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Lori Garver Claims That NASA Is 'Wary' of Elon Musk's Mars Plans (arstechnica.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Ars Technica reports that former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver claimed, during a panel discussion at the Council for Foreign Relations, that many at NASA are "wary" of the Mars ambitions of SpaceX's Elon Musk. While the space agency has yielded low Earth operations to the commercial sector as part of the commercial crew program, it reserves for itself deep space exploration. Garver herself disagrees with that sentiment: "I thought, fundamentally, you just don’t understand. We’re not in a race in a swimming pool where everyone is racing against one another. We're in a cycling race where the government is riding point and the others are drafting behind us, and if someone comes alongside us and can pass us because they’ve found a better way, we don’t get out our tire pump and stick it between their spokes."
Musk does burn government $$$ but NASA does so as well. I'm indifferent but some people aren't happy unless they're complaining.
At this stage, NASA should just funnel money to SpaceX as fast as they can, before the space programs of other countries make them an irrelevance.
Yes I know that's harsh, but how else can NASA sidestep the politicians that meddle with NASA's long-term plans every election cycle?
Or of course Musk could rush it, it blows up in his face and no politician will touch funding for Mars for 50 years.
Like the US oil and coal industries, do you mean? Or perhaps not quite that "good".
Congrats, you are suffering from Global Warming Denialism, where you'd rather question the expertise of scientists and handwave warnings of experts.
Here's a tip: If you are siding Lamar Smith? You are probably wrong.
Worst. Analogy. Ever.
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Honestly I think Musk is smarter than that. He knows that if he fucks up big in that arena he is going to set back privatize space flight/exploration.
How would that be a bad thing? I see no sign that things will be different anyway or that spending US money on a Mars mission would be done in a sensible way.
Can I get a car analogy, please?
... but we can't come up with a decent analogy. -- NASA
He seems really good at using government subsidies to make money for himself.
Well, that's the point isn't it? To jumpstart private industry? You can't do that without the profit motive.
Tesla paid it's 450 million 2009 loan back with interest in four years and went from the brink of bankruptcy to a market cap of 29 billion dollars. Sounds like a success story to me.
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In a carbon neutral way.
That's a great metaphor. Keep in mind that (1) riding point doesn't mean you're the winner, (2) bicycling relies heavily on doping, and (3) once they see themselves losing their funding, any remaining good intentions of "playing fair" will fall by the wayside.
He promises stuff he fails to deliver.
Compared to who? You just described the majority of established aerospace actors including government agencies.
Launching to Earth orbit has a clear business plan. Companies with real revenue streams will pay for this service for sound business reasons. Thus, it makes sense for a private company to do this. They can make money this way and that is what all business are out to do.
Going to Mars, though, does not have a clear plan. Where is the profit? Even if you can do it for a reasonable cost, how do you make money? Thus, I'm sure many in NASA and outside, are doubtful that Musk will actually do this.
However, if Elon Musk does send humans to Mars then funding NASA to do the same thing is an expensive redundancy. If enough of Congress believes that story then there will be no funding for NASA.
If Elon Musk does not go to Mars and NASA does not go to Mars (because congress thought Elon Musk would do it) then I guess nobody goes to Mars.
That is the sort wariness I would expect from smart people working at NASA.
Musk isn't going to Mars. Just a financial breakdown of the Apollo missions will demonstrate easily why Musk isn't going to Mars. He can't afford a spacecraft that big. He can't fund it, and can't build it. There's no business case for going to Mars. It's a frontier that business won't fund the exploration of. To be honest, I don't think America is smart enough to get to Mars anymore. The general population is too pacified/enthralled to pay for a Mars mission or even care about why they should go to mars.
Re 'politician will touch funding for Mars for 50 years" :)
Remember how many times Western governments messed up huge projects when the German experts had issues with some aspect of an early launch, test after WW2?
The UK spent huge amounts on its own failed early Skynet satellite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... only to buy into a US system.
Government or private sector, the cash needed is huge, the testing is spectacular in public until a nation or project finally understands or decades later reinvents the tools and systems needed.
The thing about US funding is just to ensure jobs are spread out over a lot of workshops and campaign contributions flow or federal cash allows for some great state "upgrades' to show to the local press. Work with any local political leaders to allow them to show they had the ability to bring home well paying local jobs.
That Florida 1960's federal building and funding feeling all over again
Funding, building and good design have to flow with the well connected local political leaders.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The gov and mil backed secrecy of NASA covering for Operation Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and hiding top German experts from later versions of the Dora Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the international press, or authors is not really needed anymore.
Any private company can do space now until it gets a bit interesting with the Missile Technology Control Regime or established gov contractors try and keep their decades of no bid contracts.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
SpaceX lost one launch, for which NASA will NOT pay as per the contract. What is wrong with your perception of reality? He is very far from not delivering what he promised.
No, we have to retort him at the stake, so that he and the stake will be converted into biochar for the Organic Food Co-op. The volatile gases given off will be sequestered in an approved seabed carbon sink.
Well constructed and coherent argument, sir.
