Veteran Spaceflight Engineer Talks About Governance for Space Exploration (Video)

Meet Tom Moser. (And if that piece of oral spaceflight history wasn't enough, here's a second one.) He's been involved, one way or another, as engineer or manager, with every American manned space flight program since 1963. Now, among other things, he's thinking of ways multiple governments and private companies can share their resources to make future space exploration feasible, which is the main topic of today's video (and transcript), and one we plan to run next week as well.

Comments

More government

[Anonymous Coward]

I really respect all the work that this guy has done, but we really, REALLY don't need more and more government. Every time a governing body gets involved, things get more complicated, it costs more money, and people get hurt.

I promise you, it really is possible for people to cooperate with each other to achieve this. But you have to let them.

Re:More government

[k6mfw]

I promise you, it really is possible for people to cooperate with each other to achieve this. But you have to let them.

That's what New Space wants to do but nobody knows what their real plans are (we get snippets of information depending i.e. press release by Musk). Other than that they are free to do what they want though all of them want money from the guvmint.

Re:More government

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time a governing body gets involved, things get more complicated

Every time a governing body is lacking, things get more complicated. And then one emerges anyway.

The question always ends up being: in whose interest do those with effective governorship act?

I promise you,

Donate $10/month and I promise you Paradise.

it really is possible for people to cooperate with each other to achieve this.

Do you mean "cooperate" or "compete"? Democratic government is a form of cooperation, you realise? one citizen, one share.

This isn't an anti-enterprise post, just an anti-anti-government one. Pure ideology (e.g. "free market!" and "command economy!") is for modellers, storytellers and fanatics. The modeller knows they're simplifying the problem. The storyteller knows they're making things up completely. The fanatic, unfortunately, realises neither.

Re:More government

[Anonymous Coward]

I clicked your link, but all it took me to was a blog. I don't like blogs. As for space exploration, that's been strictly in the realm of governments for quite some time, and they did well until people got bored. Lets see how private enterprise can do, and let them reap the rewards for their contribution to humanity.

Re:More government

[Anonymous Coward]

I clicked your link, but all it took me to was a blog. I don't like blogs.

What exactly do you think /. is? Except that the commentary is usually no more than a paragraph or two.

The Kowloon Walled City was an accidental study in what happens when a metropolis is designed without government regulation. Essentially:

1) It wasn't quite clear under whose jurisdiction it should be;

2) Squatters started settling, with multiple attempts to evict not really completed;

3) Gangs stepped in where organised government was absent, although their influence eventually waned, and most residents were regarded as peaceful;

4) It grew in a way that was simultaneously beautiful (irregular architecture that people could actually live in) and horrible (unsanitary, dangerous, patchy utilities);

5) In particular, living conditions did not compare to regulated surroundings, and rehoming+demolition eventually occurred.

It's the nearest the earth has had to Brazil, except that humanity saw that this was a fucking mistake.

Re:More government

[turbidostato]

"That's what New Space wants to do but nobody knows what their real plans are"

Because in order for you to know what their plans are, they need to settle on the plans themselves, then they need to set who's the one both knowledgeable enough and authoritative enough to factually make the plans public, and then they need enough governance to make the plans stable enough for their completion.

In summary: in order for you to know their plans, they need to add up more and more government which happens to be what makes things "more complicated, it costs more money, and people get hurt.".

Re:More government

[WhiplashII]

No, this is just looking at the issue completely incorrectly! I don't know what went wrong with this new generation that they are back to communism and central planning.

"Nobody knows what their real plans are" indeed! Did someone know Henry Ford's plans? Did Henry Ford know them at the beginning? Did Rockefeller tell everyone "OK, this is the plan, here we go!"

That is not how things get made. The real world works without plans for the most part - certainly without plans by committee. That is what the central planners always miss - you cannot tell beforehand which crazy venture is the one that will succeed and change humanity forever. You have to have 100 companies fail in order to get that one that changes everything. And government funded companies tend not to fail - they just become zombies.

The entrepreneur that brings humanity into the space age will almost certainly say "I note that the government funded all my competitors - and I still beat them!"

Re:More government

[deviated_prevert]

Every time a governing body gets involved, things get more complicated

Every time a governing body is lacking, things get more complicated. And then one emerges anyway.

The question always ends up being: in whose interest do those with effective governorship act?

I promise you,

Donate $10/month and I promise you Paradise.

it really is possible for people to cooperate with each other to achieve this.

Do you mean "cooperate" or "compete"? Democratic government is a form of cooperation, you realise? one citizen, one share.

This isn't an anti-enterprise post, just an anti-anti-government one. Pure ideology (e.g. "free market!" and "command economy!") is for modellers, storytellers and fanatics. The modeller knows they're simplifying the problem. The storyteller knows they're making things up completely. The fanatic, unfortunately, realises neither.

From someone who was 10 years old and was inspired by this speech that is oft forgotten and belittled in the bejeweled halls of anti-government fanatics like some of todays right wing sudo nazis and especially assholes that spout anti-government nonsense. They really need to have their motives and agendas closely scrutinized by the electorate again. What we need is someone like a Kennedy again to step forward and roast these assholes over the coals in public debate the way Nixon was exposed in 1960.

Great leaders inspire great things for mankind, the current group of anti-government leaders are an oxymoron! To quote Mr. Trump's most used bit of bullshit leadership technique, we all need to say in one voice "YOUR ALL FUCKING FIRED!" The way we did with Nixon if we ever catch on to what these so called business people are really up to with a blatant attempt to buy another Presidency the way they did with Reagan. Do they really think people are that stupid all of the time? Not that the rest of the Republican ticket is any better this time around either, yes they had once had a real leader in Lincoln, but how the once great in spirit have all fallen to the allure of the coin!

It is not the time to hold back on the future and live in an oil and blood soaked past. I can only pray that soon a time will come when someone again inspires the cooperation ventures like space exploration, a change to a real environmental economy, with the technology to eliminate waste and most of all great science ventures in all the fields that made landing on the moon possible!

Politics is being abused by those who have lead by deliberately inciting economic terror and other tactics like the ones used by Dick Chaney and Co. Even George Bush senior is finally starting to realize the real problems that these money driven assholes are creating for the economy and the world in the long term. At least the not so great actor Ronald Reagan, who became a president and asked Mr Gorbachev to "tear down that wall" admitted that it was economically important to do science right and it was this that made us great, even as his supporters ripped and tore up Nasa!

Unfortunately what I envision happening instead is a secret state visit to the international space station by both Putin and someone like Jeb or Trump to carve up the world economy in secret as they nuke the Chinese and a few other states that get in the way of their friend's enterprises. Dick Chaney can tag along, I am sure him and a few others will all be doing something in the background to oversee the talks!

Re:More government

[Anonymous Coward]

Try harder, that had no content.

Re:More government

[turbidostato]

"Did someone know Henry Ford's plans?"

Of course yes! It was Henry Ford the one telling people he wanted for his cars to be sold to everybody and even told everybody that's why he payed his workers money enough for them to become his customers.

Henry Ford's factory wasn't an anarchist's dream but a system driven with iron fist by Henry Ford: he was the one settling the plans and making them public since he held both the knowledge and authority to do so: he was the required governance to make things happen.

"That is not how things get made. The real world works without plans for the most part - certainly without plans by committee. That is what the central planners always miss"

Still *ALL* big corporations work under a central planning system and most are run by comitee (the board of directors' one). Central planning and comitees must have something when nobody even tries to run a corp in any different way.

Re:More government

[Anonymous Coward]

" sudo nazis "

????

LOL

Fuck's sake, dude, learn to spell!