Slashdot Mirror
NASA to Go Commercial?
jeffy124 writes: "CNN has an article about NASA possibly selling space. The idea comes from Russia, where they have have sent into space Pizza Hut pizza, talking picture frames, and magazines. The proposal includes ties with the entertainment industry, tourism, NASA merchandise, and hiring a nongovernment organization to manage the US areas of the International Space Station." If anyone has a link to this NASA draft document the article talks about, please post it below.
I don't really understand how much this could help NASA. Ask the average Joe-on-the-street when the next Shuttle launch is and I doubt he could answer you. Shit, I can't answer you.
NASA started losing its appeal to the everyman around the late 80's, following the Challenger explosion. Everyone knows Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but I doubt the average Joe could tell you the name of any of the people crewing the shuttle right now. I know I can't without a little Google searching.
So really, how effective a marketing scheme will this be? Who's turning on the television to see the ads plastered on the side of the Shuttle prior to launch? What Newspaper prints a front page story about the shuttle launch? What kind of exposure would a Playstation 2 ad get on the Shuttle versus the kind of exposure it would get during the Superbowl, or the World Series, or a "Very Special Episode of 'Felicity'"?
I think it's wonderful that NASA is seeking out private funding, since the powers that be are no longer interested in the space program. I just have to wonder what kind of revenue a space shuttle advertisement would bring, and if that revenue would be any more than a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of operating the shuttle.
What possible benefit can we, the public whose tax dollars support NASA, see from space exploration? Obviously, someone has decided that the money would be better spent elsewhere, and the only people I see complaining are the occasional Slashdot user.
Obviously, if we all wanted it, we'd be pissing away billions of dollars on space exploration, which so far has netted us a handful of rocks, Tang, and Astronaut Ice Cream.
Sad? Hardly. Unless you can't live without Tang.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
hmm, If we keep taking ideas from russia soon we ill be able to buy a shuttle on ebay or for a bit less a trip into space, with training. Good old Russia.
(Score:0, Interesting)
As a big supporter of private access to space, this does not seem like such a good thing for the american public. NASA started off as a wonderful, if costly, employment plan that showed the Russians we had ICBMs, but is now charged with maintaining their own finances. That's all well and good, but NASA still has government beaurocracy and inertia holding it back. Small private companies, attempting to develop reusable access vehicles, are more likely to be efficient and innovative in their approaches than the dinosaur that is most of NASA (admittedly, some of the departments are quite good, like the recent jury rig to survey a comet.) In order to get funding, those companies were going to need investment from large companies, which would go into developing their businesses. I fear that NASA has beaten them to the punch, and the investment dollars will be thrown at the beaurocracy to dissapear.
P.S. Before anybody whines, advertising is a form of investment like any other. You give somebody money, and hope you get more back while they use it.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
That's the most brilliant idea that I've read in weeks... sending the entertainment people in orbit!
:)
Send the people behind RIAA and MPAA into space, you'll get out full undivided support!
Oh and don't send too much oxygen... you know, it costs 1000$/KG so, you can try to save on that issue... especially if you are commercial, you must turn into profits... just a suggestion
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
It's done more than that, it's also given us countless hours of quality PBS and Discovery channel programming, and Velcro! Can you even truly imagine life without Velcro?
But if we're going to take a cue from history, let's point NASA toward the real profit from technology lies: Porn.
No, really, think about it. Early photographs? Porn. Videos? Porn. DVDs? Why, Porn again! And don't even get me started on where all the "innovations" in Internet commerce and advertising have come from -- we may all hate the X10 ads, but they're using both innovation AND implied voyeurism to make a profit.
Now, just imagine what NASA could do by selling Space Porn. I'm sure that millions of guys across America would be "curious" enough to pay a few bucks to see sex in space. And any modeling company would love it -- no mode need for Wonderbras for lift, since there's no gravity to make them fall. And they'd bring about a whole new wave of public interest in space travel and technology (surely this would be more effective in creating public interest than the proposed return-to-the-moon plans)!
Let's face it -- a little Porn goes a long way toward the technological advancement of the human race. Abandon your silly preconceived morals and let the avarice take control.
(Moderators: With any luck, this will be funny. But it might be a troll. I'm honestly not sure =)
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
Of course, most people would be against this, but Nike could find a way to label those people as communistic or something.
Keeping
"When space travel ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Microsoft Galaxy. Planet Starbucks."
