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The Billionaires' Space Club
theodp writes Silicon sultans are the new robber barons, writes The Economist, adding that "they have been diversifying into businesses that have little to do with computers, while egotistically proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Over at Slate, NYU journalism prof Charles Seife is less-than impressed with The Billionaires' Space Club. "It's an old trick," begins Seife. "Multimillionaires regularly try to spin acts of crass ego gratification as selfless philanthropy, no matter how obviously self-serving. They jump out of balloons at the edge of the atmosphere, take submarines to the bottom of the ocean, or shoot endangered animals on safari, all in the name of science and exploration. The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships for private space exploration. What makes this one different is that the public actually seems to buy the farce." Seife goes on to argue that "neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground, despite all the talk of exploration."
I'm well aware of fake "philanthropy". Some of the more respectable philanthropy even fails. Supposing that some billionaire actually funds the lab that finds the cure for cancer - he has bought and paid for his brand of immortality. The world doesn't need or want any more pyramids, so cancer will do the trick.
All the same - if enough people are competing to accomplish something is space, SOMEONE is going to succeed.
Yeah, I buy it. Hell, I'd work for little more than a pretty meager wage if I could be reasonably sure of ACCOMPLISHING something meaningful in space.
"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
not gonna bother clicking any of the links. This guy is either incredibly ignorant and been living under a rock for the past few years, or his 401k is heavily vested in defense contractors. SpaceX is shaking the space launch industry to the very foundations and turning everything upside down. SpaceX is already cheaper than them (by a lot), but if the R program succeeds (we'll know in a few days), basically Elon will wipe out ULA and Ariannespace and there will be nothing left of them except for a few crumbs thrown at them by their buddies in government.
You can practically feel the envy radiating off him. "You can't be rich and a good person too, that's not fair!"
Maybe I just haven't seen it, but do they actually claim this? Sources? I've always thought of these things as rich peoples hobbies, on their own money, for their own fun. I assume the talk about things isn't even the primary goal, but just a necessity as unusual things tend to draw attention anyway. Consequently, relations to fan-boys and media have to be managed. But that's just a side-effect?
Nuff' said.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
What's with the "robber" nonsense? Whom did the "silicon sultans" rob and of what? Are the toiling masses of the downtrodden not better off with Internet-connections to a dazzling variety of sites and cellular phones in their pockets?
Perhaps, comparing value-creating capitalists to the highway plunderers of the dark-ages — as has been the Illiberal Socialists' wont for nearly 150 years — is not entirely warranted?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It sound like you are disapproving... Will you refuse any treatment developed with a "silicon sultan's" money — because the benefactor's purpose was not sufficiently pure in your opinion?
Will you demand, the laboratories be staffed by people of all races and genders, and that any developed drugs be manufactured by unionized workers and/or be "Fair Trade" certified — before you agree to accept the cure?
Will you reject it, because "not everyone" can afford it — or will you, perhaps, wish, such "unfair" drug was never developed in the first place?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
They hate us 'cuz they ain't us.
There are only two groups outside of individual rich people who can fund these endeavors: governments and normal investment. Governments are already in the game. India just launched their first heavy lift vehicle, for example.
Regular investment will never take that kind of risk. Perhaps in the past you could have raised money on Wall Street or the equivalent, but these days big financial institutions expect government subsidized guaranteed profit. It's so much easier to buy legislation, manipulate the system and control regulators then invest in long term innovation. Acquisitions and mergers along with zero interest prime rate funding lines their pockets without any bothersome "investing". Why bother with risky space investment, for example?
So it's fine if big egos go after these kinds of things. There are a lot worse ways that the ultra rich spend their wealth. Would you rather see Musk with Tesla and SpaceX, or Ellison with his billion dollar yacht?
By the way, you are subsidizing Ellison's yacht and purchase of the island of Lanai in Hawaii. He took out a loan against his stock in Oracle, so the interest he pays defers his income taxes. To quote another rich asshat, "taxes are for little people."
Why is Snark Required?
If [self-serviing private philanthropy] does not achieve its goal, or does so inefficiently, then the public is not likely to be fooled.
If self-serving private philanthropy does not achieve it' goal, nobody is harmed except the self-serving private philanthropist.
If PUBLIC philanthropy does not achieve its goal, the general population has been looted and received no benefit in return.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've been following SpaceX recently so I thought I'd point out a few things about them in regards of breaking new ground.
The company went from being founded to launching its first commercial payload to orbit in about seven years. (Which seems pretty quick in aerospace timescales)
They're consistently delivering supplies to the ISS for about half the price of their competitor using the Dragon capsule which is also able to return cargo back to Earth.
The Dragon capsule was designed with carrying passengers in mind, and version 2 of the capsule which will be undergoing launch abort tests soon is scheduled to start taking astronauts up to the ISS in about two years or so.
It will also be capable of landing propulsively.
They've undercut the prices of all existing competitors significantly, making them scramble to design new rockets to match SpaceX's price, but they'll only be ready around 2020.
Meanwhile SpaceX has been testing reusing the rocket's first stage.
The upcoming mission to the ISS will have its first stage attempt to land on a barge at sea, with the ultimate goal being landing back at the launch site.
Elon claims a theoretical potential hundred-fold price reduction for launches, but even a ten-fold reduction would have a significant effect on the industry.
In the longer term, SpaceX has plans for much larger engines and spaceships, with the ultimate goal of landing on Mars and eventually enabling people to move to Mars for around $500K.
There is some retarded troll on there named MikeyD who argues with every post...he keeps claiming that "space" is a completely empty void that has nothing but a few empty rocks, repeating that locking yourself in an SUV for six months is simulating a Mars trip and other such trollish nonsense. Even so, the author here is just super-whiney; I guess he's mad that Musk and Branson didn't give him their money and are building out a space infrastructure again. The author also seems quite confused as to the differences between SpaceX and VG claiming their basically the same type of company. I guess he'd rather these guys just be like John McAfee and use their money to create a harem and make customized bath salts.
Space exploration and colonization are hopeless fantasies. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend insane fortunes to explore and colonize the most inhospitable places there are, for no apparent benefit.
Hopeless or not, we have to do it. Right now all of humanity is in a single interconnected biosphere, that is one rich crazy dickhead away from becoming uninhabitable. How many people are out there right now claiming that we can do anything we want to the Earth and humanity can never become extinct, because God? We need to get sustainable populations off of this planet and somewhere they can survive for when the inevitable happens and one of those mouth-breathing morons hits the wrong button somewhere and releases super-Ebola into the atmosphere or something.
What's so special about our particular DNA configuration that we would have to preserve it at huge costs ?
We are the only living organism in the known Universe that possess such a high level of intelligence. Until we discover another species that can plan thier survival on interstellar basis, we are special and worth preserving.
Why don't you just go and die? Is there anything special about you?
Stop wasting precious resources and time.
There are seven billion people on the earth. I think we can work on more than one endeavour at once.
Nobody in his right mind would build a worldwide communication network that would shoot information anywhere in the world with negligible friction, either. But there were entrepreneurs who just went out and did it, so it will be these very people who are most likely to open up extraterrestrial destinations for us.
I can personally remember a time when getting a long-distance phone call meant that somebody had died.
I have just the organization for you, and all fellow misanthropes: http://vhemt.org/
Please visit this site and abide by its recommendations. For the good of humanity and for all the promise of our future, encourage all your fellow Greens to do the same.
Look at the title of the story you are replying in: It is billionaires that are funding it. Nothing about public funds being discussed here.
You just seem to trying to find any excuse in order to troll the space enthusiasts of this site.
When Gates and others push to have ALL of their money given to philanthropy, I just shake my head and say what fools. It will be spread around and do little good.
OTOH, ppl like Paul Allen is the one that pushed the cable companies to carry the internet. Likewise, he funded Scaled Composites jump into the X-Prize and winning it. This was the real start of private space going forward.
Now, we have Ellon Musk building up companies such as PayPal, Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX.
Between these 4 companies, he employs more than 100K ppl. BUT, more importantly, all 4 have changed society for the better.
Paypal helped bring retailing to the net. Prior to paypal, few wanted to put their CCs on the net (in fact, only idiots did).
Solar City was key to bringing down the costs of solar installs. The reason is because they focused on getting the INSTALLATION to be cheap and fairly quick, while buying from various makers and forcing their prices way down. Now, they are building MULTIPLE factories that will do 1GW/year of solar modules.
Tesla has forced ALL of the other car companies to produce hybrids and electric cars. In fact, Tesla has made such an impact on the car makers that all of the majors are banding together to push fuel cells. In the mean time, Tesla has installed over 300 super chargers around the world, and will almost certainly have 600-1000 units by end of next year. In the mean time, they are busy producing a line of factories in which the first one will more than double the production of li-ion batteries.
Now, he has SpaceX which has created the world's cheapest launch system. But, he is not content to stop there. He is working on recovering the first stage of F9 and 3 stages of FH. If this is successful, then sometime next year, he will cut the prices up to 50% off. And again, he is not interested in stopping there. He is instead focused on creating a rocket that will launch 200+tonnes to LEO, so as to send ppl to the moon and mars. All of this is forcing other companies and govs. to change.
The author has a point that many of the billioniares are doing NOTHING productive with their money. The right solution is to drop taxes on new companies that are solving issues. This would encourage others to jump into these kinds of ventures. And it far far better to have 8 failures combined with 2 successes in new arenas, then to simple have the money sitting around doing nothing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.