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NASA to Privatize ISS Missions?
Brian Young writes "Nasa is looking for private companies to take over the business of transporting astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. "'Certainly this is an opportunity for the new space companies,' said Jim Banke, head of Florida operations for The Space Foundation industry trade association. 'They've been lobbying NASA hard for something like this for years.' NASA hopes to supplement, and eventually replace, crew and cargo flights to the space station that had been planned for the shuttle fleet." One has to wonder how much money can be saved by NASA that can be put to use elsewhere, such as trying to figure out how to put together a manned mission to Mars, if they no longer have to dish out the tremendous amount of money that getting astronauts and cargo to the ISS requires."
On Iraq...they could have sent a man to mars 2 years ago.
"The first settlers in America experienced enormous causalities their first years they were in America. Entire colonies were lost."
How do you know that?
"The original colonies included a substantial variety of fundamentally differing approaches to settling North America."
Thats not true. All the original nations respected a tribal lifestyle and had great respect for nature. There were several waves of settlement, the last three being the arrival of the Inuit (I bet you dont know what that is, its ESKIMO), the Viking visits and the Europeans (white settlers). It was the last group of settlers who had fundamentally differing approaches to settling North America.
"Let's not forget who settled the frontier, how those "immigrants" differed from later immigrants, and what sort of "program" they had to settle the new frontier."
Indeed. Let us NOT forget.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
This is long, long overdue. There is no reason that space exploration needs to be monopolized by government. The private sector can and would do a much better job of making the whole enterprise of space travel and access more efficient. In 40 years, public institutes such as NASA haven't reduced the cost of getting to space by a single cent. Its pathetic, and a monumental waste of public funds. The commercialization of the space industry is the only way we'll see real technological progress. Additionally, it opens up a giant new industry for the developed world to occupy themselves with. See the economist Patrick Collins commentary on Space Tourism for an in-debt, well thought out point of view on this matter.