Whose name is missing from this article? Is this a separate deal from Benson Space Company?

I can’t imagine any other operator even wanting to use Burt’s concept. It was a nice stunt to win the prize, but it’s certainly not scalable to an orbital system, and there are plenty of ways (perhaps even better ones) to do suborbital without it. But a patent, however pointless, probably makes some investor (perhaps including Branson, who is reportedly part owner of TheSpaceShipCompany) feel more financially secure.

And from The Nation. I’m shocked, shocked.

The whole saga is Dickens for the new millennium, but without the other half. So it’s up to us scolds at The Nation to point out the obvious. Simonyi might have spent his money fighting AIDS, or building housing for Hurricane Katrina survivors, or providing clean water to developing nations, or mosquito netting and medicine for malaria patients, or musical instruments for needy, photogenic, musically-gifted inner city school children or…well, depressingly, the list goes on and on. But picking on the follies of the rich is easy, and in this case, not particularly fun. Just think of the carbon footprint a Soyuz rocket leaves!

But the next time the bards of capitalism sing the praises of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the outstanding generosity of the mega-rich in the age of extreme wealth (and extreme poverty), I’ll trot out Charles Simonyi’s space odyssey as counter-example.

Indeed, Simonyi’s spending habits are a window into how the world’s wealthiest citizens consume and contribute. Worth about $1 billion, Simonyi’s no Scrooge McDuck. He’s endowed a chair at Oxford and funded the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In 2003, Simonyi finished 23rd in the Slate 60, the annual ranking of largest American charitable contributions, when he gave $47 million to start the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences. But for each act of noblesse oblige, there’s an extravagance. In Simonyi’s case, not only is he the 5th space tourist ever, he also owns the world’s 39th largest yacht, which is so big that one could, as Power and Motoryacht Magazine tell us, “easily mistake her for a military vessel.”

Woe betide a rich person who doesn’t give enough of their money away to satisfy Mr. Kim. Somehow, for people like him, I don’t think that there is ever enough.

[Sunday evening update]

Mr. Kim is taking quite a(n appropriate) beating in comments, including one from frequent commenter here, Brian Swiderski, under the pseudonym “Space Duck.”

What was once a huge story–a private citizen going into space with his own funds, has now become almost routine. Charles Simonyi is on his way to the ISS, on a Russian launcher. Docking will occur in a couple days. You can follow his exploits at his web site.

And when someone goes to ISS, or into orbit at all, on a non-Russian launcher with their own funds, that will be big news.

Rudy Giuliani made a campaign stop in Tallahassee the other day, and offered the assembled these thoughts:

He said one of his first acts as president would be to put the country on a path to produce more ethanol than Brazil, re-start nuclear-power-plant construction, and heavily invest in solar power.

Giuliani said the United States should prioritize energy independence much like it did the space race, when Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson fired up the gears of industry and imagination after the Soviet Union beat the U.S. into space.

The result was a bipartisan thrust to the moon that transcended several presidencies and spawned a generation of national pride and scientific spin-offs.

”Politics aside and national interests first. Not only did it help us ultimately win the Cold War, it helped us in countless other ways, in scientific development and products,” Giuliani said…

…”We can do the same thing with energy independence. But we’ve got to have a president who knows how to get things done.”
He said he supported continuing to aggressively pursue space exploration. He also said more oil drilling should be an option explored to reduce reliance on foreign oil.

Two points. First, few people who talk about making energy development a “moral equivalent of war” have actually thought the notion through, particularly when it comes to comparing things to Apollo.

We’re all used to hearing people who say “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we (cure world poverty, have world peace, fill-in-the-blank). What’s foolish about this statement, usually, is that they’re comparing a purely technological achievement, amenable to sustained applied engineering, to social problems that are not solvable by throwing money at teams of engineers.

But people who use the argument to say that we should solve the energy problem are seemingly on more solid ground, since this is, in theory, something solvable in that manner.

Of course, the problem is that it’s still an apples/oranges comparison. Solving the energy problem involves coming up with cost-effective solutions for new energy sources that are competitive with fossil fuels, and particularly petroleum. But Apollo wasn’t about cost effectiveness. It was about achieving a technical goal regardless of cost. So it still remains a flawed comparison. Certainly, it is to be hoped that, by investing large amounts of money, we can come up with processes that can increase the supply and reduce the cost of non-greenhouse energy sources. But actually, history doesn’t encourage us that when a government program pours large amounts of money into a search for a technology, particularly an energy technology, that it has a fruitful outcome. Synfuels and windmills, anyone?

Moreover, that’s a goal that companies should be (and in fact are) seeking regardless of whether or not there is a large taxpayer-funded initiative. No one would expect a private company to fund Apollo (which is not to say that no one should expect a private company to send people to the moon), but one would expect private companies to look for lower-cost replacements for current energy sources, since this would provide a huge payoff.

The second problem is that the phrase “space exploration” is so nebulous. When it comes out of a politician’s mouth, it’s like mom and apple pie. Who’s against “space exploration”? Yes, there are a few, but they aren’t a significant voting block. One can be in favor of space exploration, but that doesn’t mean that one favors space settlement, space development, affordable access to space, etc. It could be “manned” or “unmanned” “space exploration.” I doubt if Giuliani has given any thought to these issues (few politicians other than Newt Gingrich have). I suspect that he is simply expressing a motherhood statement on a convenient stump.