David Davenport puts up a whiny, snarky strawman of an argument in the comments section of this post.

…so-called Libertarians contradict themselves when they ask for the gu’ment to get out of the way … except to put up the money.

This reminds me of a teenager announcing his independence, and then asking for $20 and a car for Friday night.

Mr. Simberg, why don’t you write a column asking Bll Gates or Warren Buffet or suchlike to pay for your beloved X Prize, instead of Sugar Daddy, Uncle Sam?

Because such a column would have zero impact on any of those people. I can, however, influence government policy.

But I find this commentary quite amusing. As a libertarian, I’d be perfectly happy to see the government stop spending money on the manned spaceflight program. The problem is, the government persists in spending about five or six billion a year on it. All I’m asking is that they spend it more intelligently than continuing to hand out cost-plus contracts to a couple big contractors.

If you want to delude yourself that we don’t currently have a space industrial policy, David, go ahead.

As I said, I’d be happy to see all of the government funding go away, but as long as they insist on spending it, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable, or even particularly “libertarian,” to want to see more manned spaceflight for my (and the other taxpayers’) dollars. Prizes would almost certainly be a more effective means of achieving this than the current process.

The argument for protectionism on national defense grounds? Once can make the same argument for government subsidies such as X Prizes for atmospheric aircraft or shipbuilding or steel production.

And we get them. For example, look up the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Not to mention the fact that the few American shipyards that remain in business do so via government contracts.

If private private private enterprise can DO IT in space, why doesn’t free free free private enterprise go ahead and do it and quit whining for the government to put up an X Prize?

It is. But it would happen even faster if the government wasn’t misspending so much money, falsely demonstrating that it can’t be done more cost effectively.

David Davenport puts up a whiny, snarky strawman of an argument in the comments section of this post.

…so-called Libertarians contradict themselves when they ask for the gu’ment to get out of the way … except to put up the money.

This reminds me of a teenager announcing his independence, and then asking for $20 and a car for Friday night.

Mr. Simberg, why don’t you write a column asking Bll Gates or Warren Buffet or suchlike to pay for your beloved X Prize, instead of Sugar Daddy, Uncle Sam?

Because such a column would have zero impact on any of those people. I can, however, influence government policy.

But I find this commentary quite amusing. As a libertarian, I’d be perfectly happy to see the government stop spending money on the manned spaceflight program. The problem is, the government persists in spending about five or six billion a year on it. All I’m asking is that they spend it more intelligently than continuing to hand out cost-plus contracts to a couple big contractors.

If you want to delude yourself that we don’t currently have a space industrial policy, David, go ahead.

As I said, I’d be happy to see all of the government funding go away, but as long as they insist on spending it, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable, or even particularly “libertarian,” to want to see more manned spaceflight for my (and the other taxpayers’) dollars. Prizes would almost certainly be a more effective means of achieving this than the current process.

The argument for protectionism on national defense grounds? Once can make the same argument for government subsidies such as X Prizes for atmospheric aircraft or shipbuilding or steel production.

And we get them. For example, look up the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Not to mention the fact that the few American shipyards that remain in business do so via government contracts.

If private private private enterprise can DO IT in space, why doesn’t free free free private enterprise go ahead and do it and quit whining for the government to put up an X Prize?

It is. But it would happen even faster if the government wasn’t misspending so much money, falsely demonstrating that it can’t be done more cost effectively.

David Davenport puts up a whiny, snarky strawman of an argument in the comments section of this post.

…so-called Libertarians contradict themselves when they ask for the gu’ment to get out of the way … except to put up the money.

This reminds me of a teenager announcing his independence, and then asking for $20 and a car for Friday night.

Mr. Simberg, why don’t you write a column asking Bll Gates or Warren Buffet or suchlike to pay for your beloved X Prize, instead of Sugar Daddy, Uncle Sam?

Because such a column would have zero impact on any of those people. I can, however, influence government policy.

But I find this commentary quite amusing. As a libertarian, I’d be perfectly happy to see the government stop spending money on the manned spaceflight program. The problem is, the government persists in spending about five or six billion a year on it. All I’m asking is that they spend it more intelligently than continuing to hand out cost-plus contracts to a couple big contractors.

