Companies Skeptical of Commercial Space Market

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Boeing and Lockheed Martin will happily sell rockets to carry astronauts into space, but are leery about taking a leading role in President Obama's vision for a revamped NASA that relies on commercial companies to provide taxi transportation to the ISS. 'I don't think there is a business case for us,' says Lockheed Martin's John Karas about space taxis. Both Boeing and Lockheed were stung during the last burst of optimism for the commercial space business about a decade ago. They invested several billion dollars — Lockheed to develop its Atlas V, Boeing for the Delta IV — in the hopes that the huge market for commercial satellites would supplement their traditional business of launching American military spy satellites. The market did not materialize, and what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper. The hoped-for commercial market for space taxis hinges on one small company, Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing inflatable space habitats that it hopes to market as research facilities to companies and foreign nations looking to establish a space program."

Comments

riiiight

[jollyreaper]

Wait a second. They're saying there's no market and then they're saying cheaper competitors are snapping up all the business? Fellas, I think the invisible hand of the market is flipping you off.

Re:riiiight

[Knara]

Is sort of what I got from it, too.

I suspect that "there isn't a business case" really means "we liked it better when we had a guaranteed customer who would pay us whatever we and our one main competitor decided was the going rate for a launch vehicle. Please don't make us actually innovate and compete."

Re:riiiight

[icsEater]

They're saying there is no market for investing in new expensive launch vehicles with all the quadruple redundancies and fail-safes imposed by the government. There's already a crop of old but reliable Soviet technology that does the same.

Re:riiiight

[LWATCDR]

The military asked Boeing and Lockheed to develop a new launch vehicle to replace the shuttle and TitanIV.
The told them that they could recover some of the cost by launching civilian sats. At the time there where export limitations on what you could launch from Russia.
Those restrictions have bee lifted and now they must compete with Russia and the ESA.
The debate as to who is more subsidized between Launch Alliance, Russia, and the ESA is one I sure don't want to get into but right now the US companies are not doing well in that price war.

Re:riiiight

[ThreeE]

Monopsony does not generate a competitive market -- especially government monopsony.

Re:riiiight

[vlm]

So, when an American aerospace company realizes they can't compete with imports, they refuse to enter that market segment.

When an American automotive company realizes they can't compete with imports, they double down, then get bailed out by the govt.

I'm confused why the different reactions. Just random chance that it falls out this way?

Re:riiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

the difference is aerospace cash cow is milking the us government.

While the car industry does sell to police and even the president, it is very rare that they get continued access to the us proverbial tit the way defense contractors do.

another this is aerospace companies can accidentally break things and the us government has to pay for the replacement. if a car make breaks something ala toyota then consumers just stop buying toyota.

so car companies really only have 1 market.

as for asking why then American car companies try at all its probably cause they don't want to admit failure and the execs still get paid so they don't care what happens either way.

Re:riiiight

[h4rr4r]

GM should have been allowed to die.
The money would have been put to better use doing any number of things including funding new automakers or not spending it at all. Their ex-employees seem to be capable at building Hondas so clearly management was the issue.

Re:riiiight

[cheesybagel]

The only figures I saw there regarding expenses were $400 million and $1 billion. If you know the space R&D business you would know those costs are tiny. Just developing a new rocket engine, under incumbent methods, can easily cost more than that. The contract for the J-2X engine for Ares-I X alone was $1.2 billion.

Re:riiiight

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Reliable ? You cannot seriously be referring to the Soviet space program.

Well, it was reliable in that they hardly ever failed to have huge accidents. Nor did they ever fail to deny this with propaganda. It helps if your launch site does not have any reporter within a 1000 km radius if you want to coverup fuckups.

I know this is very anti-postmodern but just because you don't see or don't know about something, doesn't mean it's not real. You'd think the fact that rain makes you wet at night would stop this sort of nonsense, but these are academics we're talking about.

Re:riiiight

[cheesybagel]

It's reliable now after a painstaking debugging process of many decades. Practice makes perfect you know.

Re:riiiight

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Yes, because European governments are well known for their light touch hands off safety regulations.

Re:riiiight

[sillybilly]

There really isn't a free market business case for it. People go to space simply to make living under unlivable conditions a status quo. If you can live in the vacuum of free space only on sunshine, fully recycling all the excrements into reusable things, you can almost make it no matter what. Living in space is a safety thing for life from Earth against a global catastrophy, such as an asteroid hit, anoter world war, nuclear holocaust, etc. You never know. There is really no free market for safety and security, unless the unthinkable happens, and then comes the should have, would have, but didn't. Maybe next time. If there is always a next time. Next time I'm not gonna keep all my eggs in the same basket. But going to space is not gonna solve a whole lot of issues, especially security issues, such as developing AI that is smarter than us, and hunts us. Space is no hiding place from stronger intelligence, should it be carnivore. But it does help some things.

For instance, as a side benefit, in space recycling is mandatory. On Earth we may never put the resources to fully recycle, because there is no free market business case for it. It's always cheaper to litter your environment full of trash and forget about it than have to take care of it right now. Being in space would force us to immediately come up with full recycling techs, and improve them to the point where recycling almost make business sense down on Earth. Who's gonna put the resources into it down here?

The only way space can make business sense is how Formula 1 makes business sense - as a show. But space is boring. It has to be boring to be professional. Formula 1 is boring to a lot of people. But it does get quite a bit of audience, to the point where it's profitable. Unfortunately the cost of a space show dwarfs the cost of Formula 1 in comparison. It's just simply too expensive to make business sense. Like the military, if it had to be free market supported, how much would you personally donate each month from your salary to support our troops? Or what would you pay for? The labor day air show?

Re:riiiight

[cheesybagel]

Actually they (and a lot of new corporations at the time) thought they were doing to launch dozens, nay hundreds, of commercial LEO constellation satellites at the time. Like, you know, Iridium. Well Iridium went bankrupt when their satellite phones couldn't compete with terrestrial cellphone networks. As for the GEO satellite market, intercontinental satellite phone calls mostly go through fiber optic submarine cables now. The remainder markets are niches in the middle of nowhere. Where there isn't a lot of money to invest in these shiny toys. Well except if you are the military anyway. Or in an oil platform.

In the other hand satellites for terrain imaging continue to be pretty successful. Space is the ultimate high ground after all.

Re:riiiight

[sunspot42]

Soyuz - which is the current Soviet manned space booster - hasn't had a fatal accident now in decades. It's old but very reliable. My guess is the big US aerospace firms can't really compete with it, at least not without sinking many billions into development costs and potentially having their own string of catastrophic failures to learn from (the way the Soviets did). They're probably also worried about demand for manned boosters going forward, and possible competition from the Russians, Europeans and - eventually - Chinese. Even if the US aerospace firms were successful in developing a manned booster, it might be difficult for them to ever recoup their development costs due to competition alone. They may feel there are better ways to spend their money, probably on defense-related programs where the margins are much higher and the competition less intense.

I know this is very anti-postmodern, but just because you don't see or don't know about something, doesn't mean it's not real.

Re:riiiight

[REJ Messser]

Before I left Boeing, a young enthusiast engineer and I had a meeting with the two senior Boeing engineers regarding what would become of the McDonnell Douglas DC-X prototype and data. In general they had disdain for what had been accomplished. They considered it a circus sideshow in technology terms. (There was also disdain for a technical "know nothing" Vice President having let two sci-fi writers talk him into finding funding and flying such a thing. Never mind that one of those writers was an accomplished engineer.) Once we got beyond the ego based opinions and down to brass tacks, they did present one trump argument, "The board of directors would never go for it." Looking at the prospects of developing a new Airliner for the mature air-transit market or developing booster for the unknown space-transit market, they would fund the sure bet. There was also the fact that the US couldn't compete on "cheapness" even twenty years ago. The only way they could make any case for being involved was to gain a protected monopoly to build, manage and supply launch services to all government and commercial seekers. Understand that when you are talking disposable boosters the cost of build, integration on the pad, launch and shepherding through the mission determine payload charges The equation changes with fully reusable vehicle, but no one has built or operated one to this day. And no, the Shuttle is not a reusable vehicle, it is a rebuildable vehicle. It can be compared to a "top fuel dragster" in that it uses a few highly developed materials and systems to produce spectacular performance for a very limited time. Not unlike a dragster it must be inspected and rebuilt after each mission. Conventional wisdom says that this is the nature of transit through space, but is it? Bear with me a moment for a comparison. In the early nineteen seventies top fuel dragster were producing in excess of 1000 HP and topping 200 MPH in the quarter mile. Spectacular?... yes. At the same time in a different realm the Porsche 917-10 was producing 1000 HP and could do it for hours on end. And prior to it's dominance the Ford GT 40 dominated the 24 Hours of Le Man with only 400 HP. I believe it was Arthur C. Clark who said, "If a very senior scientist tells you some thing can be done, he is most likely right. But is a very senior scientist tells you something can't be done he is very likely wrong." So, skepticism on the part of traditional aerospace companies is not unexpected. Very few carriage manufactures transitioned to the automotive market ether. Skepticism can be good if it moderates others to hide that twinkle in their eye and say, "Yes we can"

Re:riiiight

[blankinthefill]

Great story, and a perfect example of how established business has a very hard time expanding. They grow to fill their niche, and moving outside that niche is a huge risk. Most of these companies are publicly owned, and taking a risk that may fail, or not pay off for many years, could lose them their jobs very easily. Because of this, established companies almost never take real risks. It's left up to the small, crazy passionate garage shops to start the revolution. To be frank, I feel like this is good, since it leads to real innovation, that the big companies would be too scared to take on (although the argument could be made that most big companies would never start such a project in the first place, making it a non-issue). There ARE big companies that manage to innovate and spread into other fields... but they are few and far between. Hell, probably the greatest innovator of the century, Xerox, never actually spread beyond their core business, despite the potential for huge profits, because they felt it was too big a risk. What a lot of these companies and shareholders don't really understand is that the adage 'you have to spend money to make money' is 100% true. Sometimes you'll fail, but if you're smart about how you go about things, the payoff for those initial investments is incalculable.

Re:riiiight

[ekhben]

Right. The title and summary are perhaps misleading: it's not good business sense for Boeing or Lockheed Martin to try and compete in this space, but there is a market here. Naturally those companies are going to invest in a bit of propaganda to try and retain their non-competitive business deals with NASA; they stand to lose a tidy sum of money otherwise.

They might not fight it too hard though, given the continuing trend of wilful ignorance and anti-science sentiment in the U.S. and the impact of that on the NASA budget. Fighting for 5% of the U.S. Federal budget is one thing, fighting for 0.5% of it is another. Still a $15bn amount, but nowhere near all of that goes to buying launches.

Re:riiiight

[BlueStrat]

It's left up to the small, crazy passionate garage shops to start the revolution.

Meanwhile, sources for seed capital are drying up and the tax & regulatory landscape is getting ever-worse for just such small enterprises. The US is getting to be a downright unfriendly place for business in general and new/small business in particular.

Strat

Re:riiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just copy the Soyuz? Is it patented?

Second, why are we all so afraid of losing a life exploring space? Look at the huge risks early earth/sea explorers faced but what the huge payoff was for pressing ahead anyway.