No, it isn't. Market capitalization has nothing to do with profitability, it is about perception. Tesla is still bleeding cash (more than $1 billion a year) and if they don't get their costs under control and/or increase sales, they will run out of money by the summer of 2016. They are losing money on each car sold because they don't sell enough to make up for the R&D. They are a gnat in the automotive market, with global sales at about 50K cars annually. They already cut production targets for 2015 and 2016, and their R&D costs have been rising. Musk has said the company is looking for ways to raise more capital. Tesla has only been profitable for one quarter, right after it sold shares to the market on the news that it would pay back its federal loan early. In other words, the repayment announcement boasted the share price prior to the stock sale.
You can say they are looking at the long term, but if the company has no cash in the bank, there be a long term.
Outside of making money on minor subsidies? Well, he is the one that brought banking to the net, which really allowed for commercialism on it; He is one of, if not the, largest installer, and owner of solar. In addition, his new factory going up in new York should produce highest efficiency, lowest costs panels by end of 2017; his Tesla is the reason why electric vehicles are taking off. In fact, it is the shear fright of model 3 that caused Europe to walk away from their plans for hydrogen vehicles; and of course, spacex has singlehandley caused the price of rocket launches to plummet. Russians, Europeans, and American launch systems have had no choice but to drop their prices and get massive subsidies to compete against minor subsidized spacex. But hey, I doubt you wanted facts here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And yet, Google and apple, amongst others would gladly buy them. However, there is little doubt that Tesla will be profitable in 2 years. The reason is that they will be producing at around 100,000 cars by end of 2016 and when model 3 hits, should be able to do 150-200k just on model S and X. Combine with an easy rampup of 50-100k M3 just for the first year, and we are looking at over 300k by end of 2017. Interestingly, that will put them on the same tract as Ford did, and ahead of Hyundai, who had massive subsidies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Also their giant battery factory thing, which is worth something all by itself
Yeah, but that was better than some of the out right lies and attacks by some here
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Or perhaps she is taking a round about way of saying that funding cuts have reduced NASA to the ranks of The Cutters in the race for extra-orbital manned space exploration.
"they will be producing at around 100,000 cars by end of 2016 and when model 3 hits, should be able to do 150-200k just on model S and X. Combine with an easy rampup of 50-100k M3 just for the first year, and we are looking at over 300k by end of 2017."
Yeah, well, they'll be producing a lot of cars... The question is: will they be able to sell them?
The demand is outstripping their supply. Right now, if they could product 250,000 MS, they would be able to sell it just in America and Europe ALONE. In fact, what keeps Mercedes S-class from dropping massively is the fact that tesla can NOT produce enough. OTOH, all of the other competition has dropped massively in America and Europe.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
totally agree. It will be producing 1/2 of the world's li-ion batteries within 2 years.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They spearheaded it and that was great - but most of their scientists are in the private sector now. The private sector can do it cheaper, likely much safer and more efficiently while turning a profit and bringing back resources to justify that profit on a scale NASA could never hope to achieve. This isn't to say NASA should be closed, on the contrary they should have more funding to pursue projects like those in Eagleworks, some of the LENR and similarly fringe-physics projects. We need to be able to get to other solar systems, come up with technologies to grow food in space, protect against radiation, determine the best ways to scan and mine, etc. NASA is amazing at literal "moonshots" - things so outlandish people don't think they are possible until they happen and the private sector is equally bad at those same things. Everyone just needs to play to their strengths, leave colonization and exploration to the private sector but by all means throw public funding at R&D of new tech.
Sure, because you're looking at some faux value in a 'stock market' that you think has actual meaning and value.
The reality of it is that a single incident can drive Tesla stock to be worthless (and I don't mean anything related to the actual cars either).
If you measure success by the stock market, you're an idiot. The stock market is a measure of how well scammers can get stupid people to buy virtual pieces of paper (they don't even use real stock certificates anymore) as if it had some meaning or value. Stocks are a great con game, company value has nothing to do with winners and losers when you play the stock market, it has to do with dumb and dumber, and how to get those people to buy stocks so you can make money from nothing.
Tesla's position in the stock market is a direct result of idiots like you who think they are valuable and buy virtual pieces of paper that have the companies name on it. Thats it. When that fad dies, Tesla will have to stand on its own, at which point it will succeed or fail. If you did that right now, it'd implode nearly instantly.
Tesla still would not exist without ongoing subsidies. Long term SURVIVAL, not profit is the point of those subsidies. Take everything they get away today, they go under within a year. Thats not really successful by most peoples definition of the word.
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Just sayin' what? That you're entirely too literal and missed the point because while you're trying ridiculously to show us how smart you are ... you weren't even smart enough to realize that an analogy isn't meant to be 100% factually accurate and is instead intended to convey a point? Is that what ya'r say'n?
That sound you hear? Thats the other slashdotters laughing at you as if you ... kind of like the other riders you refer to.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
What subsidies do oil companies get that no other business is privy to? Unless you mean the US buying and stockpiling some oil (at less than market value) or them buying oil to heat poor people (at less than market value)? They get the same tax breaks every other company gets and no subsidies that I'm aware of. Oil companies aren't even really all that profitable, the vast majority of money spent on oil is in the form of taxes.
