Hey look, a space post amongst the republican drooling (but don’t call him a republican).
Seriously, one day someone on-stage at a space convention is going to postulate that the NASA budget will go up and the audience will openly groan. I’d like to see that.
@Wad: You are aptly named. Go be a tool somewhere else.
A place with no people in it is no place at all. Space will become a “place” — with profitable businesses and the rest — once it becomes populated. The goal to be sought is, then, the establishment of a permanent and growing extraterrestrial population. Whether this is accomplished by private or public subsidy is irrelevant. Put a hundred thousand people on the moon for keeps and the profit-making businesses and the rest of it will follow.
I’ve always been a “Price per pound” fanatic, at least since high school. Lower price per pound to LEO, and all things are possible.
I think SpaceX is on the right track, by far, but I’d sure love to see somebody make a breakthrough one day, something along the lines of far higher ISP (Say, a chemistry breakthrough for fuel) that would make fully reusable SSTO easy to do.
Lewis, how civil of you.
The Nixon quote about giving 1% of the Federal budget to NASA is bogus. Nixon didn’t make that kind of promise to anybody or any group at any time, and if sometimes it sounded like he was making such a promise, it turned out not to be — look at the history of the Negative Income Tax for examples.
Moreover, if Nixon had made such a promise involving NASA. it would have featured in several dozen books about NASA history and space policy, OMB officials and GAO papers and various committees considering future NASA policy, etc., all would have cited the remark. None have. Congressmen and senators would have quoted that remark. None have. It would have featured in newspaper editorials and magazines and SPAN covereage of the space agency. Never happens.
G. Harry Stine had the right idea in 1982 – delete NASA and allocate the money spent on it annually (i.e about $20 billion or so) as tax credits to American firms that invest in space development.
This eliminates NASA distorting space markets by picking winners and losers.
Hey look, a space post amongst the republican drooling (but don’t call him a republican).
Seriously, one day someone on-stage at a space convention is going to postulate that the NASA budget will go up and the audience will openly groan. I’d like to see that.
@Wad: You are aptly named. Go be a tool somewhere else.
A place with no people in it is no place at all. Space will become a “place” — with profitable businesses and the rest — once it becomes populated. The goal to be sought is, then, the establishment of a permanent and growing extraterrestrial population. Whether this is accomplished by private or public subsidy is irrelevant. Put a hundred thousand people on the moon for keeps and the profit-making businesses and the rest of it will follow.
I’ve always been a “Price per pound” fanatic, at least since high school. Lower price per pound to LEO, and all things are possible.
I think SpaceX is on the right track, by far, but I’d sure love to see somebody make a breakthrough one day, something along the lines of far higher ISP (Say, a chemistry breakthrough for fuel) that would make fully reusable SSTO easy to do.
Lewis, how civil of you.
The Nixon quote about giving 1% of the Federal budget to NASA is bogus. Nixon didn’t make that kind of promise to anybody or any group at any time, and if sometimes it sounded like he was making such a promise, it turned out not to be — look at the history of the Negative Income Tax for examples.
Moreover, if Nixon had made such a promise involving NASA. it would have featured in several dozen books about NASA history and space policy, OMB officials and GAO papers and various committees considering future NASA policy, etc., all would have cited the remark. None have. Congressmen and senators would have quoted that remark. None have. It would have featured in newspaper editorials and magazines and SPAN covereage of the space agency. Never happens.
G. Harry Stine had the right idea in 1982 – delete NASA and allocate the money spent on it annually (i.e about $20 billion or so) as tax credits to American firms that invest in space development.
This eliminates NASA distorting space markets by picking winners and losers.