Re:riiiight

[Dr. Spork]

Exactly. Those two companies are used to getting sweetheart military contracts where they charge $80 for each screw they use. When they see an even playing field with a real competitor, they're thinking: Fuck that! I think this shows better than anything the sense of entitlement of our defense contractors. They think that our tax money belongs to them no matter how shitty and uncompetitive their products would be on the open market. They're the last people screaming "Why we should get your money! Why? Cause we're Ameeeerican, that's why" ...and people still listen.

Re:riiiight

[Dr. Spork]

I don't think you understood this right. Obama is opening the position of taxi service to the ISS to the open market, but by this he doesn't mean the private sector. He means that the national government would pay for this service with tax money. They're declaring unambiguously that there will be a demand, and inviting private companies to satisfy it at market rates. But those two companies have much more lucrative things to work on, like SDI - where they get billions for making powerpoint presentations.

Re:riiiight

[strack]

key word there being "under incumbent methods". spacex seems to be doing it for a hell of a lot less.

Re:riiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they can't prolong the lifespan of german rocket scientists forever, can they?
I mean whatever brains they snatched up during WWII was bound to die sometime.

Re:riiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a second. They're saying there's no market and then they're saying cheaper competitors are snapping up all the business? Fellas, I think the invisible hand of the market is flipping you off.

Absolutely right, also Its not Bigelow who you need to be watching it's Elon Musk & Spacex they have their falcon 9 on the pad at the cape on pad 41 with a Dragon space craft on board ready for Air Force & FAA clearance to launch a full up unmanned and in to orbit.

Re:riiiight

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Why not just copy the Soyuz? Is it patented?

Because the Soyuz redefines the word "inefficiency" when it comes to fuel use, beating even Al Gore's favorite gallons per centimeter figures.

Apparently it uses triple the fuel of the space shuttle for less than half of the useful weight (although there is disagreement whether the spacecraft itself counts as useful weight, but even without the spacecrafts included, the shuttle still comfortably beats the soyuz. Since the shuttle provides useful infrastructure in orbit, whereas the soyuz doesn't it might even be fair to).

So using the Soyuz would get Nasa broke in 5 years with Bush-era funds.

Re:riiiight

[REJ Messser]

Actually the business case is the same as all other transportation business before it. Can we move a product from one location to another and make a profit doing it. Just as ships had an advantage over caravans, and jet liners have an advantage over ships. The market for transportation diversity has grown for centuries. Ships and planes did not replace the systems that preceded them but they did expand options and markets. Now modern US politician's love to exploit "common sense" proofs for winning arguments, getting elected and protecting the status quo. But common sense arguments can just be exploiting ignorance. (Not stupidity, but ignorance as in the process of ignoring evidence and opportunity.) The restraint of the development of "transit through space" systems is a good example of this. In the nineteen sixties it was though the next great advance in air transport was supersonic travel, i.e. 1800 MPH. Except for the Concord with it's limited range and cargo, no government even tried to make this work. But, anyone who has traveled internationally beyond western Europe will tell you it is an arduous process and shorter travel times would be welcome. If we had developed sub-orbital hyper-sonic transportation systems, such journeys become attractive. Rocket transports that transit above the atmosphere have several advantages. Sonic booms would be limited to terminal area's where re-entry takes place. Atmospheric damage due to NOx emission would be minimal with rocket engines. Hyper-sonic velocities on the order of 10,000 MPH would reduce travel times to humanly acceptable levels of 40 - 120 minutes. But the major advantage to developing such systems is that it would provide us with operational experience toward going full-orbital transit on a regular basis. Robert Heinlein wrote, "If you can make earth orbit you are half way to everywhere in our solar system." But why should we go? Energy harvesting. Our US standard of living is dependent on abundant energy sources. As the rest of the world develops, it will also need abundant energy sources. Rather that squabbling and fighting over limited supplies of fossil fuel and living with the consequences of it's use, we can develop "Big Solar." Large solar power stations can gather the energy that shines past us each day. But to do that requires reliable, reasonably priced transport to an orbit close to the moon. Currently we can barley get people to low earth orbit, let alone the moon, so we need to start somewhere. So the business case is this. Develop something useful that can bootstrap us to solving many of our looming challenges, or maintain the status quo and wait for the collapse.

Re:riiiight

[REJ Messser]

Thank you for reading what I had to say. You do get the point that company's can exist without innovation or market expansion if they can dominate a market. That said, I have been watching three small company's that have taking the technology forward for over a decade. Scaled, XCOR and Armadillo Aerospace. Scaled is moving close to being able to field an operational two stage to sup-orbital vehicle. XCOR has developed advanced rocket motors, fuel pumps, ignition and valves, plus high temperature composite materials. They are currently working on technology demonstrator which I think the Air Force with snap up. Armadillo has taken on the systems and controls aspects of rocket powered flight. (Not bad for a company founded on profits made in the video game industry.) Currently all three companies are working only slightly outside the realm of the expected. But what if some larger corporation brought them together? For example, the goal of NASA purchasing manned access to the ISS could starting with a government contract to provide sub-orbital hypersonic transport to international points of commerce and government. Doing so would produce experience with design, build and operation of systems that we know will work, to systems beyond our current level of competence. Think of this as a "Stepping-Stone" contract. We may not be able to reliably cross the gulf to regular orbital access, but if we walk on the stones we can get there in spectacular fashion. :-)

Re:riiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

"The personal Computer is a fad." (attributed to IBM)

"640k should be enough for anybody." (attributed to Bill Gates)

Small business, big ideas. Big business, small ideas.

Re:riiiight

[sunspot42]

Soyuz uses an entirely different type of fuel than the Shuttles do - a highly refined form of kerosene, as opposed to the expensive to handle liquid hydrogen used by the Shuttles (which also utilize solid rocket boosters - a questionable choice for a manned launch vehicle, and one which already resulted in a spectacular catastrophe).

Soyuz launches payloads into orbit for a cost of around $2,000 a pound. The Shuttles are up to about $4,000 a pound now, depending on how you handle the accounting for the overall program cost, and aren't anywhere near as reliable, in spite of their incredible cost.

Soyuz is such an inexpensive and reliable booster it's become - by far - the most used launcher in the world. It's proven so popular and cost-effective that the ESA has made a deal with the Russians to bring Soyuz to their Kourou launch site, currently used by Europe's Ariane boosters, with a launch scheduled for later this year.

You can Google all of this in under 10 minutes. There's really no excuse for being as belligerently, stunningly ignorant as you are.

Government is Clueless about Business

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is clueless about business, just as they always have been.

Working for a non-profit and organizing 4000 people who aren't paid isn't much of a background to understand how commercial, for-profit, companies must work to make shareholders happy.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[blair1q]

If you were thoughtful, instead of a talking-point parrotting teabagger, you'd be happy that the government is getting out of the space business and telling the business businesses to figure it out.

Because we're tired of coming up with all this cool space shit just so they can adapt it to their launch systems and still lose money launching our satellites under cost-plus contracts.

Or maybe the point is that business no longer knows how to stay in business, and new businesses need to come along and take it from them, now that the government is no longer propping them up by paying for all of the technology investment and absorbing the risk of failure.

BTW, how many of anyone have you organized in your life? By your logic, that makes you incompetent to judge the skills of anyone who has. You'll still be free to toss your vote in the trash next time around.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[h4rr4r]

This has nothing to do with that. It is just Lockheed belly-aching that they do not want to give up their sweet cost plus deals. The solution to this is to buy this service from Spac-X or another competitor.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[ZonkerWilliam]

Working with the Feds I can honestly agree, the mentality is vastly different. From perspectives of a federal agency, they submit a request for more funding if they need it, usually they get it (meaning, usually, a tax hike). What kills me is the way the whole funding is setup, if you don't spend all your funding you have to send it back, and next year you get reduced funding. So... all the agencies are motivated to spend all the cash on unneeded equipment at the end of the fiscal year just so they can get the same amount of money next fiscal year. So this tells us that basically Government is structured to waste money.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[TooMuchToDo]

+1. I'm not a fan of Elon Musk by any means (although I bought a Tesla Roadster), but buying launches from SpaceX would go a long way towards lowering launch costs.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[h4rr4r]

If they ever make a car I could afford.(personal rule: can't afford car unless you can pay for it in cash) I will get one.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[causality]

If you were thoughtful, instead of a talking-point parrotting teabagger, you'd be happy that the government is getting out of the space business and telling the business businesses to figure it out.

Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak? It's interesting to see during my lifetime that people are showing their dissatisfaction with an ever-growing federal government. It's gratifying to see they are doing this in a "bottom-up" fashion instead of a "top-down" organization, as so many of those are just front groups for various monied interests. It's particularly nice that the majority of its members are more concerned about reform and have little or no concern about party affiliation, since I've always viewed the two-party duopoly as the biggest single part of the problem. Well, that and the massive rate of incumbency.

I can understand disagreeing with their politics. I can understand being opposed to their methods and goals. What I can't understand is the look-down-your-nose disdain that you and many others have shown. If they were an entrenched "establishment" type of political party like the Democrats and Republicans, would that impress you? Would you then feel a desire to back up your demeaning tone with substantive disagreement? Much of this, when I see it, looks like "I have decided I don't like them, and I'll get around to coming up with reasons for it later" rather than having a good reason before deciding not to like them. It looks that way and I'm wondering if it really is that way. I don't know the answer to that, but I would like to.

The way I see it, the federal government is far out of control. We have ACTA and other bad laws that we the people have absolutely no control over, in which we have no voice at all. Every new federal agency becomes a permanent fixture, never to be disbanded. Every entitlement and social program will never be repealed no matter how bankrupt. No law is too intrusive, nor any justification too flimsy. This is not remotely what our government was intended to be, not even close. If a new movement wants to oppose this, why wouldn't I welcome the sight? Should I quibble over my personal feelings towards them in the face of this?

Ever watch old kung-fu movies? I find it fascinating the way mortal enemies still have a genuine respect for one another. Each sees that his opponent is skillful and formidable and honors this. There is none of this catty, petty personal hatred, disdain and "degrade or insult at every opportunity" mentality. Some armed conflicts in real life have been this way; I believe WWI was the last. There used to be the notion that if you lose your honor by engaging in those low-road practices, then the conflict has cost you quite a bit more than even the casualties sustained. What's happened to us?

I should add I am not a member of the Tea Party movement. I have not been to their events or participated in their campaigns. It's just that one thing is consistent whether it's politics or philosophy or even IT: anytime someone acts like a raw nerve has been struck and wants to denigrate what he disagrees with for no apparent reason, that raw nerve deserved to be struck. Watching this only lends credibility to the side that does not do it.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[causality]

Don't mean to reply to myself but I wanted to add one thing. Ever wonder why Americans have a bad reputation throughout much of Europe and other parts of the world? That's easy. It's because they see the actions of our federal government and mistakenly believe that it represents us, that it is carrying out our wishes. No wonder we look so bad to so many of them.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, someone drank to much Kool-Aid!

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[TooMuchToDo]

I'm sure they'll get there. Have to have those with deep pockets underwrite your R&D first though.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Runaway1956]

From experience in the Navy, I can verify the fiscal thing. Each quarter, we would "purchase" things out of our own storerooms, so that the books balanced within a couple of dollars. Across the board, we did this. The galley (or kitchen, for you landlubbers), office supplies, paint, you name it. The money had to be spent, or lost. At the end of the fiscal year, same thing. Spend right down to the very last dollar, never turn money in, or the next year your budget would shrink.

