55%. That leaves 45m dollars. Ok, now I am one of 4 children. Assuming that she gives all of her money to us (which would not be true). You now divide that 45m by 4. Which leaves you with about 11.25m per person. But we're not done yet. Now we apply INCOME tax to each of us at about 40% (yes, the total adds up to about 73%). This would leave us each with about 6.75m dollars. Now that may sound like a lot, but it's a far cry from 100m dollars. And that's minimizing virtually everything. In reality, it works out to a much smaller percentage than that. The point being is that it's not enough to live the high life on, even with what sounds initially like an astronomical figure to some. If that money is not properly invested or used wisely, it would disappear very shortly.
Furthermore, even if you figure that we get and keep this money, the only way that would happen is if it is invested. In other words, this isn't a zero sum equation. Just because I have "money", doesn't mean others don't. In fact, it's quite the other way around. When I take that money and use it towards starting my own company (which I probably would), I create jobs directly and indirectly. What's more, I create value for society in the goods and services that I produce. This leads me to another point, I truely don't believe the government is capable of efficiently allocating resources. Put differently, I believe that those extra dollars are better spent in my hands than they are in the governments. (Yes, I believe there is a need for government and taxes, I'm not a libertarian by any means, but there is also a lot of waste).
And yet another point, did it ever occur to anyone that maybe some people have greater aims than just their own immediate consuption? Perhaps their chief incentive is to assure that their children, friends, family, or what have you have the means to live as they see fit. Or perhaps their lifes work is to create a company that benefits their community. In other words, the founder may place a great deal of importance on say, integrity and high quality service. He (or she), the entreprenuer, knows his trust and/or his heirs will see the company through the way he wants. But if the government comes in and demands more than half, the company must either be liquidated or have a bunch of shares change hand, forcing control and such out of the hands of the desired party.
It also comes down to the fundamental question of whether you believe taxes, or indeed the government, should be involved in social programs like this. Taxes were originally designed to generate income. When the inheritance taxes came into being, it was essentially just a social scheme. So where does this end? If we can tax the rich with the intent of making them less rich, why not tax white and/or jewish people for making them less rich? After all, clearly things need to be evened up. So where does it all end? It it _truly_ needed in this day and age? If, supposedly, Bill G. and others want estate taxes, they'd also be willing to give away most of their estates to other causes. So why is it that we assume it would be perpertual wealth? I know a lot of rich people and, by and large, almost anyone that has earned it themselves (which is most) is disgusted by the notion of the decadent existence.
These are just some of the (presently unstructured -- my apologies -- gotta run) reasons why I think estate taxes need to be abolished, or at least, severely adjusted (73% is just too high).
The core of our air force are the B-52 bombers,
now in their fifth decade. Projections have
them running into seventh or eighth decade until
they are cannabalized for structural parts.
At least most of the vacuum tubes have been
replaced by semiconductor electronics over the
years.
It's irrelevant what the motivations are, whether self-interest, the psychological stress of trust-fund guilt, or just plain old sadism, it just doesn't matter.
The super wealthy who have made it to a certain level don't have to worry about the estate tax because they can afford estate tax planner and lobbyists to take care of things for them personally. At worst, their heirs will have lifetime jobs at fat pay in foundations devoted to the glory of their pappy and live comfortable lives for doing very little. It's those plumbers who have socked away a couple of million while driving old cars that have to worry about the estate tax. Take a look at "The Millionaire Next Door" and the rest of that series to see the real face of the rich who get socked by this tax.
DB
Reductio ad absurdum:
If you believe that there is no right to property after death, but there is a right to property before death, surely you oppose the portions of the IRS code which prohibit people from giving away their wealth while they're still alive.
Lemme get this straight - it's immoral for me to die and bequeath $10M estate to someone after I have no use for it. But it would be just fine for me to sign over that $10M estate when I'm on the operating table. Or when I'm 65. Or today, for that matter.
If you don't see a glaring inconsistency there (or more accurately, if you do see the inconsistency, but choose to resolve it by saying that gifts made on my deathbed - or at any other time - ought to be taxed too), then I can only conclude that you do not believe in the moral foundation of property rights to begin with, whether before or after death.
In which case, I might just as well declare "all your assets are belong to me" - because you must also deny yourself the right to property on pain of logical inconsistency.
