Space Entrepreneur Opines Donald Trump Could Do an Inspirational Space Program (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace opened his new Twitter account with the suggestion that Donald Trump, the mercurial businessman who is running for president, might just give the United States an inspirational space program. Then, thinking better of the idea, Bigelow deleted the tweet and replaced it with an image of the Olympus inflatable space module, which his company envisions as being the basis of a commercial space station.

Comments

Paging Mr Adams

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't we learn that the real purpose of the President was to distract attention away from those in power?

He's right

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I think most of the planet would support sending Trump into space.

Re:He's right

[PopeRatzo]

Just curious, are you the only person in Sweden who supports Trump? Or are there others?

There is a very active neo-Nazi movement in Sweden. They're guys who talk a lot about "white genocide" and their "Viking heritage". There's a fairly well-known podcast they run, called "Red Ice Radio" that deals entirely with these issues. Note: they started out as an "alternative" podcast about paranormal stuff and conspiracies and UFOs and stuff, and just morphed over time into full-blown virulent Nazi.

The Swedish neo-Nazi movement is mostly made up of people who are pissed about all the dark-complexioned people invading their lovely field of vision and luring away their women. You've never seen a more pathetic bunch.

Oh, and they're also on about feminism and "PC culture" (which basically means they're pissed about not being able to get dates).

Re:He's right

[CanadianMacFan]

I took it to mean that if Trump won then there would be a race to colonize space in order to escape the planet.

Re:He's right

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well, I for one am glad that the Swedish media is actively declining to report mass rapes by the Muslim immigrants that the Swedish left has imported. Why did they do it? Well, to avoid giving the Swedish right (apparently they do exist) any proof that their opinions were backed up by facts. Good job Sweden, and keep up the good work. Keeping the right from political power is more important than keeping women from rape.

Re:He's right

[Yoda222]

I don't know where you live, but as far as I know, in Sweden, the police is not a media.

Re:He's right

[grcumb]

Well, I for one am glad that the Swedish media is actively declining to report mass rapes by the Muslim immigrants that the Swedish left has imported.

It was the Swedish media who broke the story, genius. The police were the ones who wouldn't talk about it. Did you even read the fucking article you linked to?

Why did they do it? Well, to avoid giving the Swedish right (apparently they do exist) any proof that their opinions were backed up by facts.

Yeah, opinions that are not borne out by facts are shameful, aren't they? I mean you would know, right?

Re: He's right

[loufoque]

The main reason is that people are unhappy about the immigration policies, but no "normal" party even acknowledges that there is a problem.
I've read that in Germany, Angela Merkel, who let 1 million refugees in her country, even said there is no room in her government to even criticize immigration policy. When you can't even criticize policies, there is something fundamentally fucked up about your government.
Meanwhile women get raped and the police does nothing, leading to citizens organizing themselves as militias.
It's gonna blow up eventually. All those crazy progressive and permissive policies will just lead to more fascism down the line.

Re:He's right

[Coren22]

Who do you prefer over Trump?

Hillary broke the law, it is amazing she isn't in jail yet. The newest one is that she took bribes for State Department contracts.
Sanders wants to give away money, without talking about where he will get it.
I can't think of anyone better on the GOP side except maybe Christie who got smeared so heavily that he has been a non starter.

I don't see why...

[TWX]

...a person whose principal businesses seem to be geared around fairly short-term returns. Gambling businesses are all about the house making revenue immediately, and his real estate holdings seem to be based on building as big and as gaudy and filling that space as quickly as possible.

The Space Program is not an instant-return kind of thing. It took the better part of a decade, spanning three presidential administrations, before the announced goal of putting a man on the Moon was realized. It took a similar amount of time to work the kinks out of the Shuttle, such that Skylab was lost when needed missions to service it didn't come to fruition.

Even the nature of commercial space now is not a fast process. No commercial launch companies are man-rated yet, and I'd bet that while SpaceX wants to be, they're smart enough to not rush it too fast lest they have a setback-inducing failure that destroys confidence in the company.

Re:I don't see why...

[Rei]

It was a stupid tweet. Trump is on the record making it clear where his priorities are.

The local boy laughed, told the presidential candidate "yeah," and said: "I want to know your opinions on NASA."

Trump wanted to make sure he correctly heard the question, turning to those around him to clarify if the boy was asking about the national space program or the North American Free Trade Agreement. A woman near the boy shouted: "Space!"