Damn shame that things work that way. It's an incentive to waste.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an easy solution to the problem of government budgets. Amongst male administrators of any sort, public or private, budget size is a surrogate for penis length, while staff size is a surrogate for penis girth. Obviously most male administrators suffer from feelings of inadequacy and constantly wish to increase the size and girth of their penis-surrogate. At this point, the solution should be obvious to all: hire only men with monster horse-cocks. They understand full well how painful it is for us to fit that thing into our tight little budget. They have no need for a big surrogate, they've got the real thing.

I'm sure some feminists will claim this is proof we should hire women as administrators, and to them I will just say, ladies, I've got a real big budget and a huge staff for you, right here.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[h4rr4r]

Thanks for doing that.
I understand why they are doing it, and think it is the right thing to do. I just am not willing to go into debt for any car and this is a car I could not afford with out debt.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[CRCulver]

It's gratifying to see they are doing this in a "bottom-up" fashion instead of a "top-down" organization, as so many of those are just front groups for various monied interests.

There's been plenty of examples of supposedly grassroots events being in fact organized by large, highly funded Republican groups. It's just like those old protests against the Iraq War where the marches were organized by extreme groups like International ANSWER without participants knowing about it. True grassroots events of late have been few. In many cases, a sincere public is being manipulated by very organized groups.

Every new federal agency becomes a permanent fixture, never to be disbanded. Every entitlement and social program will never be repealed no matter how bankrupt.

Behold the real problem in American politics: corruption and ossification. The rest of the developed world ought to serve as proof that the welfare state does work, though it requires flexibility, constant reevaluation of programs, and relatively honest functionaries. The Tea Party folks are foolishly desiring an end to the government as a principle, when they ought to be electing better politicians who might bring a successful political culture into Washington.

Though American by origin, I've lived in Finland for some years. From this vantage point, the entire Tea Party platform seems based on ignorance. Working towards a smaller government? No, you won't progress towards a higher standard of living without a stronger welfare state. (For all the supposed higher taxes of Nordic Europe, I have more spending money left over at the end of the month than I ever did in the US, and families here typically own two homes.)

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[niales]

1) Our elected representative pushing policies we do not agree with is NOTHING like what caused the original Tea Party.

2) A general lack of understanding in the Party. All party's have fools who spout rhetoric, but I've yet to hear a thought out position from a Tea Partier.

Perhaps it's all media coverage, but their general strong support for Palin makes that hard to believe.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Amasuriel]

As long as you consider Glenn Beck and other Fox personalities "the bottom" you could indeed classify the Tea Party as a bottom up group.

I'm also not sure what paragraph 3 has to do with what you are saying, though I agree with you on that at least. I think Politics as a whole would be well served by string laws punishing public slander that proves unfounded and anyone caught lying outright should have to bow out of whatever race they were in.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[timeOday]

Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak?

They're modern hippies... purely an opposition party with no realistic plan of their own, hoping to fix everything simply by tearing down solutions that have been developed (with good reason) over hundreds of years. It's a style of wishful thinking where flawed solutions to problems (such as social programs) are conveniently seen as the source of the problems themselves, giving the false impression of easy solutions.

The end of the Tea Party is when/if they actually get somebody elected and have to start making hard, divisive decisions.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Anonymous Coward]

This use to be true of the Tea Party movement back when it had its roots during the Ron Paul campaign: limit the government's involvement in private life, lower the size of the government, non-interventionist foreign policy (including withdrawing from overseas bases, and lowering taxes. After Obama was elected, the movement was take over by extreme neo-conservatives who only want limited government when it comes to government policies they disagree with. At their large events, some of their guest speakers include inflammatory people such as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, just to name a few. The movement has been sponsoring candidates to compete with moderate Republicans who have expressed views such as: supporting Israel militarily so the Second Coming will occur sooner, having the federal government adopt evangelical Christianity as a state religion, draconian invasions of privacy to find and kick out illegal immigrants.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Chris Burke]

Ever watch old kung-fu movies? I find it fascinating the way mortal enemies still have a genuine respect for one another. Each sees that his opponent is skillful and formidable and honors this.

I find it really, really hard to respect the movement when I see town hall meetings stuffed full of elderly people on Medicare screaming about how they'd rather die than have the government provide their healthcare. When the representatives who are actually on their side of the issue end up having to try to correct the audience's misbegotten notions, and fail. Does that count as a good reason not to like them, that their arguments are so bad that even their allies that have a clue end up basically arguing against them?

I'm not saying it's right. Certainly they deserve basic human dignity and I don't wish any ill on anyone. But respect is just hard for me to come by, I'm sorry. The kung-fu fighters respect each other because they see true skill. Deep and enduring respect for a mule's hard-headedness just doesn't fit that mold to me.

Some armed conflicts in real life have been this way; I believe WWI was the last. There used to be the notion that if you lose your honor by engaging in those low-road practices, then the conflict has cost you quite a bit more than even the casualties sustained.

Yeah, that's because they discovered that razor wire, artillery, and machine guns were more effective at stopping the enemy than disrespect. Assuming of course you don't think it's disrespectful to bomb the enemy's trenches with mustard gas. The only time "honor" like you're describing was important in warfare was when a Lord's honor was literally more important than the lives of the conscripts they sacrificed, but then again so was the Lord's trousers.

Oh and on a more comparable level, the propaganda from back then was ridiculously insulting to the enemy. This idea of mutual respect is one I think mostly exists in nostalgia-land.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Anonymous Coward]

if you don't spend all your funding you have to send it back

Of course you do. Why do you want to keep it? It isn't yours or your departments money. Buying unneeded equipment is what they call "misappropriation" and is nothing short of a grounds for dismissal. It is WAY better to give it back than to squander it. Any finance person will tell you that.

and next year you get reduced funding.

Yep, so you needed $X for this year's operation. Plus you have capitalized budgetary line items that flow over several years to cover the peaks and valleys. Why do you need more than you actually use?

they submit a request for more funding if they need it, usually they get it

Exactly. If you have a special project or need to buy something special, you make a request for special funds. If your argument is sound, you get it. If not, well, you don't get whatever you thought you should.

Working with the Feds I can honestly agree, the mentality is vastly different.

So it's the same everywhere with large businesses, I guess. I have never worked for the government in any way, just large commercial businesses (publishing, investment firm, etc). The "use it or lose it" mantra is the same. But it isn't bad to "lose it", as there are several avenues to handle the exceptional circumstances. If your management was encouraging you to spend on something unneeded, well, that's merely bad management.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[QJimbo]

Welfare states can go pearshaped. Look at the UK. Due to a large proportion of the population living on welfare, taxes have skyrocketed, working ambition has been destroyed for a lot of people, and an underclass has been created. Extend the softtouchedness to immigration and you add in overstretched inadequate public services.

I can understand americans being fearful of a welfare state having witnessed how ugly they can become if done incorrectly.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[baKanale]

Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak?

Why do they take so much flak? Because the Tea Party movement seems to have sprung almost directly from the "OMG WE MIGHT HAVE A TERRORIST NIGGER FOR PRESIDENT SOON I'M SO SCARED" gatherings, Obama's-head-on-Hitler's-body signs and all, that were in vogue among conservatives in the few months before the electing.

Because, alongside such admirable goals as smaller government, they also spew such mindless crap as "death panels" and "Global Warming isn't happening and is a Communist plot".

Because, despite claiming to stand for freedom, these were the same people who, for the last 8 years, practically begged the government to take away more of our freedoms to "fight terrorists", and campaigned in the interests of restoring an America they see as "a Christian nation".

They're a group of ignorant, insane hypocrites. That's why they take so much flak.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's confusing bottom with bottom-feeder.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[fullfactorial]

Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak?

The Tea Party gets flak because they come off as a bunch of whiny hypocrites.

Where was the Tea Party during Bush's huge expansion of Federal spending and power? Why are they only speaking out now that a democrat is trying to pay for Bush's spending and tax cuts? I'm serious -- I would appreciate any perspective that could keep me from having such a low opinion of people.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[ZonkerWilliam]

Here's the thing your overlooking, in government if you have smaller and smaller budget, means you have less and less reason to be needed, as only big budgets mean you have importance.This is the way people stay in their government jobs and feel like their important. I'm not agreeing with the method, I'm just pointing out the mentality.

The big difference with big business, I've worked with AT&T and IBM, it's their own money, not taxed from the people. Yes their is some similarities, again coming from people who want to be seen as important and that means their budgets have to be large.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[strack]

you brought a tesla roadster, but your not a fan of elon musk. seriously? you do realise all that controversy at tesla was him doing what needed to be done to make tesla profitable. and hell. when someone actully puts hardware in space entirely off his own fortune, that makes me a fan.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[medcalf]

It's interesting to listen to the opinions of people against the tea parties. Having been to several (and in fact my wife/kids are going to one on the 15th in DC), those opinions do not in the slightest match up with what I've seen. Yes, there are the Ron Paul people, and yes, there are the socially conservative people with their grotesque anti-abortion signs, and both groups are typically largely ignored. (I've also seen anti-tea party street theater groups trying to disrupt things, and being similarly ignored.) For the most part, though, the people showing up seem to be ordinary middle class folks who just want to be largely left alone. No, we're not as a general rule saying that government needs to go away (it's not an anarchist movement in any sense). We're not even necessarily saying that no new social programs should be added. Instead, the general sentiment is to get the government's house in order, eliminate what doesn't work, stop adding things without considering costs or side effects, stop interfering in everyone's daily lives, and take the Constitution at its word. (If you don't like what it prevents you from doing, amend it rather than ignoring it.)

Hardly the stereotypical image I see here, but then slashdot is hardly a reasonable reflection of reality in any sense.

Re:Government is Clueless about Business

[blair1q]

Maybe it's because tea-baggers are all the mouth-breathing racist hypocrites that the GOP's castoffs could herd together, instead of lifelong, skilled practitioners of an ancient art steeped in honor and self-control.

want NASA to foot the bill

[confused one]

For those who don't RTFA: ULA said the cost to upgrade the basic Atlas V to meet manned spaceflight would be $400M. They also said that if you want to build a heavy lift Atlas or Delta to manned spaceflight spec it would cost between $1B and $2B. And they want NASA to pay all the cost, up front.

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[ducomputergeek]

WTF. We were blasting people into space on the Atlas 50 years ago. I know the Atlas V is a different vehicle, but hell, the Atlas was a modified ICBM. How much does it cost to redesign the payload platform on the DIVH or Atlas V?

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[rsgeek]

This makes sense, though, from a business perspective. NASA isn't exactly a "reliable" customer, so if they want a new capability and won't guarantee future use of it, why shouldn't NASA be the one to pay for it?

Tell you what... Go to a car dealer, tell them you want a custom model built to your exact specifications from scratch and that you won't pay a dime until it's delivered. Tell me how far you get with that...

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[PolygamousRanchKid]

They also said that if you want to build a heavy lift Atlas or Delta to manned spaceflight spec it would cost between $1B and $2B. And they want NASA to pay all the cost, up front.

So they actually *know* that it will cost more like $10B, and will be able to squeeze the rest out of NASA as "cost overruns" on the initial contract bid.

Who's calling Tony Soprano a gangster?

"How much dat cost?"

"How much ya got?"

This is one of the "fine arts" or "black magic" of bidding on government tenders . . . finding out how much they really have to spend. Not just what they claim in public testimony.

Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin understand and know how to make money in this business.

They are not sure yet how they will make money in the commercial market. But if they figure it out, they will be back in it . . . real soon!

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[h4rr4r]

Except when the guy in the next state is already doing it cheap, why not buy from him?

Why not save the taxpayers dollars and buy from the Russians or ESA?

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[Nyeerrmm]

Since the proposed FY2011 NASA budget has about $6B allocated for helping fund the development of these new vehicles.... it sounds like they're going to get exactly what they're asking for. I'm not sure I see what the problem is.

They just have to compete for the money like everyone else (their experience should help there,) and they'll need to be more careful with their budget, since the whole idea is to eliminate the cost-plus contracts that allows them to lowball their estimate and ask for more money later.

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[cheesybagel]

Very little. Basically its a software change, to modify the rocket trajectory, and launch pad modifications so astronauts can actually enter the capsule on top of the rocket. Of course this may change if NASA insists on putting a lot of red tape around it.

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[cheesybagel]

NASA has bought flights from Russia for years already.

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[anarche]

Mod parent up, this seems to be the most insightful reading of TFA on the forum.

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[Chris Burke]

Since the proposed FY2011 NASA budget has about $6B allocated for helping fund the development of these new vehicles.... it sounds like they're going to get exactly what they're asking for. I'm not sure I see what the problem is.

I believe it may be tied to a new way of going about procurement that I heard NASA was planning, though I'm not sure if that's actually part of the new budget but if it was it would explain their concern. Basically, NASA would be only paying for results, like you provide a working rocket capable of lifting X lbs, they give you a contract for $BIGNUM. As opposed to now where they provide you with $PRETTYBIGNUM for claiming to be able to deliver the most for the least, only then five years later they say that wasn't enough and they now need $HUGENUM to finish it, and gee you wouldn't want to have wasted $PRETTYBIGNUM and have nothing to show for it, would you?

I'm sure there's still up-front money to be handed out for the R&D and such, but the point is, it's a complete up-ending of all the defense contractors' business models.

Re:want NASA to foot the bill

[icebrain]

Of course, there's also the tendency of the government to be fickle and spend all the money to get everything working, build a handful at best, and then cancel the program after most of the hard part is done. Or the "reduce the number you buy, so the amortized cost goes up, which you again use to justify purchase reductions, which makes the amortized cost go up even more..." BS.

What, the giant government contractor...

[Omnifarious]

What, the giant government contractor doesn't want to compete? What a surprise. I guess without making things overly expensive, budget overruns and miles of red tape they just can't get enough money from the public trough.

I see this as a complete vindication of this plan. IMHO, Lockheed Martin and companies like them are some of the worst crooks our government (and by extension, all of us) does business with. There's no crook like the one that does it legally.

Re:What, the giant government contractor...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I guess without making things overly expensive, budget overruns and miles of red tape they just can't get enough money from the public trough."

Yeah, that never happens with private enterprise. Have you slept through the last, oh I don't know, universe?

How to tell

[AnonymousClown]

"When you start getting into a heavier crew transfer vehicle and a dedicated launch facility, it's over a billion dollars, but less than two," Mr. Gass said. Those improvements "should be funded by the U.S. government" without additional investment from Boeing and Lockheed, he said.

Here's one of those times where I find it hard to tell if he's not thinking "outside the box" or if he understands the business better than the upstarts. In other words, does he know something from experience that the upstarts don't or do the upstarts know something that this guy never considered?

Re:How to tell

[Brett Buck]

Yes, they do know something the startups don't - how difficult it actually is.

        Brett

Re:How to tell

[h4rr4r]

The russkies are doing it pretty cheap. Buy from them if we have too. No point in paying to develop it and to buy it. In that case you may as well do it all in house and not have the shareholders get their rake.

Re:How to tell

[georgewilliamherbert]

To some extent this is true - SpaceX has spent about 2x what they thought they would to a given point in their development program, though they're still liquid and moving forwards at good pace. A number of startups have spent tens of millions of dollars and not flown.

However - Two startup companies and an independent team combined spent 1/10 of the cost of the DOD / NASA DC-X / DC-XA program to fly in the X-Prize Lunar Lander cup competition, which was a comparable technical challenge and vehicle performance specification. And DC-X was widely hailed for having come in at 1/5 of the price that competitors (Of McDonnell Douglas, who actually built and flew it for DOD) said it would cost.

There were teams at large companies that were asked to quote an equivalent vehicle to Burt Rutan / Scaled Composites' SpaceShip One, and came up with numbers 8-15 times larger than it took Burt to build and fly and win the main X-prize.

Perhaps the large companies don't know how easy it can be. Evidence is that some startups are succeeding reliably, and by comparison extremely cheaply, albeit slowly. There's a lesson there, too.

Re:How to tell

[HarrySquatter]

The russkies are doing it pretty cheap.

That's because they are getting hefty subsidies.

Re:How to tell

[h4rr4r]

Sounds like we should be letting them bleed themselves dry. If they want to give us a massive discount, no skin off our noses.

Re:How to tell

[causality]

To some extent this is true - SpaceX has spent about 2x what they thought they would to a given point in their development program, though they're still liquid and moving forwards at good pace. A number of startups have spent tens of millions of dollars and not flown.

You'd think that after having this consistently happen over and over and over again, maybe they'd revise the way they perform cost estimates? Y'know, so as not to be surprised by these things. It's like making the same mistake time after time and never learning. When an individual repeatedly does this, don't they call it a learning disability?

Re:How to tell

[dgatwood]

Only if the person expects the same results. If he/she doesn't, they call it insanity.

Re:How to tell

[coxymla]

Estimation is basically extrapolation, except for some reason people always expect estimates to be accurate but accept that extrapolations are idealisations only.

See also Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

space leery of becoming corepirate nazi product

[Anonymous Coward]

look what they've done to this place.

never a better time to consult with/trust in your creators. giving away time, space & circumstance since/until forever. see you there?

fish tanks

[ruin20]

Bigelow Aerospace is likely out there to put the mile high club to shame. the owner cleans fish tanks as a second job.

10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[RichMan]

Cash up front is the only way to get corporations to commit to this. The government is too likely to pull a "that costs to much" about turn and leave the company holding the debt.
--
I don't see private companies betting big on long term government contracts. The commitment is just to large and the sleazy government turnarounds just to likely.

Imagine being a company and investing $20B and 10 years of real effort into something expecting a big payout of years of ferrying astronauts into space. Then someone else gets elected and NASA changes it plans. Kiss your $20B good bye.

See Northrop F20/F5G. It even had a politically correct name.
---
Much of the F-20's development was carried out as part of a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) project called "FX", which intended to sell less-advanced fighter designs to U.S. allies to limit the possibility of front-line U.S. technology falling into Soviet hands. FX developed out of a general re-working of U.S. military export policy started under the Carter administration in 1977. Although Northrop had high hopes for the F-20 in the international market, changes in policy following Ronald Reagan's election left the F-20 competing for sales with front line fighters like the F-16. The development program was eventually abandoned in 1986 after three prototypes had been built and a fourth partially completed.[1]
--
(congressional hearing!!)
Thomas V. Jones, Northrop's CEO, stated that there was little point in having companies develop aircraft on their own if they were utterly reliant on the government to sell them. He suggested that the entire FX concept be dropped, and Northrop be allowed to sell the F-20 on the market like any other vendor.[41]
---

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

Then the government might as well do it all in house so that no profit has to be made and given to shareholders. No point in wasting tax money to make some investor rich.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ThreeE]

Brilliant! Using this logic the government might as well do everything.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[afidel]

You can do it with contracts that pay for milestones and have big backout penalties. That's the way Constellation was done and one of the reasons it's going to cost a couple Billion to get nothing. It's probably closer to a fair system than either cash upfront or pay when it's finished.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[vlm]

which intended to sell less-advanced fighter designs to U.S. allies to limit the possibility of front-line U.S. technology falling into Soviet hands

It wasn't necessarily less advanced, it was just slightly lower performance and not quite as export controlled.

It turns out to cost almost as much money to develop and manufacture a new 90% cutting edge fighter as a 100% cutting edge fighter.

Once folks were allowed to select from either, at about the same cost, the F-5 went bye bye.

The whole situation was just a reaction to the Iranian Shah's airforce, which had some pretty nice (for the time) aircraft.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

Only if it cannot buy services like the rest of us.
I am not required to pay the garbage collector a fee for designing a new truck, ups does not ask me to pay for design of packages. NASA should buy services, this would be a delivery service. Lockheed just wants to keep running their cost plus scams.

This should be like UPS. The service provider takes the package to the ISS for $X, their bid. If they cannot, give the money back and we can find someone else to do it.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[QuantumRiff]

Actaully, I think the best way to get companies to commit is not cash up front, but pre-buying the first X flights.. as in, were going to pay you $100 Million per launch. Here is money up front for our first 10 launches: $1Billion. our first flight starts in 4 years, and then every 6 months afterwards. Every missed flight, you owe us back the money, or a credit on the next launch (can only add a credit once, and you have to pay us interest on that credit)

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[TooMuchToDo]

Then the government might as well do it all in house so that no profit has to be made and given to shareholders. No point in wasting tax money to make some investor rich.

Have you ever seen how the government works "in house" on projects? I've seen the DOE flush tens of millions down the drain that a private company would've spent *much* more efficiently. No, the government is best to let a commercial venture handle things, just not cost plus.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

Why did they not just make an F-16-Light.
Give it crappier engines, make the mounting non-compatible, different computers, etc. Seems like that would have been way cheaper.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ThreeE]

Your original post seemed to indicate that the government has a zero cost of capital -- which is what profit pays for in private businesses. This is simply not true. The US Governments either has to print money, borrow it, or confiscate it from citizens. If they print it, the cost is paid via by devaluing our dollars. If they borrow it, we eventually pay interest. If they confiscate it, we pay for it directly. This is no different than paying the contractor profit. Profit is not evil.

Your second post changes the subject. Now you suggest a different type of contracting approach -- from cost plus to fixed fee. True, this is a different incentive, but the contractor is still making a profit. Good contractors will charge more for a fixed fee vs. cost plus contract due to the higher risk -- all other factors being equal.

The bottom line is that the government is a terribly inefficient way to do anything. They simply have no motivation to provide value -- it is always someone else's money.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

Medicare has very low overheads, with the right folks other government offices could do as well.

I honestly would prefer a private business doing this, but with cost plus contracts the government might as well do it in house.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[DerekLyons]

Cash up front is the only way to get corporations to commit to this. The government is too likely to pull a "that costs to much" about turn and leave the company holding the debt. Imagine being a company and investing $20B and 10 years of real effort into something expecting a big payout of years of ferrying astronauts into space. Then someone else gets elected and NASA changes it plans. Kiss your $20B good bye.

Um, no. Typically contracts of this nature are 'pay as you go' and the government is responsible for paying penalties and closing out costs if they terminate prior to the contract running out.
 

See Northrop F20/F5G.

That's a bit more complicated than you make out. Northrup was paid upfront for the the development work - where they lost money was on their side project to sell the aircraft independently.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

I never suggested profit was evil, merely that is is waste. Which is why commodity items have such little profit on them, they must compete on price and cannot have much waste.

