Slashdot Mirror
Florida and New Mexico Compete for X-Prize
N8F8 writes "Looks like the fight for the location for the first X-Prize competition is in the final stage. Florida and New Mexico are the finalists. New Mexico is courting the X-Prize officials heavily. Living in Satellite Beach, Florida, it isn't hard to guess where my vote is going! It's too bad Governor Jeb Bush isn't putting much effort into lobbying for Florida though other efforts may be under way. Getting in on the ground floor of private space entrepuraneurism would be priceless. X-Prize officials have delayed the final decision to April 16th."
I think I'd have to go for Florida - anything launched from New Mexico would pass somewhere overhead, and if it didn't achieve orbit, might possibly land in my backyard...
I saw "4 of 79 comments" on the main page and thought it had to be a mistake... as it turns out, somebody's been testing a bot. That's the only explanation I can come up with.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Hmm... That's interesting, every time Bush proposes any NASA activities these days everybody here just says it's for military purposes.
I can also assure you that the Soviets were just as interested in the military uses of space as they were in scientific exploration.
As an aside to how 'evil' companies cannot innovate anything, imagine if NASA was in charge of creating computer chips, and nasty companies like Intel were outlawed from any involvement in creating processors... do you really think modern computing would be anything more advanced than an Apple II?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Can we be so sure that the end here (travel in space, colonization, etc.) justifies the means we as humans may need to take to get there (commercial interests)?
I fail to see how "commercial interests" are the anthesis of space travel and colonization. What is so terrible about making money that it needs to be banned from space? It's not like they're sending the XPlanes up there to block out the sun in an act of cartoonish supervillany.
If someone can make money escaping the atmosphere in an attempt to speed up intercontinental flight, good for them. If someone can make money carrying satellites into space, or running experiments in zero-G, good for them. Profitability equals the survival of a venture... It's why profitable but socially negative corporations are difficult to get rid of. We want that kind of tenacity on our side. The spreading of mankind outside of our little planet is a good thing, and so long as the companies that do it are behaving in an ecologically responsible fashion, more power to them.
Theoretically, the only reason going into space would be profitable is if there was something sufficiently valuable up there that we should go. The more space travel there is, the less expensive it will be. The less expensive space travel is, the more experiments, manufacturing, and living can take place up there. There must be all kinds of ludicrously dangerous Xtreme sports for our grandkids to discover.
And, in case you haven't noticed, there are already commercial space operations out there. Far more often than NASA they're the ones putting up the satellite phone satellites and the flying transponders we rely upon. Except for the problem of junk in orbit, there isn't anything wrong with that.
The ______ Agenda
The New Mexico Office of Space Commercialization was created in 1994 by legislation to coordinate the promotion and marketing of New Mexico's space-related resources and to develop and operate a regional Spaceport in New Mexico.
Just reading the word "Spaceport" outside of a Heinlein novel is nearly enough to bring a tear to my eye. The saddest part of all of this is that they have to offer a prize to get anyone to try this... I keep hoping for news of mineral resources somewhere in the solar system, that would make space travel profitable. There has to be a way to make money off of outer space, but what is it?
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
But a more sensible question is whether you want really want NASA to do it.
I mean are you one of the NASA selected 'elite'? If not- sorry, no space for you.
Atleast commercial launches are somewhat egalitarian- you have the cash, you get to go. And commercial pressures tend to push down on price, with NASA there's far less pressure to do that- that's a really bad thing. The price is way too high right now, particularly in NASA land. NASA is way too risk adverse; paradoxically, I think that caused Columbia and Challenger.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"