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
As per your request, here's the report.
Old news, was released Sep 24, here's Space.com's report from the following day.
Oh, and this would've been posted earlie, but I couldn't log in, what's up with that?
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
I highly recommend a book called "The High Road" by Ben Bova. Unlike most of Bova's work, this isn't fiction, but more of an essay regarding the need for increased investment and work towards space travel. No pictures available, the book is out of print, so an amazon.com link is kinda pointless.
Even when the book was printed (1981), drastic cuts in space funding were evident. Remember this is BEFORE the Challenger incident! Many different sources are cited in this book to back up his facts, but I will still try to not stray from the obvious.
1. Satellites. Sat phones, many nodes of the Internet, GPS systems, XM radio, spy satellites, anti-spy satellites, the Star Wars program (Think Reagan, not Jar Jar) all owe their existence to satellites. You can complain about those all you want, some are pointless, but all have been put with the idealistic thought of making life better in general. Some fail, and some are to make money, but I am glad all of them are there.
2. Secondary technical innovations. Velcro, Most plastics, and tertiary technical advancements for such things as bone marrow transplants (Remember the old commercial with Jesse Jackson, specifically to rally support for the space program, citing bone marrow transplants as one of the effects of earlier space exploration?)
3. Energy. This is the one that bites my tail most that SHOULD have been done in the 70's, and still should be done. A Solar Power Station. The idea is a large satellite, positioned so that it is never blocked from the sun, could gather and redirect the energy to a large array of solar power cells (we're talking a few dozen square miles worth, but well worth it). Environmental impact would be nill, and the land could still be used for grazing by livestock. Just plop the array of cells into some flat section of New Mexico or Montana, and be done with it. The power that could be produced by such a station could easily be twice that of the energy produced by imported and domestic oil gathered at the same rate. While I would recommend reading this book for the full explanation, this link will take you to a PDF with an excellent overview if you cant find the book. Imagine, free, practically limitless energy available. The electricity could be used to separate water into hydrogen and water, so even transportation would benefit.
4. Economy. Every dollar spent into the space program would change hands an avarage of 8 times before 'settling'. This is a matter of spending money to make money. It creates jobs, technology, and even patriotism.
5. Survival of the Human Race. As unlikely as it may seem, the Earth is our biggest Single Point of Failure. If anything happens to the Earth in a manner that makes it inhospitable to human life, the race will end. We must, for the survival of the species eliminate that single point of failure. Asteroids, nasty bacteria(e.g. Ebola), greenhouse effect, are all problems whose affect on the race could be limited if we got rid of the single point of failure. However improbable, they are still possible, and the human race must overcome.
6. Moon exploration. Boy, I'd love to get my hands on a killogram of diterium(Hydrogen ion +3?). There's only a few metric ton naturally occuring on the planet, almost all in the oceans. But, its on the surface of the moon, and the lack of atmosphere makes extracting it from the dust (notice I didn't say 'soil'. Just the dust, no more than 2" deep, would yeild enough diterim to satisfy a huge energy consumption for an enourmous amount of time.
There are more, but I grow tired of typing. Space exploration is not for short sighted people. It has produced amazing results for the entire human race, and as pessimistic as it may sound, failing to properly support it by the Americans is both bad for the U.S. as a whole, and failure by the world to investigate further is accepting the eventual end of the human race.
Toodles
Toodles D. Clown
Courtney Stadd took over the Office of Commercial Space at the Department of Commerce shortly after Malcolm Baldridge, then Secretary of Commerce, died after a fall from a horse. Stadd had previously been working at NASA.
Baldridge had established the Office of Commercial Space in response to difficulties he had with NASA accepting private overtures at a Commercially Developed Space Facility (CDSF) aka the Industrial Space Facility (ISF) -- a man-tended orbital laboratory, entirely financed by private capital -- which would have been in orbit in the late 1980s if NASA had merely signed on as an "anchor tenant" -- procuring space on the laboratory as a customer -- as would have been allowed by Reagan policy and later law.
If you notice at this link another individual with close association to Stadd is Scott Pace. Scott Pace has involvement in this story of the Baldridge-era Office of Space Commerce as well.