Taxes are not confiscation, they are the price for society. If this price is too high seek another society that is cheaper to purchase. Somalia should be quite nice in that respect.

I never changed the subject I merely clarified my point.

Fixed fee contracts may indeed receive higher quotes, but they prevent the 1B rocket turning into a 20B rocket later.

  If you are paying for the cost of development and the cost of implementation is it normally cheaper to do it in house. You get savings by sharing development and implementation costs with other purchasers for normal externally purchased goods and services.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[cheesybagel]

There are several F-16 models. Some countries buy the cheaper ones, others the more expensive versions. Also F-16 was by General Dynamics, I think it was the F-18 (well YF-17 actually) that was Northrop.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[anarche]

You know this whole situation is going on again right now.

The JSF is being built at the same cost (or frikken more) as the F22 with lower end tech to be sold to allies (where the F22 is under high-end tech restrictions).

Guess which one is going to be chosen by the USAF to buy?

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[Rakishi]

Yes medicare...The program that outsource everything except the very top functions to private companies. Private hospitals, private billing, private fraud investigation, private doctors, private pharmaceutical companies and basically private everything of any real consequence. You know, exactly what NASA is doing? So what was your point again?

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[dAzED1]

that's twice as much per launch than what they can pay the soviets.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ThreeE]

You again expand your point into new areas. I'll pick a few of your new topics to respond to.

Taxes are confiscation. If you don't pay them, they will be taken from you forcibly. We allow our government the monopoly of force in exchange for limited powers.

Somalia: I assume you bring this lawless state up as an example of a capitalism gone bad. Capitalism is an economic system where every exchange is consensual. Lawless Somalia is the opposite of this. So surely I must misunderstand your point.

On cost plus vs. fixed fee contracts we agree. Fixed fee contracts are better. Unfortunately, the risk is often too high for some projects to lead to any serious fixed fee bids.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[sixsixtysix]

not just here, though. the entire military industrial complex welfare system needs to go, too.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

You can leave rather than pay taxes, you actively choose to pay them by staying.

Somalia is not capitalism gone bad, it is a libertarian paradise. No government interference, thriving sea based industry including a stock market for it, a wonderland only possible without taxation.

And again, I am using expansion to provide more clarity.

In the case of no bids for a fixed fee contract, then another method should be used. Including reducing the scope of projects.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

That they make it work without cost plus contracts?

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ThreeE]

As long as the federal taxes are being collected for purposes that are constitutional you are correct about my ability to leave. I suspect we disagree what is constitutional. Since we have a very specific list in the Constitution, I would think that would be an easy determination. Note that health care is not on the list.

Somalia is not a libertarian paradise -- again, it is lawless. Lawlessness is not a libertarian principle. I'm not a libertarian and even I know that. Taxation, even though it is coercion, is fine -- provided it is done within the limits imposed by the Constitution.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[h4rr4r]

Health-care can clearly fall under the general welfare, and done properly would be fine, rest assured it will be done poorly. Sending folks into space, and starting wars of aggression, not so much.

If you could not tell I was joking about Somalia, as it clearly shows what happens when the state totally fails.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ThreeE]

The list is in Article 1, Section 8. Health care isn't on the list. Military spending is on the list. Manned spaceflight might be considered military spending, although I would have to agree with you that a civilian space agency is not on the list.

Why did you bring up Somalia? Limited government != no government.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ppanon]

True, but most of those tasks the GP listed are in well understood domains. Medical R&D spending pretty well falls under a different budget category and is not under Medicare. In contrast there is a substantial portion of space contracts requiring R&D, with associated unknowns and risk.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[ppanon]

The JSF is being built at the same cost (or frikken more) as the F22 with lower end tech to be sold to allies (where the F22 is under high-end tech restrictions).

Guess which one is going to be chosen by the USAF to buy?

Neither?

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[chrisxcr1]

Why did they not just make an F-16-Light.

Actually there was an F-16 Light. It was called the F-16/79 and was powered by the GE J79 instead of the PW F100. It was similarly unsuccessful as the F-20 and for pretty much the same reason. The difference in price wasn't worth the difference in performance.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[Dr. Spork]

I've seen the DOE flush tens of millions down the drain that a private company would've spent *much* more efficiently.

What have you actually seen that the DOE made which wasn't made by a private company under contract? Do they actually make stuff in house? You might mean that they make dumb and wasteful contracts with companies that are proven liars but never get punished - and no private company would consider making contracts like that. And you'd be right. Still, the problem is the inefficiency of these private companies. That the DOE forgives them is a separate problem.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[Anonymous Coward]

The billions for Constellation was the political oost to achieve the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program. That was an important achievement, to eliminate the U.S. capacity to reach the space station. They couldn't just cancel the Shuttle without a "replacement program" because that would have been unseemly at the time. These things take time, and money, and the temporary Constellation program worked very well to provide cover.

Now, of course, the cancellation of the Shuttle is "inevitable" so the Constellation has "outlived its usefulness." It's such effective politics, because the opposition was lured with dreams away from what had actually been built, and now that we've cancelled the "replacement program" they aren't even calling for the Shuttle program to be kept alive so that the space station they worked so hard on would be effective.

It's easy, like distracting foolish children and taking their candy away. They're still talking about Mars and a company that's barely reached sub orbital flight and don't even realize that they've lost something magnificent.

In the end, even they will call the space station a useless failure, and won't remember that we crippled it by taking the big truck away. They won't even know why they feel frustrated, and think their outsourced country can't accomplish anything. Just cancel anything good they do, with razzle dazzle about something you're just going to cancel later. Freedom car? Hydrogen car? F-22? Space station access? Whatever. What ever.

Re:10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected

[medcalf]

At what point did libertarianism mean anarchy? Libertarians are minarchists, not anarchists.

Thanks America!

[Psiren]

A big thank you to America (and yes, Russia too) for getting us started on this whole space thingamajig. I think Europe and Asia can take over now. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Re:Thanks America!

[Diagoras]

A big thank you to America (and yes, Russia too) for getting us started on this whole space thingamajig. I think Europe and Asia can take over now. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Europe - Let's talk when you're able to launch people into space.

Asia - This isn't a country, or even a loose confederacy. If you mean Japan, see above. If you mean China, then I'll be more impressed when you do something post 1965 that isn't bought from the Russians.

Re:Thanks America!

[cheesybagel]

Well the first Soyuz capsule was launched later than 1965 (although not far from it) and it failed (i.e. the guy in it died). In comparison the Chinese were a lot more successful. Hey the Chinese are soon going to do the Salyut program, so all is well...

Re:Thanks America!

[topnob]

The Chinese stuff isn't an exact copy is a modernized version, a lot of work has gone into it. They didn't buy the rocket they built it them selves, thats something I'd say.

Re:Thanks America!

[KarlIsNotMyName]

A big thank you to America (and yes, Russia too) for getting us started on this whole space thingamajig. I think Europe and Asia can take over now. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Europe - Let's talk when you're able to launch people into space.

Asia - This isn't a country, or even a loose confederacy. If you mean Japan, see above. If you mean China, then I'll be more impressed when you do something post 1965 that isn't bought from the Russians.

Europe isn't a country either...

Re:Thanks America!

[kubitus]

Thanks to Ziolkowsky, Oberth and Goddard the genius pioneers!

-

Thanks to France, Brittain, US and Russia to employ people who lost their job in Peenemünde!

And thanks for all the work by concentration camp slaves.

.

ROFL

[Idiomatick]

"what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper"
They might need some business classes......

Man up, pussies!

[HeckRuler]

I double-dog-dare you to go make a buck in space

Re:Man up, pussies!

[Wyatt Earp]

DirectTV seems to make money in space.

Re:Man up, pussies!

[Anonymous Coward]

you should check out spacex if you want.... they are doing it with a huge back log now. Or how about orbital sciences? As someone who buys rockets and satellites, I can tell you Lockheed and Boeing are completely non-competitive, as they say it, the government backs up semi's with cash whenever they need it, why deal with a commercial entity? Remember, they are in the business of selling man hours to the government. What is being built is non-relevant.

Re:Man up, pussies!

[TheRaven64]

Yup, there's some market for satellites, but satellite TV seems to be slowly giving way to cable and Internet (often the same physical network). Satellite phones? The number you need is huge because the orbit needs to be very low to keep latency manageable. The same problem exists with any bidirectional system. It's generally cheaper to use terrestrial signals or aerosats. Mapping? Not a huge market, and one largely covered by ex-Soviet spy satellites. Navigation? Not much call for commercial navigation satellites when the military ones are available for anyone to use.

People keep launching satellites, but not in vast numbers. Around 20 per year is the current average, and it's been slowly dropping for a while. There are surprisingly few commercial satellites in orbit. This makes building and maintaining a launch facility pretty much prohibitive, unless you can subsidise it in part by military launches.

Manned launches are even worse commercially. There's really no business case for putting humans in space at the moment - there's nothing for them to do. Being weightless for a bit is fun, but the number of people who can afford to pay and are willing to risk their life on space tourism is quite small. It's possible that some companies might want to build microgravity research facilities, but it's a huge gamble at the moment. How many companies are there that could afford the billion or so that it would cost to put a small R&D platform in orbit and ferry people between it and Earth periodically? And are in a market where microgravity manufacturing might potentially be worthwhile? And have C?Os who are forward thinking enough to invest in it now? I'm not sure of the exact number, but it's approximately 0.

Re:Man up, pussies!

[Wyatt Earp]

Looking at the numbers, I don't see the total number of launches decreasing.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2009.html
78

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2008.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2007.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2006.html
66

Re:Man up, pussies!

[Glock27]

I double-dog-dare you to go make a buck in space

The first one to do large scale asteroid mining will be a big winner. Imagine all those raw materials already up there rather than costing $thousands per pound from the ground.

• Park an asteroid in lunar orbit, spin it.
• Melt it with solar mirrors.
• Siphon off the components in layers.
• Profit!

Re:Man up, pussies!

[TheRaven64]

Those are total launches, and includes government / military launches. The numbers I was talking about were commercial satellites, which peaked at 23 in 2002 and have been dropping slowly since then.

Re:Man up, pussies!

[Wyatt Earp]

More than that in 2009 alone.

Sirius FM5
ProtoStar 2
Intelsat 14
Intelsat 15
DirecTV 12
DubaiSat-1
Deimos-1
UK-DMC 2
Asiasat 5
Nimiq 5
Palapa D1
Eutelsat W7
Amazonas 2
COMSATBw-1
Eutelsat W2A
Telstar 11N
Express AM44
MD1
NSS-9
NSS-12
Thor-6
JCSat 12
Hotbird-10
Optus D3
TerreStar-1

Quick and dirty count, checking if they were commercial, I get at least 25 satellites, some were launched in multiples.

Re:Man up, pussies!

[TheRaven64]

Ah, you're right. The figures I found were for satellite launches, not for satellites. It makes sense that this figure would be going up, as payload capacity increases. Nonetheless, there's a massive cost for maintaining a launch facility and doing R&D on rocket designs if you only get some fraction of the 20 commercial launches per year. Without the government launches as well, you couldn't break even.

Translation:

[carlhaagen]

"We're skeptical about this whole thing with colonizing the rest of the solar system. We think it's just a gimmick." Jackasses.

There Is Another...

[LifesABeach]

Has anyone asked Burt Rutan how much he would charge to put a Pay Load on the Moon?

