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U.S. Billionaire Heads to Space Station
TurnAround writes "According to an International Business Times article, a Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan Saturday, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.
Climbing on a column of smoke and fire into the clouds over the bleak steppes, the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule lifted off at 11:31 p.m. local time, casting an orange glow over the Baikonur cosmodrome and dozens of officials and well-wishers watching from about a mile away."
...while he paid $25 million for his little trip to space, my tax dollars are subsidizing the rest of his trip. Do some damn science instead of being a taxi for the uber-rich. (I know Russia is strapped for cash.)
Hey, I know, let's celebrate some billionaire who can afford to take a trip to space! How fucking quaint.
Does this matter? Not in the slightest.
Not only is it a rich man's world. It is also a rich man's solar system now. Its amazing what money can bring you. He will get to experience something that I most likely never will, and he'll get to do it because he is filthy rich. Does that make him a better man and deserving of this? Most likely the answer to that question is yes. But is it not mildly depressing? Knowing that while you and billions others are scrounging to make ends meet, to buy a home, and in a majority of the cases to put food on the table, there are people who can afford to plunk down $20million + to take a joy ride into space. I don't blame him for it, and I think its his right that he do what he wants with the money he earned. Its just, such an overpowering display of wealth.
- Tempestdata
Not in the least!
There was a time when only the richest of the rich could afford automobiles. Now everyone has them.
Its efforts like this that will eventually drop the price down enough for space travel to be worthwhile for the general populace.
maybe I'm just jealous
Close. From the statistics gathered by the late, great Steve Kangas:
Year Median Millionaire or Top 1%
1948 5.3% 76.9%
1955 9.1 85.5
1960 12.4 85.5
1965 11.6 66.9
1970 16.1 68.6
1975 20.0 --
1977 -- 35.5
1980 23.7 31.7
1985 24.4 24.9
1989 24.4 26.7
Source: The Reagan Years: Taxes; Info from: "the 1948 figure comes from The Statistical History of the United States, 1976; the figures for 1955 to 1983 come from Alan Lerman of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Tax Analysis. The calculations after 1983 come from Eugene Steuerle and John Bakija, Right Ways and Wrong Ways to Reform Social Security (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1993). Figures from the millionaire column for 1948 to 1970 represent the effective tax rates for those earning $1 million a year and come from the U.S. Treasury Department unpublished data set forth on page 1112 of The Statistical History of the United States, 1976. FICA is not included, but the rates would not be affected by a percentage point. The rates from 1977 onward are for the top 1% of families as computed by the Congressional Budget Office tax simulation model and include all federal taxes. Source: the 1992 Greenbook of the House Ways and Means Committee, p. 1510. The effective rate on millionaires would be close to the rate on the top 1 percent."
I expect to see a lot of people commenting "hey, he was smart, he worked hard, he deserves that money". My response to that is: "Really? Is he a hundred thousand times smarter than the average American? Is he a hundred thousand times harder working than some guy who does hot tar roofing for a living? Really?"
Don't get me wrong; complete wealth redistribution eliminates the incentive to work hard in order to better yourself. But a completely "free", "deregulated" economy leads to situations like the early industrial revolution. The economy inherently becomes polarized, as you need money to make money. This is why we have things like the estate tax and higher rates for the upper class. If the rates were like they used to be back in the 1950s/1960s (our nation's biggest boom time, by the way -- yes, you can't really credit that to the taxes, but it's hard to say that the taxes destroyed the boom), we'd be able to provide full healthcare to every American, full education to every American through grad school, double all government funded research, double all infrastructure projects, and still work toward paying off the national debt.
I think 85% may be a bit extreme, but I'd like to see 65% or so. And I say this as someone who has benefitted greatly from having wealthy parents.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
MS Word, in my experience, is more like having your spacecraft decide, "Well, they've used this particular reaction control thruster every time they've pressed a button, so I'm just going to go ahead and fire it off every time before they do anything to save them the time."
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
There are two major problems with Hungarian Notation:
It wasn't until I read Joel's rant on Hungarian that it finally clicked for me.
Just because some coders' use of Hungarian is bad, doesn't make Hungarian itself a bad thing. It's just like braces - some people insist on getting it wrong and putting their braces at the end of the line.
If this billionaire didn't do anything special, why doesn't everyone do what he does?
The truth is he cannot possibly pull that off today. First Microsoft got wise and started getting stingy with stock. Second, Microsoft stock ain't all that any longer. Third, many (not all) today's coders tackle harder coding problems and see nothing but their normal paycheck.
It's just like Bill Gates: These guys were there at the right time in history. The opportunities they had disappeared when the market matured. As I look around now, I believe the next opportunities are going to require tremendous capital and research, effectively locking out the people with little more than drive and coding knowledge. There will never, can never, be another Bill or Charles.
-- Posted from my parent's basement