The CDSF era was a time of misguided political activism on my part (I now know direct technology development to be far more revolutionary and threatening to the would-be "powers that be"), and I had sent a letter to the National Space Society's "Space World" editor. The letter concerned the appropriate division between private sector and public sector responsiblities. I made reference to patent law's distinction between technology (patentable) and science (unpatentable) as a guideline. Courtney Stadd had recently hired Scott Pace to work under him at the Office of Commercial Space. As someone who watched the tragic demise of the CDSF at the hands of NASA interests in teh wake of Baldridge's death, and who had actively supported the ISF, I complained to the Secretary of Commerce that I Pace should not be retained due to the potential conflict of interest represented by his participation with the various organizations surrounding the National Space Society. According to verbal reports to me, the letter of mine on patent-law-guided space commerce policy was being submitted for final publication when Pace appeared in the offices of the NSS where the editors of the NSS's "Space World" were making their deliberations. Pace rather boldly asserted that they shoudl not publish my letter and spoke of the fact that I was trying to get him fired in the same context -- as though that were somehow justification.
In this light, it is interesting that Courtney Stadd is now in line to become Goldin's successor:
Intrigue Swirls Around NASA Chief Goldin, Possible Successor
By Steven Siceloff, FLORIDA TODAY posted: 11:10 am ET, 04 October 2001
NASA Chief Rallies Troops After Terrorist Attacks
NASA Spells Out its Space Commerce Agenda
CAPE CANAVERAL - Two NASA memos issued last week look for the most part like any of the dozens that have flowed from the agency. But NASA Chief of Staff Courtney Stadd signed them instead of Administrator Dan Goldin.
It is unusual for sweeping directives such as the travel restrictions released last week to carry anyone's name other than the administrator's. The incidental change offers a glimpse into the intrigue that has swirled around Goldin since last November's election.
Agency observers and White House officials have long seen Stadd as an administrator candidate.
Those views gained intensity in late August and September. Then the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 pushed the government into a war footing. NASA issues plunged to the depths of the White House's to-do list.
Stadd holds considerable sway over NASA since he was appointed by the Bush administration, said Federation of American Scientists analyst Charles Vick.
"I think a lot of responsibility is falling on his shoulders," Vick said. "This administration doesn't give a blast about NASA now, and didn't before the events of Sept. 11."
Howard McCurdy, a space policy professor at American University in Washington, D.C., said Goldin faces an unusual situation: plural leadership of a federal agency.
Instead of a single man at the helm, the White House has Goldin and Stadd to run NASA together. "This is a 70-year-old technique in Washington," McCurdy said.
Vice President Al Gore was sufficiently interested in space during the previous presidency that a deputy NASA administrator was not necessary, McCurdy suggested.
While not dismissing McCurdy's suggestion, Goldin press secretary Glenn Mahone said that Stadd's Chief of Staff position is next in line after the vacant Deputy Administrator slot.
The new initiatives are not a sign of a power shift at NASA, but rather a sign that Stadd is comfortable with the agency and the role he has held in it since January, Mahone said.
"It isn't any signal," Mahone said. "Courtney now has his footing in the agency. It's a growing process."
But other NASA watchers said leadership at NASA has been diluted for lack of interest.
"There is a growing perception that Dan is going to be an administrator for life," said John Pike, director of the Alexandria, Va.-based thinktank Globalsecurity.org. "This should have been taken care of in the spring. It's indicative of the unusually low priority that NASA has been accorded. Now it is even further from the front of the stove."
The White House plucked Stadd from his commercial space business as a liaison between Clinton Administration holdover Goldin and Bush's staff. "There's certainly been a view that Courtney was providing the adult supervision during the transition to a new administrator," Pike said.
Uncertainty is something agency employees have had to deal with for months. It faces a $4.8 billion cost overrun in the International Space Station program and shortfalls in the space shuttle program. The agency also must find a new director at Johnson Space Center in Houston and a new administrator.
Seastead this.
Well that would explain the following two links:
Nasa
And this:
Lena
For those of you unfamiliar with the Lena Image,(or Lenna, if you like,):
To test image compression technologies, engineers use a standard picture to compare the results. What did they use? A scan of a 1972 Playboy centerfold, of course!
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
As part of this deal, "Tranquility Base" will be redubbed "Pepsi Tranquility Base (tm)". The Apollo 11 mission itself will know be known as "Taco Bell Run Beyond the Border 11 (tm)". Neil Armstrong's name will be officially changed to "Commander KFC".
Further announcements will be made concerning the new official nomenclature for all of the other Pepsico/Apollo missions, as well as the plans for a new theme park in Cape Mountain Dew.