Obvious really

[Anonymous Coward]

Big capitalist compaines just arn't as efficient as socialised government programes...

Cue the neo-liberal rage in 3..2..1..

The reason American companies can't compete

[Anonymous Coward]

ITAR prevents us based companies from being competitive with Asian and European ones. This restricts all aspects of space technologies, from the smallest IC chip to the largest vehicle, and prevents non US persons from working on our projects.

Roland Piquepaille

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is from Roland Piquepaille (from the grave)...

Mars

[charliemopps11]

How much is Mars worth? Because that's what we're giving up. We are literally a couple of decades away from being able to put people on Mars. By giving up now, which is exactly what we are doing, we are basically giving the entire planet to whichever government decides it's worth the investment. And we all know that governments going to be China. Yea, there's a space treaty... but we all know whomever gets their first gets to decide the rules ahead of time for everyone else. Space exploration isn't profitable yet, and isn't going to be for a long time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

Re:Mars

[stoicio]

Exactly!
North America wasn't worth it either. Everyone sent their colonists over here and hoped they would die
because they were mostly religious freaks and political upstarts.
What a difference a couple hundred years makes!!!

Seriously, space is the next great colonial frontier. Any nation that drags it's feet
now, for even a moment, will lose the greatest opportunity human kind will ever have.

So if you don't want China to own everything you'd better get it up!

Bigelow Aerospace?!

[mr_3ntropy]

What the Deuce?!

Debate will soon be over

[amightywind]

This silly debate will be over in May when Falcon 9 crashes in the Atlantic. Interesting that the first flight was moved from mid-April to mid-May to make room for Obama. It will take some selling, As America is opposed to this reckless 'plan'.

Re:Debate will soon be over

[h4rr4r]

Space-X does not view this launch as critical. This is just another step, on the way to COTS space launch.

You realize that all rocket development has had these issues right?

"Skeptical of Commercial Space Market "

[Un pobre guey]

Skeptical of Commercial Space Market

Har. That's because there isn't one . All those dweeby weenies who think the contrary are little more than sci fi space-adventure magical-religious cultists. In more than a few ways not unlike Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses, I might add.

Re:"Skeptical of Commercial Space Market "

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You've posted nearly the exact same comment on every space-related /. story for the last several months. Do you have anything at all to contribute to the debate, or are you here solely to throw insults around?

Re:"Skeptical of Commercial Space Market "

[Un pobre guey]

I am here to 1) throw insults around (this is slashdot, after all), and 2) stop wasting tax dollars and incurring debt to subsidize corrupt defense contractors. Since you have taken the time to look at my previous posts (thank you, BTW, you have all my respect for it), you also know that I am a staunch advocate of unmanned space exploration. This particular debate is implicitly about manned space exploration, which to my mind is worthless and unjustifiable.

Here on slashdot I am in a small minority that typically gets modded down into oblivion very quickly. I am surprised my post lasted long enough to receive your attention.

Re:"Skeptical of Commercial Space Market "

[h4rr4r]

Maybe he is defending his job?

Re:"Skeptical of Commercial Space Market "

[Un pobre guey]

What job could that be? Professional Anti-Manned-Space-Exploration Activist? Doesn't sound lucrative (or especially interesting).

Still not sure what the business case for space is

[lennier]

As far as I can see there are a very few actual uses for space:

1. Satellite communications
2. Military
3. Tourism
4. SCIENCE! (let's count the number of planets around stars that we will never be able to get to because of relativity! like angels and pinheads except we can fit curves to it)

and of those four, military and SCIENCE! are basically big money pits which achieve nothing but international prestige (and ICBMs actively endanger all life on earth), tourism is a brief entertainment for the idle rich, and satellite data communications is the only thing which actually contributes to the health and wellbeing of Earth. So yay one out of four, I guess.

Haven't we basically 'done the space thing' by now? Moonbases didn't work out, we're practically speaking not going to colonise Mars let alone Jupiter because of the radiation problems, so... ... why DO we need manned lifters? There's nothing out there to send people to, and even if we send people to nowhere there still won't be anything for them to send back.

What's the big point of the Space Future, again? If we had warp drive or canals on Mars it would be different, but in our universe....?

What happened to SpaceX

[jfruhlinger]

I read that article this morning and was baffled to hear SpaceX mentioned nowhere in it, considering they have a Progress/ATV-type unmanned cargo vessel on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral and plans to build a man-rated capsule in the next 2-3 years. Have they imploded recently or something?

Re:What happened to SpaceX

[Glock27]

Exactly, I was just going to post about the same thing.

SpaceX looks to be doing exactly the right things, in contrast to the dinosaur aerospace companies.

Check here for more information including videos of their latest rockets and engines.

Re:What happened to SpaceX

[cheesybagel]

There is like one sentence about SpaceX near the end of the article. AFAIK things are rolling. Their website is pretty up to date. The article is mostly sour grapes.

Re:What happened to SpaceX

[Coastal_Ron]

SpaceX is chugging away completing milestones. They have their Falcon 9 at the launch center, have completed hold-down engine tests, and are waiting for the emergency destruction hardware to be delivered from their vendor (the same one that provides for most launchers). Their target launch, with a Dragon capsule test article is supposed to happen sometime in May. The first launch is a pure test unit, and does not count towards the NASA COTS contract.

What's wrong with cost plus?

[mosb1000]

What is everyone's beef with cost plus? You have to pay the costs, of course, because you can't seriously expect a company to work for you at a loss, and you have to give them a plus so that they will work on your project instead of something else. It's common sense. Am I missing something? What's the alternative? Do you pay for services you receive some other way?

Re:What's wrong with cost plus?

[h4rr4r]

The alternative is the producer puts in a quote and is stuck with it. If they fail to produce for that, then you get your money back.

I do not pay the costs of USPs truck breaking down when they deliver a package to me. They lose money on that delivery and make it up on the aggregate.

If you make a bid and it is too little, too fucking bad. Cost plus allows these companies to bid far lower than they know it will cost to produce these things and then jack the price up later.

Re:What's wrong with cost plus?

[mosb1000]

I'm sure that these companies would be happy to put in a firm bid. The problem is that doesn't make sense for this kind of project. For one thing, the project goals are not firm, and they will change during the course of the project. Another problem is the companies will take engineering uncertainties into account when they put in their bid to shield themselves from risk. That means the government will end up paying more.

Keep in mind the government is also stuck with a firm contract, that means they will have to pay down the road, even when they decide they no longer need the technology. For your plan to work, some fundamental changes will need happen at NASA, because they are going to need to set goals 10 years out and stick with them through changing government administrations. Even if you do that, you'd probably be better off sticking with cost plus. It's the only thing that makes sense given the small market and large risk.

My company does a lot of cost plus work. We would love to do firm pricing because it would mean more opportunity for profit. The problem is that it means more risk on the part of the client, so they never go for it. NASA is in the same boat.

Re:What's wrong with cost plus?

[TheRaven64]

The problem is that it provides little incentive for the service to become cheaper over time. If you paid a fixed price, then there is a strong incentive for the costs to drop because that increases the profit. If the profit is 1% in a fixed price contract then reducing the costs by 1% more than doubles the profit, so is a huge win for the company. In a costs plus arrangement, the profit remains the same irrespective of the costs, so there's no incentive to work on improving the efficiency.

Re:What's wrong with cost plus?

[h4rr4r]

Then it sounds like job #1 needs to be growing a market with more competitors. Clearly there is a lack of competition to drive cost down.

I agree project goals should be firm, and that costs will go up somewhat. This prevents one company from lowballing to get contracts then using the cost plus arrangement to raise the final price. This way they can cheat other competitors.

Re:What's wrong with cost plus?

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, I work in the industry, so anonymous.

Why do so many people get modded informative for completely misunderstanding how or why cost-plus is used?

First of all you pay an equivalent of cost plus for things in your day to day life all the time. Hire a plumber to fix your water heater, you're paying him hourly for his work. That's the equivalent of cost plus. Car breaks down? You're gonna pay for parts+labor, that's the equivalent of cost-plus. Here's one for all you web designers on slashdot. You get hired as a contractor to build a website, do you quote them a price and then complete the work for the original price even if it takes twice as long? Of course not. Why? Because the job almost never ends up being what the original requirements were, or it simply takes much more work than originally intended. Instead you hire on as a contractor and get paid for your time. The only real difference between these examples and a government cost-plus contract is that the government can decide what award fee to give you, (that's the plus in cost-plus), so if they don't like the job you did, you're getting no profit.

Cost-plus exists for one of a kind (or a few of a kind) jobs where it is impossible to know in advance exactly how much effort it will take. Like figuring out why the service-engine light in your car keeps coming on. Even when knowing the exact system in your car it could be anything from a loose wire to a bad sensor to a leak. In many cases the mechanic may be able to tell you exactly what it will take, but not all.

To visit the parents UPS example. UPS ships millions and millions of packages a year and operates thousands and thousands of trucks. What that means is that they can statistically estimate the cost to the company for each package, including the costs associated with losses, such as a truck breaking down or a package being lost. That's great, it means they have consistent pricing. But they can only do that because they continually do the exact same thing over and over again.

Say you're building a lunar rover. Obviously it's going to be a custom job, even if you've built a lunar rover before NASA isn't going to want the exact same thing. So you get their initial requirements and make a bid and you win. Then what? Well the company that makes the fault tolerant CPU you need has had declining sales, so the costs have gone up for that part. NASA added a requirement that resulted in you exceeding the power capabilities of your solar panels, so you have to scrap an entire system and restart design. Etc.

Now say you're selling F-16's. You've built hundreds and hundreds of F-16's, so guess what, when a country that you are allowed to export to wants to buy a few F-16's you sell them with a fixed price contract because you know almost exactly how much it will cost you to make more.

One other point. The parent says "Cost plus allows these companies to bid far lower than they know it will cost to produce these things and then jack the price up later". Sorry, no. The government reviews bids from multiple companies for a contract very thoroughly and understands what the bid covers, for 100,000+ man hour tasks they can be very accurate. The additional costs don't usually come from underbidding, they come from scope creep. This usually happens in two ways A) The requirements were incorrect to begin with and the scope of the bid was incorrect as a result. B) The government comes in with additional features they want. In both of these cases the problem is with the government playing funding games or not understanding what they want.

As an engineer I've seen far too many tasks go over-budget and even get canceled because of poor government requirements, politics, and funding games. Never once have I seen a large government contractor try to grow the costs of an effort (I have seen a company drop the hourly rate of their engineers they charge to the government to keep the customer from going over their budget though). Screwing over your customer is not a good way to stay in business, especially when the government representative shafted by you on one contract ends up deciding who wins the bid for the next.

Why must we drag ourselves into the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

With last weeks launch of the iPad, it is clear that at least 1 tech. company will drag everyone else, kicking and screaming, into the future.

Leaving your fanboi'sm, or Apple is evil mantra behind for a minute, why has the mentality of 'dare to dream' , become such a taboo behavior in the information age? I'm not talking about just the tech. sector here, I'm talking about every industry that exists. With this article, it's LEO launch rockets, commercial and private funding. Last year it was the bailouts and the banking industry. I do not understand why, for all intensive purposes, future endeavors are perceived around static business frameworks. We do not live in a static environment, either naturally, or imaginary (referring to markets..). Every facet of our existence is constantly changing, yet we presently do everything in our power to resist that. Have we become so lazy and decadent that the rate for which we could, and should progress, has stagnated simply because it can? Say what you want about economic theory, capitalism, and profit, but I'd like to know what exactly western society has against full-scale technological and social progress?

