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Space Travel For the 1%: Virgin Galactic's $250,000 Tickets Haunt New Mexico Town
The Real Dr John writes: The Guardian has an article about Virgin Galactic's proposed launch site, Spaceport America, which broke ground in southern New Mexico's high desert in 2009 with almost a quarter of a billion dollars from taxpayers, $76m of which came from the two local counties. Truth or Consequences, population 6,000 and home to the Spaceport America Visitor Center, is one of the poorest places in the state. The increased taxes, adopted across impoverished Sierra County, contributed to about $5m as of 2014. Since 2009, state school budgets have been cut and an estimated $26m in necessary repairs to the town's water system has been put on hold. There's no more money to pay for it. The average annual income of residents is just $15,000 per year, one third of residents live below the poverty line, and just 20% over the age of 25 have obtained a bachelor's degree.
Shame too many people think the government is some sort of magic purse.
Unless you're a corporate "person" in which case it most certainly IS a magic purse.
Everyone in charge of what? And what money?
It's okay to be a nutjob, but as anyone can see by reading his manifesto the Unabomber has raised the bar for this kind of talk. Gone are the days of vague threats of violence and social justice. You need content, not just posturing. Where's your content?
lucm, indeed.
Why build it in New Mexico?
There's a local expertise with spaceflight that goes back to 1947.
lucm, indeed.
Why not Dubai?
1) Lack of infrastructure to support the venture.
2) Volatile region; what happens when you have to ditch in the Gulf of Oman, Yemen, or Iran?
3) You can buy off local gov't, but you can't buy off the ruler of Dubai.
4) Technology embargo issues.
Why New Mexico?
1) Its in the US. Los Alamos is located in the state.
2) Its relatively close to the equator while in the US. Florida is closer, but its going to be underwater within the century; also hurricanes.
3) Desert. Tons of cheap, open, unpopulated space.
Its disgraceful that money is being pissed away on a lightly used, space center gamble, but would the money be "available" for the local budget otherwise?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
TFA doesn't explain or link as to how VG caused the citizens to vote a tax increase upon themselves. If that was the deal, I would have recommended against it. Especially the part about the schools and water system.
You know, I bet that wasn't the deal. I bet that closer to the truth, is that the town, county, and state fell all over themselves offering all kinds of crazy shit. Those people gambled, and they lost.
Sort of like Virgin Galactic lost their ship, momentum, place in the space race, shit tons of cash; and so on. I believe one of their people actually died. All those townspeople lost was their self respect, and maybe some money, that their elected officials spent. I don't think VG has made any sort of profit on this town.
So to make out like the evil corporation took advantage of the ignorant little podunk town is really stretching the truth here.
Spending money is one thing. Giving money to corporations in return for vague promises of jobs is entirely another.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
the flight takes you up to about 110 km, which is barely enough to see curvature of the earth.
what virgin are doing is going to make for a spectacular flight but space flight it is not.
A spaceport that doesn't have any commercial flights is probably a worse waste of money than a sports stadium. People will drive for a hundred miles to go to a sporting event if they care about one of the teams playing. They'll buy gas, they'll buy food, they'll pay admissions, they'll go to the bars and the restaurants after the game, they might even look for a hotel to stay in before going home.
A spaceport in rural anywhere only makes sense when there are flights, and for it to be paid for by the taxes collected in an area the area needs to derive an actual benefit.
As for a town of 6000 with only 21% bachelors degrees, that is absolutely no surprise at all. A town of 6000 people probably doesn't have very many jobs that need bachelors degrees. There will be a doctor or maybe a few, there will be some nurses. There may be a dentist. There will be at least one pharmacist. If there are schools the teachers will have degrees. There will probably be a few business owners that originated in the area, left and got their education, and came back, possibly employing some in the town. If anything, 1/5 of a small town having bachelors degrees is probably rather high.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yep. Nothing mean-spirited about letting people starve, go without medical care, or having knowledge of sexuality, not to mention the actuality of birth control, withheld from them. Not a thing. Nothing mean-spirited about trying to force your religion on the entire body politic, either. Nope. Nothing mean spirited about wasting all your time in congress on a futile task while there is actual work to be done. Nothing mean spirited about trying to shut down the government, either. Nothing mean spirited about lying, then bombing the living shit out of a country that doesn't pose a threat to us (well, they had oil, so I guess it was a work of charity for your fellow conservatives, deeply invested in oil, yes?) Nothing mean spirited about denying people social security, medicare, food stamps, and so on -- that is purely a saintly act from beginning to end. Nothing mean spirited about handing "free speech" to corporations, while herding the dissenters into "free speech zones", amirite?