...that I would happen to be surfing the humor sites today and find this picture of a space shuttle!
The space program did later help push technology to integrate circuits, but such advances were already underway, and TI was the leader (IBM was doing it's tech-stifle shuffle back then). Improved radio comms helped NASA, but NASA didn't drive it. You see this in Gene Kranz' book, "Failure Is Not An Option".
NASA was created after the Bell rocket planes did their thing. All jets used by NASA came from the Air Force, who got them all from contractors like Martin, Lochheed, Marietta, Boeing and others. Advances in aviation were fueled and funded by the COld War. NASA was a recipient, not a donor.
Microwave ovens came outta WWII, when some guys noticed a few weird effects of the microwave transmittors used for radar. That's also why the first microwave ovens were called "Radar-Range", an Amana trademark.
We have a lot of technology and improvements that were developed specifically for the space program. This is a good thing. But there was a reason we spent so much money: we were scared shitless of the Soviets, who were also scared of us. Pure research is a wonderful thing, but it's expensive as hell and we have other priorities. Almost every twit here who didn't pay taxes last year was complaining that he didn't get a refund cheque -- so not even the geeks are willing to pay higher taxes in the hope that some of that money will go toward NASA and other similarly geeky and way cool programs.
I have no problem with crappy logos on the shuttle, as long as the advertisers don't start trying to control missions, requiring X amount of airtime displaying their logo, renaming of items and anything that might in some way interfere with the actual science. I wouldn't even mind if they modified the already tedious and annoying end of countdown speech: "...three, two, one, and lift-off of the Atlantis Space Shuttle on its 43rd voyage in space to blah blah blah." It's so crappy now theat adding "sponsored by Roy Rogers Restaurants" after the word "shuttle" wouldn't make it worse. Adding a 30-second radio spot would be another matter.
It would be good to get this kind of cash infusion, but it could be the start of NASA becoming another agency that is supposed to be self-sufficient and run like a business instead of a governmental agency. Look what that's done to the Patent Orifice.
woof.
This post was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Official French Fry Pages, providers of information about certain cooked potato products, and by viewers like you.
I forget which book it was, and I'm sure someone will be happy to chip in and correct me on the exact quote, too...
"The 'C's and 'L's came out great. The 'O's and 'A's had a few problems."
This was a line from the story which described a science package that shot sodium dust out of a small can off the surface of the moon. It was supposed to rise off of the nighttime surface facing the earth, into the sunlight. Someone had inserted a mask into the can, so when the sodium dust hit the sun, it was a logo rather than simply a circle.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
They currently have a $4 billion and some cost overrun. Think about that. NASA has spent (or allocated) $4 billion more than it has, only it's not sure where it spent it. The fuck? No company in the world would be allowed to do that. This is a big boondoggle even by government standards. Think how far $4 billion would go if spent on researching new technologies, rather than poured into supporting old ones.
I don't view this $4 billion overrun as incompetence. I view it as theft. Theft from people who could have spent it on improving the future rather than maintaining the status quo.
I could use the same argument against "defense" spending, which has a vastly larger budget and has zero *direct* return on investment. No one is saying there is any way to be *directly* profitable going into space. The space program is our ticket into the future, possibly on another planet in case something happens to this one - be it our fault, a huge meteor or heck even hostile aliens. Plus many useful spin-off technologies have come out of the space program.
Here's my radical solution. Privatise NASA. Float it on the market. Let it keep all of its assets, gift it five years worth of funding, and wish it good luck. Cut it free of red tape, let it come up with its own projects and it's own standards.
No one is stopping you from starting your own private space company. In fact a few already exist including Orbital.
Why don't you take your brilliant "privitization" theory and apply it to the road system and the military? It won't work there either because they cost money too and reap no profits in return. Face it, R&D costs money and that's exactly what the space program is - a giant R&D program.
We've been promised commercial space exploitation within the next ten years, for at least the past thirty years. It's well past time to put up or shut up.
NASA has launching private satellites into orbit for years.
I propose this not because I think that we shouldn't be in space, but because I want us to get out there and stay out there. If space travel can be sustainable rather than a series of staggeringly expensive proofs of concept, then let's demonstrate that.
No one's stopping you from doing it. PUOSU. BTW, there is this thing called the international space station that is being built right now and people are already inhabiting it. In fact, there have been space stations in orbit since the 1970s. The new ones are getting better and better. That's how all technology works.