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> … said Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon. “We pay taxes on plane tickets. Billionaires flying into space — producing no scientific value — sh
by SkyMarshal 5y ago
> … said Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon. “We pay taxes on plane tickets. Billionaires flying into space — producing no scientific value — should do the same, and then some!”
That was a stupid thing to say. This is the start of the commodification of manned space travel. The more we do it, the better we get at it, the more we learn about it. That’s scientifically valuable. But it’s not free, and getting the costs down is an important enabling factor.
- nvalis 5y agoJust like it was the case with planes and even cars at the beginning, they once were a toy for only the rich.
- true_religion 5y agoTo be fair, when the first powered flight and first cars were being driven… the US had no income tax. To me, that says all these events happened too long ago to be easily comparable to the situation today.
- sebazzz 5y ago> The more we do it, the better we get at it, the more we learn about it. That’s scientifically valuable. Can you elaborate on that? Going into orbit, docking to a space station, and de-orbiting is already well understood. If it is about the amount of time it takes to so these activities, that is mostly due to safety or physics.