Psychopath? Psychopath??? Oh hell no. Conservatives are the living incarnation of angels, each and every one.
Thank the Lord of Hosts that we have conservatives to save us from ourselves.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If it worked as intended it would have been a good deal.
$65m in "stolen" money as you call it (taxes).
$250k tickets * say 10,000 = $2,500,000,000 into the net economy. Let's say that 15% of that is operations that's still $375m back into the economy in the form of wages. You aren't going to find a 576% investment opportunity very often.
Furthermore those people would probably want to eat somewhere while in town and maybe even visit a shop or two which would further boost the local economy.
It was a sound plan, and I'm sure virgin would very much like to be making a ton of money as well but the part that failed was the fact that they didn't have more protections for the county in the event that say.. a rocket exploded and the business plan was put on hold for 10 years.
We should maybe aspire to something greater than a 3000 year old model?
Sadly, most people think the big government they keep voting for is there to help them, not to help those who buy the politicians they vote for. With enemies like the left, the 1% don't need friends.
The average person cannot be fat, stupid, oblivious, trusting of advertising (and paid studies and other obviously biased sources), saturated in meaningless tabloid bullshit, and view non-job-related thought as tedium to be avoided or offloaded ... and then expect to have a truly representative government. It's never happened before and it's not happening today.
You may be surprised at how effective 3000 year old tactics still are. Bread-and-circus has many forms and it's at least that old. Oh yeah, speaking of the Roman empire? One of the major souces of corruption involved their equivalent of defense contracts. They had their own version of the military-industrial complex.
While I'm opposed to violence, as a general rule, I suspect you might be right. The government should be afraid of the populace. If it is the other way around then you're doing it wrong. Currently, it is the other way around. While I am not, by any means, advocating a revolution (I think we should exhaust all other options and there should be a rising organically - even if people are too stupid) as a means to an end at this point in time, I do feel it is important to send those in power a reminder that we are ruled by consent.
Things like this (there's an interesting documentary about Space City being built that shows the impending doom for the area albeit betwixt the lines) and an earlier story about TPP being completed are just today's examples of reasons why we might want to consider being truly outraged. I'm all for private space access. I'm not a fan of you paying for my ride, however. Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure I can already pay for a ride to space if I want. It's expensive but I can pay for it and have the means to pay for it. There's no reason for you to be burdened for my amusement. With today's story about the TPP, I'm forced to think and realize that I've not yet seen a single, nary a one, bit of evidence that there's a single good thing about it for the average citizen. Not one single thing...
I am tired so I'm sure the above reads like it was written by a drunken monkey (I also have an attractive female, nearly forty years my junior, who's tiring me out but no - probably not like you may be thinking) but I hope it's still able to be parsed. It's high time they learn that we, the citizens, have the power. What's funny (sad, actually) is that there are so many people in favor of disarming the populace. I'm too tired to get into it so let it suffice to say that I simply can not comprehend the thinking process that leads otherwise rational people to reach conclusions such as those.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
All people receive benefits from the government; one of the problems is that some people are too stupid to know that they do to. Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society... it's not money "confiscated," although there's a bunch of fucking idiots who like to term it that way. These are the same fucking idiots that don't understand that the air they breath, the water they drink, the food they eat, the products they use daily, the protections they gain from police and firefighters, and a myriad of other government functions, keep them safer and better off than if the government didn't exist. When government is compromised by fucking assholes who's sole goal is to destroy that government, then yes, government ceases to work as well as it should.
The beneficiaries of government is everyone... the problem is when it benefits some far more than it benefits others.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Musk's government money is a drop in the bucket compared to what gas, energy, military industrial, etc companies receive. In Musk's case, taxpayers are getting a good deal. The half billion loan Tesla received is already paid back with interest, and it accelerated production of the model s and created many jobs. If you look up the details of other government money his companies received, you will see it's quite reasonable.
" In ancient Athens the rich were socially compelled to spend their own fortunes on defending the state, performing rituals, and entertaining the poor. Imagine Soros and the Koch brothers and all the wealthy of either party building and equipping their own aircraft carriers at their own expense as a public benefit."
But the Koch brothers _do_ spend millions on entertaining the poor with funny actors, it's called the Republican Primaries.