Please explain the moral foundation of your denial of property rights.
Property rights are like religion - you either believe they have a moral foundation or you don't. The "after death" bit is a red herring.
It's a damn shame the NASA budget keeps getting slashed when the fat fuckers in Washington feed their own porkbarrel budgets. Congress could fund NASA at a greater rate if they wanted, but they won't as long as they can funnel millions of dollars into such things as an experimental rail system that's less than a mile long and goes no where.
As for the tax cut. It's not just for the 'rich', EVERYBODY get's a lower tax rate. Screw the rich fucks that say they don't want it. THEY DON'T NEED IT. It's the lower income people that need it. Stopping the tax cut is just a way for those rich fucks to screw over the little guy again.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Wrong. Before WWII the most popular airliner was the extemely reliable and safe Douglas DC3. The military adapted this civilian aircraft for military cargo use during the war.
It's true that a few early post-war airliners were based on the B29 design, but nearly all civilian airliners since have had little in common with military designs. In those cases where military airplanes shared designs with civilian planes, it was the civilian planes that came first (certain military cargo and airborne tankers come to mind).
The arms race did contribute to civilian aerospace progress, but the key factor was the market, not the military.
No sig? Sigh...
Ye gads!
Are you saying that government should be involved in applied research?
;)
I was a student in the early eighties when the ideology of government being involved in basic research only (excepting military projects) really took hold. The problem is that the line between applied and basic is not absolutely clear cut when talking about engineering. Some people I knew were able to turn their research into successful commercial ventures, which I guess supports the argument that government support shouldn't be needed, but a lot depended on the state of their research at the time the Reagan administration began to choke of their air supply.
I now have friends who do basic engineering research in the private sector,so it's not like technology research won't happen. But it's also fair to say that without military funding for technology research, development of jet engines, computers, and computer networking would be far behind where it is now.
I believe that the reason military research is so good for advancing technology is you don't get into fights over whether it is sufficiently basic for government to be funding it. The military can fund, large, long term, cooperative research projects that are out of the reach of private research.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The X-33/34 program was doomed well before the election. Rather than attempt to prove one or two new technologies, the powers to be funded everything but the kitchen sink. The result is we have proven a few new technologies, but the remainder caused the cost overruns and delays. The tank technology alone was unproven, suffering numerous setbacks during development. The X-33 is a beautiful solution, but too much of a pie in the sky for the government to continue to pay. Gush or Bore, either one would have pulled the switched. Neither have the foresight to continue to fund such an innovative program.
"A bit wordy. The Golden Rule is actually a term borrowed from Confucianism, whose definition is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you""
Picky Bastard Mode v 2.5 Engage:
In Confucianism, this is actually known as the "Silver Rule" and it _actually_ states (albiet not literally, I'm sure): Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT want done to you.", the justification being that something you might like having done to you might not be what someone else would like.
Anyhow, you guys miss the point ENTIRELY. Just because the specific words "Seperation of Church and State" aren't in the constitution doesn't mean that the intent of the Founding Fathers isn't interperated by most as meaning that. Just like stuff like the Triune Godhead is "interperated" from the Bible. The Fundies LOVE to crow about how this is a Christian Nation, which is an incredible crock, considering most of the Founding Fathers were Deists who despised Fundamentalist Christianity.
And before someone says something inane like "But the money says "In God We Trust"!, the money also happens to say "New Secular Order". Don't believe me? Check out the back of a One Dollar Bill sometime. It's in vulgar Latin, right under the Pyramid.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
Also, a true Christian likely does not support capital punishment.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
At least the King James Bible does actually have those statements printed in it. I have to take your word for it since I do not have that bible.
I was just stating the fact that the Constitution does not actually possess the phrase "Separation of Church and State". Right or wrong it still does not have it.
I agree with you on this one - I understand being religious and such, but destroying such works (two 100+ foot Buddas, from the 4th or 5th century) is a shame to archeology and anthropology studies. It's frustrating to see this occur (mainly because they are another country, and can, and should, be able to do what they please, within limits).
I rank it right up there with the flooding of old temples in China due to the Yangtzee (sp?) river damn project - that is such a beautiful valley, and wonderful old temples - all to be put under a lake for power (if it hasn't happened already)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon