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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."
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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.
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.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
"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?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Bigelow Aerospace is likely out there to put the mile high club to shame. the owner cleans fish tanks as a second job.
Oh honey look... How cute... an angry slashdotter!
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.
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.
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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.
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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]
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(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]
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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.
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!
"what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper"
They might need some business classes......
I double-dog-dare you to go make a buck in space
"We're skeptical about this whole thing with colonizing the rest of the solar system. We think it's just a gimmick." Jackasses.
Has anyone asked Burt Rutan how much he would charge to put a Pay Load on the Moon?
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.
+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.
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.
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.
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
What the Deuce?!
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I'm sure they'll get there. Have to have those with deep pockets underwrite your R&D first though.
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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
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.
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....?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
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?
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?
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.
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.)
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?
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?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
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.
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.
Wait! Whats a sig?
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.
^^ 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.
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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.
Maybe he is defending his job?
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.
for all intensive purposes
"Intents and Purposes" you ignoramus.
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.
The enemies of Democracy are
What job could that be? Professional Anti-Manned-Space-Exploration Activist? Doesn't sound lucrative (or especially interesting).
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.
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.
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.
PLEASE MOD PARENT UP. TX.
"His name was James Damore."
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.
"what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper" -- that's the idea. be competitive, b. and l.-m.!
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.
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.
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".
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
"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,
@de_machina
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
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.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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.
There is maybe a market for 5, 6 computers worldwide ( IBM CEO )
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.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
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.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
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.
....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.