"You know, in the old days, it was great," Trump told the boy, along with an audience of more than 600. "Right now, we have bigger problems — you understand that? We've got to fix our potholes. You know, we don't exactly have a lot of money."

One can agree with his sentiment or not (which he's made before), but he's certainly not going to be doing anything "inspirational" with NASA.

Re:I don't see why...

[kamapuaa]

Casinos are extremely expensive to build. Of course they don't re-coup the money almost immediately, or there would be approximately ten thousand times more casinos than there currently are.

Generally speaking, Trump is a property developer, not merely a speculator. He makes long-term investments that will not pay off for the long term. I am NOT a Trump fan or apologist, but get real.

Long-term investments are not a rare thing. They are not punished by the stock market. One technology company after the other is losing money quarter after quarter, yet has a very high market capitalization because investors see a possibility of long-term investment. Amazon, for example, is only now beginning to actually earn a profit after a decade+ of being a hot stock, and even now the market capitalization only makes sense if the markets are looking at long-term growth.

Re:I don't see why...

[Spy Handler]

Trump's casinos have done poorly and he most likely regrets getting involved in the gambling racket. He's done very well in office towers and apartment buildings, however.

Re:I don't see why...

[cavreader]

Trump will be no better or worse than any other President but he would definitely be very entertaining to watch. People tend to think the President of the US has the power to do anything they want but they are very limited on what they can and cannot do. It's a Presidency not a Monarchy. I don't think he has thought out what he is really getting himself into if he wins for two reasons. Number one is he cannot fire Congress if they don't do what he says or dismiss Supreme Court judges when they make a ruling against his wishes . Number two is that on being elected a President is required to put all their financial holdings, bank accounts, and investments into a blind trust for the duration of their term. I don't see how Trump could live with that requirement. He can't run his business empire and the US at the same time for the simple reason that there are not enough hours in the day.

Re:I don't see why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. Shuttering NASA and pushing for private space exploration is the future anyway. It's well past time to get the US government out of space exploration.

Re:I don't see why...

[JoeMerchant]

You know, we don't exactly have a lot of money.

Spoken like a true Depression survivor's child... And, if anyone recalls any history at all, how did we manage our way out of the Depression? (Hint: It wasn't by sticking our remaining money in a locked vault.)

You want the potholes fixed? Great idea, let's do that. Hell, let's give infrastructure a boost back up to 3% of the federal budget, from the 2.5% where it's currently at, but not at the expense of shutting NASA down. Pushing NASA back up from 0.5% to 1% of the budget, and education up from 6% to 8%, and energy and environmental up from 3% to 4%, while reducing military spending from 54% to 50% would seem to be a good way to make this country stronger, long term.

Re:Endorsing Trump: The official 2016 play for att

[sexconker]

THIS IS WOLF BLITZER AND YOU'RE IN THE SITUATION ROOM

Breaking News: CNN is reporting that billionaire real estate goon Donald Trump has just announced his official endorsement of Donald Trump. We at CNN cannot yet confirm these reports, but we have no standards so we're still reporting them. I repeat: We have unconfirmed reports that Donald Trump has officially endorsed Donald Trump. These reports are coming from CNN. We at CNN will bring you more as the non-story develops.

THIS IS WOLF BLITZER AND YOU'RE IN THE SITUATION ROOM

It wasn't deleted

[NicknameUnavailable]

The author just happens to be a moron, like most people so virulently opposed to politicians.

Not classy enough.

[TsuruchiBrian]

We will have a huge solid gold space station with a casino and hot chicks that aren't fat. We will make Chinese workers do the job, but the wages will go to American workers.

Re:Not classy enough.

[TsuruchiBrian]

OK I can see that. Mexico pays the American workers a salary for Chinese workers to do all the work. It will be a tough job to convince Mexico to pay for something they won't get, and to convince China to work without getting paid, but negotiating is what Trump is good at.

Re: Making fun of Trump is easy - HAIR! POMP! LOL!

[dnaumov]

You mean the bailout that was repaid back with interest so the taxpayer made a PROFIT on the whole affair?

Re:Advertising 101.

[laird]

According to people who work for Trump he's not particularly smart - mainly a raging egotist who's pretty good at structuring deals so as to stiff vendors and partners, so business people really don't like dealing with him. Perhaps as a result, or just due to bad judgement on his part, his business hasn't been terribly successful either - he started by his Dad giving him a ton of money, which in total he managed to grow at half the rate of the stock market, making him a dramatically below-average investment.