I, an average citizen, should be able to take a trip to the moon by now. I know it, and you know it. What the hell are we waiting for?

Re:Why must we drag ourselves into the future?

[h4rr4r]

for all intensive purposes
"Intents and Purposes" you ignoramus.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't we basically 'done the space thing' by now? Moonbases didn't work out, we're practically speaking not going to colonise Mars let alone Jupiter because of the radiation problems, so... ... why DO we need manned lifters? There's nothing out there to send people to, and even if we send people to nowhere there still won't be anything for them to send back.

What's the big point of the Space Future, again? If we had warp drive or canals on Mars it would be different, but in our universe....?

That is the most terrible view on space and science in general I've ever seen. How the hell is this insightful? Inciteful maybe.

"Guys, it hasn't worked yet so let's quit. It seems useless."

Just because we haven't figured out moonbases and the radiation problem yet (seems to be progressing alright), doesn't mean we'll never figure them out one day. Of course, if we gave up working on it then definitely we'd never solve those problems.

The main point of space is that we get off this rock of incredibly limited resources and land to get to another planet to live on/harvest. All that other stuff is just ways to get to that point.

Hell, would you have said 50 years ago "Hey, aren't we fine with agriculture now? We've got enough food and the farmers are doing fine so why invest into more agricultural resources? All they're doing is wasting money and building up food we throw away so let's end that.

What's the point of agricultural study, again? If we had food that made you not sick or worldspread hunger it would be different, but in our universe...?"

And hey! After 50 years we've got both food chock full of vitamins and minerals to boost immunity along with widespread world hunger. And y'know what? Those techniques used to create large, more nutritious amounts of food that you might've thought we didn't need can be used in space when we start trying terraforming or if we create colony ships.

Oh Science, is there anything that you make that's absolutely useless?

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[anarche]

What's the big point of the Space Future, again? If we had warp drive or canals on Mars it would be different, but in our universe....?

Um. To ensure the continued survival of the human race by ensuring we have a fallback for when Mother Earth become unsuitable for life/eaten by the sun/hit be a meteorite/Mormon

Of course, if you aren't interested in the future of the human race, I'd love to understand the basis of your morality, while I murder your children.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[sixsixtysix]

^^ this. how much of this money would be better spent elsewhere or not at all? at least come up with this generations velcro or tang already.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Un pobre guey]

The main point of space is that we get off this rock of incredibly limited resources and land to get to another planet to live on/harvest. All that other stuff is just ways to get to that point.

This is just magical-religious sci fi space adventure cultism. It will never happen. You will never get more than a trivial number of people "off this rock," and even then only at tremendous and unjustifiable expense.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Un pobre guey]

The sci fi space adventure magical-religious cult is blind to the true driving force of manned space exploration: political corruption to channel vast wealth to the defense industry, even at the cost of incurring more debt. Let's not even get to the practical impossibility of moving more than a trivial number of people to an enormously expensive outpost in some desolate, unsustainable location. They just shut their eyes and pretend it will be just like on Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars.

It's the size

[zogger]

The larger governments get, the more inefficient and corrupt they get. It just happens. I just looked, Finland population = 5.4 million. US=300 million. Finland has a 200 member parliament, the US has 435 Reps and 100 senators (2 per state). the average citizen in the US is FAR from power, just do the math. See a problem yet with working coherently? The US government is huge already, millions of employees, and they are already so far in debt that even if we went to a 100% tax rate it would take years to break even and start over. We need to borrow trillions a year from some place foreign just to maintain what we have already. And borrowing means it has to be paid back, with interest. do the math again.

    It's a big freaking mess. It's a debt bubble/bomb that is around two years from total implosion.

The tea party movement at its very basic core is just wanting to reduce the size of government down to a more manageable and affordable level, and get a handle on budgets and taxes, including simplifying the tax code, etc. They were against the bailouts, both the casino banks and the dinosaur car companies. They are against so called health care reform because they recognize it for what it is, a bailout for dinosaur insurance companies, it's a conjob that will just cost more.

People here are not all that adverse to helping, or caring for our poorest,, etc, just our past track record is rather dismal, and stuff always seems to cost many times more than what they initially claim it will cost, with only half the results, or less.

So even though you are talking about two countries/nations, there's no real comparison in what can be done, not at this time anyway, until we can come up with some way to afford what we are committed to already, yet alone any more welfare things. We are bleeding jobs the last two decades, bad, and need near two million jobs a year created just to maintain. And it isn't happening. There's just *pitiful* job creation going on.

In short, we can't afford it, "it" being everything they spend on now, wars, entitlements, whatever, the money just isn't there and they are existing on credit and wishful thinking and passing the buck to the future where it will magically get taken care of.

So don't blame the tea party folks for pointing out the realities of the situation. The entrenched D and R parties have had..forever to fix things, and they haven't. I've been active in politics since the early 60s and it's the same crap, election cycle after election cycle. It is NEVER going to get fixed as long as the D and R parties keep our government hijacked and run as a crony jobs and bribery program. Which is all it is at this point.

    Something new is needed, and it is at least an attempt, I'll give them that. Other folks can try what they want to as well, but sure as heck just doing the same thing we have been doing over and over again will lead to the US being the fastest decaying super power empire ever at this rate. Once the rest of the world panics and starts really dumping the dollar (which I think has great odds of happening), and we lose global "reserve currency" status, that's it, the party is over, there won't be anything like you see now, let alone any full cradle to grave welfare society. The money just isn't there, it's already spent, years/decades ago. Broke, busted, bankrupt, flat..see?

  You have to make wealth before you spend it, whatever you spend it on. They are trying to do that just by running the dollar printing press...and that won't work forever, just like that stupid house flipping bubble ponzi scheme didn't work forever either.

Re:It's the size

[CRCulver]

The larger governments get, the more inefficient and corrupt they get. It just happens.

The European Union has a population larger than the United States and yet it manages just fine. Not all members have the same welfare state as the Nordic countries, but all do have more social programs than the US.

They are against so called health care reform because they recognize it for what it is, a bailout for dinosaur insurance companies

Tea Party opposition to health care reform began long before the bill took its final form as a mandate for Americans to purchase health insurance from private companies. Indeed, much Tea Party debate sounds as if they still believe a public option was part of the deal.

As for the US supposedly unable to afford a welfare state, the institution of the welfare state actually boosted the economies of a number of countries. A more educated, more content and healthier citizenry is simply more productive.

Re:It's the size

[MightyYar]

The European Union has a population larger than the United States and yet it manages just fine.

Which more or less is in agreement with what the Tea Partiers are saying... you don't need such a large Federal government. The EU model does seem to work, with obvious problems (Greece, ahem), but it works on balance. But the EU model is to have VERY strong state governments with an extremely loose central government. So loose that some would argue that it isn't even a real government.

So don't be too hard on the Tea Partiers... ask yourself how you'd like your healthcare to be run from Brussels. The party seems to attract a lot of nuts, but they do have a point.

Re:It's the size

[CRCulver]

Except the Tea Party hasn't been saying anything like that at all. Their platform, inasmuch as they have any coherent platform, is not about reducing social programs at the federal level because the states can do it better. Rather, their rhetoric is about ending social programs entirely. The common claim "People don't work hard if they get this or that for free, and stop spending my tax money on other people" says nothing about devolving the welfare state to the individual states.

Re:It's the size

[ZonkerWilliam]

Problem with your statement is that EU is made up of several different countries. Even though they they share a common currency (not well liked, Britain still wants to use the GBP and drop the euro) they don't have one centralized government. Obviously different to the US.

Even though there is no public option the issue with this "universal" health-care plan, the government will force insurance companies to take up 30 some-odd-million people they can't really afford to take up, most likely putting a lot of these insurance companies out of business, thus leaving government an opportunity to move in and provide the public option after all.

And no I speak as a Libertarian not a tea party supporter, and as a Canadian.

As friends and I half jokingly say, "Now where will we go for excellent health-care?"

Re:It's the size

[Rockoon]

Stop listening to MSNBC

The Tea Party Movement is nearly 100% about a return to the States that which the Federal government has hijacked unconstitutionally over the past 80 years.

Re:It's the size

[MightyYar]

I don't know many tea partiers, but I can say with some confidence that they are pretty strongly for stronger states vs a stronger federal government. Those from other states would not presume to tell Massachusetts what to do with their health care, even if they are against social programs in general.

But you are right, as far as having a "platform", they are a total mess. The various groups sort-of claiming to be official seem to only make very vague demands:
"Tea Party Patriots, Inc. ("TPP") is a non-partisan, non-profit social welfare organization dedicated to furthering the common good and general welfare of the people of the United States. TPP furthers this goal by educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets."

You'd have to be pretty fringe to disagree with any of those three things! The only one even remotely debated is the extent of the free market.

Re:It's the size

[blair1q]

It's not the size. It's the fact that most Americans can't see through the sophistry of the GOP.

Back in the 1860s, the GOP was a real political party. But Lincoln warned us the "moneyed powers" were coming to take over the country, and they paid him back by taking over his party, first, in the 1880s. Ever since, the GOP is a division of the plutocratic hegemony of America.

Few other nations allow corporations to run as rampant as America does, because in few other nations have corporations owned half of the government for half their existence.

Re:It's the size

[ZonkerWilliam]

Just to add to what zogger said I would suggest reading about the Forgotten Depression of 1920 http://mises.org/daily/3788. And how America got out of a very similar problem before.

Re:It's the size

[CRCulver]

The Tea Party Movement is nearly 100% about a return to the States that which the Federal government has hijacked unconstitutionally over the past 80 years.

I have relatives who participate in Tea Party rallies. All of them without exception oppose social welfare programs, whether it's the federal, state or local government that is running them. There's been plenty of commentary recently about how sensible federalists like Ron Paul have been marginalized even further in the Republican Party by the Tea Party phenomenon. No, Tea Partiers aren't about devolving things to the states. They are mainly about complaining about any government spending at all, at any level.

Re:It's the size

[nibbles2004]

excuse me is this another EU, sorry you cant be talking about the one geographically located in Europe are you, as everyone knows that not only is it undemocratic, not representative but incredibly wasteful and corrupt. the euro has burdened the countries that adopted it, EU succession law's haven't been abused, it's put a burden on the richer, more successful northern European counties and effectively institutionalized the southern countries into dependencies. I am European but British 1st , Europe is just a geographical concept, i do not feel closer to my European neighbors than other countries apart from certain cultural similarities. One day i hope Europeans release that by disbanding this political union and just having trade unions will be far better for all countries involved. Ironically the US Federal system does work better but for totally different historical reason's.

MOD PARENT UP

[Rockoon]

PLEASE MOD PARENT UP. TX.

well

[jisou]

they did say the same thing about the internet and look what happened.

the name of the rocket

[Corson]

"what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper" -- that's the idea. be competitive, b. and l.-m.!

Stinking Capitalist Pigs

[UziBeatle]

  These stinking capitalist pig companies only care about one thing. Profit.

  It is obvious what the Obama crowd should do. Seize control of them and make these old school
for profit companies work for the people. Any and all stock holders should be shot dead for not
having the peoples interest at heart.

  THere is no room for rigorous capitalism in the New Era - Hope and Change- America under
  Obama and his Marxist (progressive) sidekicks.

  Okay, maybe I'm ahead of the curve but only a fool doesn't see where we are going.

  Laugh away , fools.
  Your next.
  Oh, Cheers.
    Your future is to bow to your Chinese Overlords.

  Signed, unhappy Texan that said 'I told you so' over a fraking decade ago. But did you listen? nooooooooooo.
    Vent off.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Microlith]

I know, we shouldn't bother trying because some myopic anti-Pioneer has seen that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE and decreed it as such.

You're welcome to crawl into your little hole and die, if you wish. Others will, hopefully, not be torn down by the masses like you and at least make some effort to move out.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of long term.

Don't worry about it if you don't like thinking about the distant future, that's fine, someone else will take care of it.

We will get to the stars, if there's no way around relativity it will take a little longer, but we will do it.

mod DOWN!

[Anubis350]

Honestly, insightful?

From a quick google search on NASA inventions:

Ten NASA inventions you use every day

Top 15 NASA inventions

Polimide Foam

NASA Inventions benefiting our daily lives

Highlights from those links include kidney dialysis, CAT scans, various types of insulation, efficient water purification tech, cordless tools, modern designs of microchips, satellite tech (you know, it deleives a great deal of your communications....), scratch resistant lenses... And there's a *lot* more, a great deal of modern tech comes from NASA is one way or another.

Even if you have a problem with exploration and a search for knowledge and understanding of the universe, you have to admit the space program and its SCIENCE have yielded *massive* results on earth in technology. I'm also pretty sure there were luddites like you when the first ships were being built, the first submarines, the first plans, hell, the first time someone said "I'm going to wander 50 miles that way and see what's there".

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[demachina]

"As far as I can see ..."

Well you apparently can't see well.

There is also:

- Power generation, solar beamed to earth via microwave
- Power generation using He-3 for fusion mined from the moon though this is pretty speculative
- Asteroid mining when the earth eventually runs out of minable mineral deposits which is eventually will unless we become a lot better at recycling.
- Zero G manufacturing (protein crystals is the best proved though there are other possibilities)
- Satellites are used for a lot more than communication including GPS, weather forecasting, climate monitoring, ozone layer monitoring, earth resource monitoring and location.
- Colonization especially if we manage to crash the earth one way or another, If we dont contain population growth this is a near certainty,

past history

[zogger]

this -> "The European Union has a population larger than the United States and yet it manages just fine."..past history man, I'm talking about going forward. I really suggest you take the blinders off and LOOK at some in depth economic analysis, get beyond the headlines and read some contrarian economists. Oh heck, here's one, the darlingest of your ultra far left rich dudes, soros, argue with him why doncha about the future status of your dream welfare union.. the EU is right behind the US with the debt bomb realities. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-09/soros-says-greece-needs-cheaper-loans-to-avoid-death-circle-.html

More recent events and analysis

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/markets-rally-as-greek-debt-crisis-eases-1943155.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7583304/Euphoria-over-Greek-rescue-fades-as-first-cracks-appear.html

Here is a short overview of the US debt situation as it is today

Let this one sink in a bit...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18393.html

These are the outright thieves "in charge" of our economic situation

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32906678/looting_main_street/print

really, ^^^^ those dudes right there run things. In and out of government, the musical chairs with thieves and liars in government, in the Fed, back to their Wall Street gangster lairs, lather rinse repeat, and it hasn't mattered a whit which imperial leader or group of goofballs in our congress we have had, D or R next to their name, it's those same dudes always *really* in charge behind the scenes....

Now see why we aren't going to be having any welfare state here, or even a credible economy soon? The system is already broken, we've been "corporate raided" on a huge scale, and even the "change" government is just more of the same tired old BS.

Your central banker pigs are just as much thieves as ours have been, you'll see... just wait. Your welfare states are going to be crumbling because you don't understand simple basic math, plus time travel, you can't live in the past and expect that to be the future or..along those lines, ain't happening. What was then, was then, in the future.....? I am old enough to remember when the US had a very decent real economy, we were the largest creditor nation, not the biggest borrower, and healthcare was cheap, affordable for most people. Even the crappiest jobs had free or cheap coverage, or you could buy it on the side for cheap. But then the corporate looting really began, along with the ludicrous expansion of government based on lying promises of something for nothing...now 35 years later, poofed, gone, we are sunk without borrowing money all the time, and we have no credible plans to pay back what we have already borrowed.

You have to make money to spend it, FIRST, on welfare or whatever, and no, running printing presses is not making money. You can't keep pouring six gallons of stuff from a five gallon bucket, and accounting and bookkeeping tricks only work so long. You don't make money by exporting jobs, them other fellas make the money then. And you certainly don't make money by letting your central casino bankers run rampant and steal everything that ain't nailed down, and especially when you run those thieves in and out of official government positions where they get to *set policy*.

Now some of the nations there in the EU just might squeak by over the

I'll tell you why

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak?"

Because Democrats consider it dangerous as it has crystallized the frustration with a government that doesn't pay attention to the wishes of its constituents because *they know better than you*.

The health-care give-away passed despite significant opposition from the citizens. But the government knew better. The Tea party has served as a focal point to opposition and thus the government is frustrated that its citizens don't appreciate the hard work they're doing on their behalf.

That's why you see so much mud being slung... charges of spitting that turn out to be false, racist charges that never have proof, only allegations, discussion of "old white men" that are patently offensive.

But it's okay... many of them have gotten out while the gettin' is good. The rest will be out of a job after November. And that frustrates the government again because they're doing so much with our money and we don't appreciate it.

L-Mart screwed themselves.

[WindBourne]

Both Boeing and L-Mart make a great case about a strong need for multiple private end-points. That is, commercial space NEEDS Bigelow out there. The problem is that both will soon have to compete against SpaceX and China. ESA and the EU govs. backing ESA are already carping about CHina. China is dumping and subsidizing on the market, but then again, SO IS ESA/EU. Ariane was developed with EU money, not Eads. Of course, the same is true of Boeing's Delta, and L-Mart's Atlas. So, where is the big disconnection amongst all of this?

That Bigelow is working with Boeing and SpaceX. The reason is simple. SpaceX is close to being rated good enough for Bigelow, and Obama will likely dole out the funding to make it work on April 15th. Likewise, Boeing's Delta can be human rated relatively cheap. In addition, they have all of the parts from America. OTH, L-MART is a totally different critter. They took shortcuts and used Russia's RD-180. It will be difficult to human rate, but even worse for L-mart is that Russia will ALWAYS have cheaper rocket prices because of L-Mart having used it. Basically, Russia sells it expensively to L-Mart.

Bigelow is going to create winners from SpaceX and Boeing/ULA. Likewise, if EADS/ESA/EU will jump on it, then Ariane will join the human launches as well. Japan could, but will not likely spend the money for it. And L-Mart/ULA will lose their Atlas V within a decade. The reason is that they will remain a very expensive cargo only launcher and will slowly wither.

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Dr. Spork]

Only the last item would really involve any real need for fragile humans to be in space, and it's also by far the most far-fetched item. No matter how much we fuck up the earth, it will always be cheaper and use fewer resources to support someone on it than off it. Forever. Even if you had to move people under the sea into some Octopus's garden, it would be far cheaper than keeping them alive in space.

think twice

[kubitus]

There is maybe a market for 5, 6 computers worldwide ( IBM CEO )

Not enough lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

The competition wasn't fair, because Burt's team had only engineers and the guy to bring the coffee, where the other teams had a big HR staff, IP attorneys, government liason's, media production teams for those critical artists renditions, the statistical quality control team, compliance officers, and that lady with the big hair who's always interrupting everyone ... So the cost figures really aren't a fair comparison.

With a proper organization there are all those necessary meetings about productivity and reorganization. They should at least have made Burt's team add the lawyers and the HR people. Any good manager knows that the engineers can't get anything done without a complex and diversified support staff. Plus he pays his engineers too much.

you seem to be living in an alternative universe

[circletimessquare]

where tea party proponents are prudent rational level headed philosophers of responsible fiscal policy

the only tea party i see are a bunch of genuine low iq ignorants whipped into a frenzy by professional radio and television demagogues, and whose only goal is the destruction of government, period, completely unconcerned as to consequences... because its "patriotic"

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[Anonymous Coward]

- Power generation, solar beamed to earth via microwave

Pathetically costlier than covering desertic area with tons of solar cells. Pathetically, like "hundred times". I work in an european space industry and we are regularly asked the question by politician newcomers...

- Power generation using He-3 for fusion mined from the moon though this is pretty speculative

You just said it

- Asteroid mining when the earth eventually runs out of minable mineral deposits which is eventually will unless we become a lot better at recycling.

The expandable materials required to just bring an asteroid close to Earth are >>> to the possible interesting materials you may find. This not to speak about the cost of safe earth reentry afterwards

- Zero G manufacturing (protein crystals is the best proved though there are other possibilities)

Please. The space station guys tried to sell us that one for 10 years: even them don't dare anymore now

- Satellites are used for a lot more than communication including GPS, weather forecasting, climate monitoring, ozone layer monitoring, earth resource monitoring and location.

Ah. At least something sound. Not a hugely expanding market anyway, alas for me -thus not a forever expanding need for big launchers either. Indeed, most of these sats are getting wittier and wittier, which mean we manage to miniaturize them, allowing for smaller, cheaper (existing) launchers...

- Colonization especially if we manage to crash the earth one way or another, If we dont contain population growth this is a near certainty,

Hmm. Here we are back to pure dream. Please come back when you'll have signed to colonize our own south pole. Temperature is similar to Mars, but at least there is air, and in case of dire need some penguins to eat. Honest, when I see the first boat leaving for there, I'll look for Mars again (I presume you didn't talk about those 1000-years-away-at-the-speed-of-light Exoplanets, did you?)

Re:Still not sure what the business case for space

[radtea]

military and SCIENCE! are basically big money pits which achieve nothing but international prestige

Right, because pure science never produced results that eventually allowed us to cure disease, or allowed us to do incredibly accurate location based on satellite signals despite living in a curved space-time, or enabled clean almost limitless energy production...

I'm glad no one ever wasted any money spending it on scientists who did useless things like grow bugs in the lab, or scatter invisible particles off things, or build some ridiculous 'interferometer' to measure how fast the Earth was moving through the lumineferous aether. What a waste all that would have been!

Now excuse me, I have to use my GPS to figure out the fastest way to the hospital so I can get some x-rays, and then off to the pharmacist to get some anti-biotics, and then pay my electric bill, which is reasonably low because 40% of the power comes from nuclear plants... and if you had asked the people who were behind the SCIENCE that makes each of those things possible, "What good is it?" they would have shrugged, or told you anyone who believed their work had practical application was talking moonshine.

I would agree....

[zogger]

....but I also think that applies to both major parties. I have little use for either of them. there is a small handful of the major elected members on both sides I have some admiration for, but for the most part, I regard both parties as being more corrupt than not, and they both will take as much corporate cash as they can, and dish out the favors. When you have an elected government primarily run by millionaires who all are tied to income from wall street in a big way..well, like you said, a plutocracy happens.

One Big A$$ Mistake America (Obama)

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame private industry... Blame the current dip$hit in office. Don't blame me, I voted for the American.