Well, ask, and ye shall receive.

I don't have a lot of time to post, but I want to welcome Jim McDade. He brings a different (should I say more traditional?) space policy viewpoint to Transterrestrial, and I suspect that some intrablog sparring will liven up the discussion here. While I agree with him that a Kerry presidency shows no signs of boding well for our future in space, there are a number of other things with which I would take issue, particularly in his follow-up comments (particularly his trotting out of the old "broken window" fallacy). Unfortunately, I don't have time to do so right now, because, as I said, I'm busy househunting in Florida, so I'll let others discuss it for now.

I also hope that Jim (and Andrew) will put up a brief description of who they are, for the edification of the readership.

[Update around noon eastern time]

Jim responds in comments on breaking windows. My response:

With respect to boosting economies post hurricanes, no one disputes that it benefits the local economies of the people whose communities get rebuilt. The problem is that they're not the ones who pay the opportunity costs--the taxpayers are. It's easy to make things boom locally by taxing others globally (just as it's easy to decrease entropy locally, at a greater cost in the rest of the universe). It's also easy to boost a bank robber's income by letting him rob banks. That doesn't mean that turning everyone into bank robbers will increase the national wealth.

The point is not that we shouldn't help people out after hurricanes and that it's a benefit to them when we do so, but rather that we shouldn't fool ourselves that this is in any way a good thing for the national economy, and that we should therefore wish for hurricanes.

Space programs have to be justified by their benefits to society as a whole, not by how much they benefit communities with NASA centers, at the expense of the taxpayers. If we make bad and easily refuted arguments in support of space expansion, it can be worse than making no arguments at all.

Rand, Thank you for the kindly introduction. I admire your writing and your space related efforts. I sometimes think that you are dead wrong about particular issues, but who am I to question your vast knowledge and thoughtful evaluations. I suppose that "respect" is the best way that I can describe my feelings about you and your opinions.

I am just an ordinary, average guy who stumbled into space advocacy because Debbie, one of my junior high friends, felt sorry for me after I wound up in the hospital due to a liquid rocket experiment gone bad on July 17, 1967. A couple of years later, Debbie was elected president of our school chapter of the National Honor Society and she decided that it might be good for me to give a "space update" presentation to the Society. I haven't stopped "updating" since then.

See:

http://24.73.239.154:8081/moonshot/sp_fronwk_2K.htm

Debbie was also the school newspaper editor, so she decided to use my "space cadet" activities as an inspiration for the class prophecy. See:

http://24.73.239.154:8081/moonshot/images/star/treksters.jpg

In addition to speaking to kids and civic groups, I sometimes show up at the KSC press site and write space articles for newspapers, speak on radio and television. I also occasionally coerce our UAB lecture series to bring in some "real" space luminaries. Harrison Schmitt is coming in for a lecture here at the university on 1 April. I will bore the audience for a few minutes as his "warm-up act.

I enter a plea of guilty to the "broken window" charge. In my defense (and a bit tongue in cheek), I point to Hurricane Opal in 1995 and the remarkable economic and construction boom in Fort Walton Beach/Destin, FL after disaster relief money and insurance money stimulated the local economy following that natural disaster. I used to love Fort Walton Beach and those uncrowned, dank, stinky little motels and restaurants that graced those sugar-white beaches. It was always, "no lines, no waiting" in that sleepy Gulf Coast resort.

The post-Opal injection of monies into the beach resort are resulted in an immediate invasion of architects, builders, and interior decorators who were all intent on turning my beloved deep sea fishing village into a mini-version of Miami Beach. FWB/Destin is now overcrowded with tourists and SUVs with rooftop luggage carriers. I hate going to Fort Walton these days. I am certain that the local hospitality industry considers the "opportunity cost" inflicted by the Opal disaster negligible in comparison to the return on investment of those disaster relief dollars.

Now that I think about it, wasn't Huntsville, Al a sleepy, poor farm village until NASA spending came in and spawned the creation of the nation's second largest research park? Somebody break my windows, please!

Jim, if this is your intro, I meant that you should put it up as a post (where it's more likely to be seen), rather than a comment. And the readership would probably like to know what you do professionally, beyond your interest in space advocacy.

If I may add my 2 cents. I think the reason the broken window fallacy is often disregarded is because often, like in the example of some wide ranging form of disaster relief, another factor also comes into play, which is... shaking the economy loose from a local stability (less kindly thought of as stagnation.) People are very hesitant to take a risk to make two dollars when they can very comfortably continue to make one. Once you take that one dollar away from them however, things look a lot different for now you have risk verses risk rather than risk verses status quo. When you look at what we are historical capable of doing and compare it to what we are doing today... I'm for shaking the tree even if a few windows do get broken by an occasional errant branch.

I'm sorry, Ken, but that's economic nonsense.

I agree that the broken window economic model does not make sense. I would think that the initial economic damage from lost jobs, missed work to clean up and get one's life back in order, the tax money spent on rescue & recovery, and the medical cost due to injuries would make this a bad idea.

We had 2 big floods down here in the San Antonio area during the past 5 years and none of the damage led to great economic developement. I guess its all in where the windows get broken