If you want to delude yourself that we don’t currently have a space industrial policy, David, go ahead.

As I said, I’d be happy to see all of the government funding go away, but as long as they insist on spending it, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable, or even particularly “libertarian,” to want to see more manned spaceflight for my (and the other taxpayers’) dollars. Prizes would almost certainly be a more effective means of achieving this than the current process.

The argument for protectionism on national defense grounds? Once can make the same argument for government subsidies such as X Prizes for atmospheric aircraft or shipbuilding or steel production.

And we get them. For example, look up the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Not to mention the fact that the few American shipyards that remain in business do so via government contracts.

If private private private enterprise can DO IT in space, why doesn’t free free free private enterprise go ahead and do it and quit whining for the government to put up an X Prize?

It is. But it would happen even faster if the government wasn’t misspending so much money, falsely demonstrating that it can’t be done more cost effectively.

Leonard David has an interesting status report on Brian “Rocket Guy” Walker, who Leonard and I both met in Scottsdale in April.

My Fox column is up, which has a longer discussion of today’s Senate hearings.

There’s a problem with one of the paragraphs toward the end, which will hopefully be fixed tomorrow. It should read:

They were next asked what they thought were the implications of the recent Chinese manned space launch. The responses were predictable. Dr. Huntress, ever the science bureaucrat, saw it as an opportunity for international cooperation, Dr. Zubrin as an opportunity for international competition, and Mr. Tumlinson had a response similar to mine–that the proper response to the Chinese’ socialist space program was not our own socialist space program, but rather, unlike the last time we had a space race, a free-enterprise one.

Well, it’s not a flying car, but at least we get liquid-nitrogen ice cream.

Transterrestrial web designer Bill Simon has some interesting information on why the firefighters were “short of resources.”

[update at 10 PM PST]

Here’s a running thread on the subject at Reason’s website, Hit and Run.

Steven Moore has an article about how government policy has been holding back the spread of broadband and television through overregulation. In the process, though he has a blooper with some interesting implications.

New multichannel TV and high-speed Internet providers now have the technologies to bolt a wireless local transmitter to a tower at a fraction of the cost of what it costs to design and pay NASA (or the Chinese) to launch your $300 million telecommunications satellites into orbit.

I’m a little surprised that someone as otherwise knowledgeable as Mr. Moore doesn’t know that communications satellites are launched by commercial providers–not NASA. NASA hasn’t launched a commercial communications satellite since before the destruction of the Challenger.

But setting that aside, if he’s correct, and ground-based systems start to replace satellites for telecommunications, it will put even more pressure on the commercial launch industry. This may explain why Boeing is no longer pursuing commercial contracts for the Delta. It also means that, for people who are looking for markets for new launch systems, there’s probably only one viable one right now–people who will pay to go.

Howard Lovy has a scary little email exchange about progress in molecular manufacturing.

I’m listening to the Senate hearings on the future of the space program. O’Keefe and Gehman testified earlier, at which the administrator continued to talk about how hard it is to build launch systems, and how OSP is the best we can do right now. Unfortunately, some of the senators were sympathetic to this, and there was a threat of a battle with the House over the issue.

As I type, Bob Zubrin is laying out his usual rapid-fire description of how to go to the obvious (to him) destination of Mars. He doesn’t like, or think that we need, nuclear propulsion. Nothing new.

[a few minutes later]

Now a risk management guy is talking about how to set up a safety organization at NASA.

[a few more minutes later]

Rick Tumlinson is calling for a cancellation of the Orbital Space Plane, and end to the Shuttle program, and encouraging the entrepreneurs via prizes and service contracts. He’s talking about the bounty of orbit, and the opportunity for freedom.

Now McCain is asking Huntress if we should fund the OSP. He says no. He asks Tumlinson as well, who of course says no. Now he’s asking about the implications of the China launch. Huntress says they’ll be a partner. Zubrin sees them as a competitor and wants to make it a race, calling them the tortoise to our hare.

Tumlinson is asking if we should answer their socialist space program with one of our own, or with one of free enterprise.