I don't know about coal but that's probably much the same. Government paying for the products isn't really a subsidy when, you know, we kind of need those products for the government to function. I guess you could argue that they government shouldn't pay for oil for poor people and should let them freeze to death instead but that's really a pretty trivial amount of money, comparatively speaking.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Heating poor people?
HEAP is the name as I recall. States may call it something different or have a separate program. HEAP is Heating Energy Assistance Program. If you are below the poverty line then you may be eligible for assistance where the government buys you some heating fuel so that you don't freeze to death. I believe they also will pay for firewood and electricity if those are your main or only sources of heat.
It's kind of tough to call that an oil subsidy but I've seen folks try to include it in the list of things so I've looked into it. Most oil money doesn't go to the oil companies but to the government by way of taxes. They don't get *any* special subsidies or tax breaks. They get the same tax breaks that you'd get if you ran a business or were a Chapter S LLC or some other incorporated body.
I've been trying, not too hard, over the years to figure out why this subsidy thing gets trotted out so frequently and is often blindly believed. The AC that I responded to seems to have someone who believes them or agrees with them judging by the moderation. I have no idea why. We have Google. I may be missing something but oil companies get zero (or near zero and only if you want to freeze poor people) subsidies.
I hear a couple of other odd ones concerning oil. A big one is that we are dependent on oil from the Middle East. No, we aren't. Our oil comes from much closer regions. It comes from our land, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela mostly. Another is that we attacked Iraq for the oil. No, we didn't. We didn't even take their oil to make up for the costs of deposing their dictator. It just seems to attract emotional people and the subject gets muddied because everyone's got a position to defend.
*shrugs* Anyhow, it's called HEAP as I recall. I've looked into this before. They also include the oil reserves as a part of the number when they call them subsidies, they ignore that such is a required product and that the government doesn't actually pay retail price for that oil. It's not really a subsidy and, as such, it's rather disingenuous to claim that oil companies get subsidies with the implication that it is abnormal in any way. Governments buy paper, we might just as well say that the paper companies are subsidized by the government. No, it's just a legitimate expense that happens to consume a resource.
I think I understand their motives but I'm not sure that I understand their reasoning.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
They don't get *any* special subsidies or tax breaks.
Oil companies get to deduct expenses just like any business, which includes writing off the expenses for the first year when drilling a well, whether the well is profitable or not. Specific to the oil/gas industry are the depletion allowance and Domestic Manufacturing Deduction, which allow the industry to avoid over $1B in taxes per year.
The last 2 sure look like they are special to that industry.
file:
Depreciation seems to be something that anyone can use, I don't think it's specific to those industries but it is enumerated as specific items but, if I recall correctly, that was something they didn't want - I seem to recall reading that they were wanting to wait and write it all of. However, depreciation is something most businesses can write off or even defer and write off all at once. You can depreciate computer equipment, cars, and other resources as their value decreases. It's not really special, it's just enumerated. There's nothing magical there. I seem to recall they wanted to be able to write it all off at once which was why they ended up having to list it as depreciation instead of the tax games they were playing before that. But no, depreciation of assets is pretty normal. In fact, if you're not doing so then you're sorely missing out.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"The demand is outstripping their supply. Right now, if they could product 250,000 MS, they would be able to sell it just in America and Europe ALONE."
Quite a faith step given that they managed to sell just 8800 cars in Europe on 2014, with numbers for 2015 that won't be much higher.
About 80% of all these cars were sold in only two countries: Norway and The Netherlands, the only two countries in Europe were these cars are heavily incentivized (they go with above 30% discount at purchase plus a lot of recurring fees avoided).
And you are saying their sales could go from 9000 to 250000? Certainly not impossible, but strongly doubtful.
That is that NASA regulates and approves human space worthy craft rather than build much of it itself. Shrinking budgets and trend toward privatisation may force NASA's had. I prefer NASA pay a big role in space travel. But that may not be realistic in the long term.
Lori Garver said: "We’re not in a race in a swimming pool where everyone is racing against one another."
If you're not in a swimming pool, why are there bubbles coming out of the astronauts' helmets and spiraling upwards? If you're not in a swimming pool, why did an astronaut's suit suddenly fill with water, and "makeshift snorkels" were required?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The AC is probably a climate change denier..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Where is the profit? Even if you can do it for a reasonable cost, how do you make money?
people pay to go, same as suborbital flights, Musk has said he has done the figures and he wants to get the costs down to $500k per person, which implies that it will be in the millions for the first few trips, and implies he is going to make money out of it.
His companies are making money, so I don't think you can doubt he has planned it out to make money.
I said, America and Europe alone. That means both of those together vs. the entire world like Most car makers have.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
http://www.bmwblog.com/2015/10/19/tesla-model-s-passes-bmw-audi-getting-close-to-mercedes-in-europe/'>for numbers not much better in 2015, they are at 10,600 for first 9 months. And with sales of 2-3000 for the 2 summers months. And that was before the diesel issue was shown. My guess is that will jump them up to 3-4000 / month rather quickly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.