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We have a government spending trillions of dollars with plans to spend more and he suggests spending billions more on space travel? The real solution is to eli
by hvs 17y ago
We have a government spending trillions of dollars with plans to spend more and he suggests spending billions more on space travel? The real solution is to eliminate the regulatory barriers to private space travel and sell off NASA to interested private parties. The Moon might not be their first priority, but we would have a much more vibrant space program and the costs for larger missions would drop dramatically.
- tsally 17y agoThis idea isn't a bad one. In case anyone is interested, the most successful private space company so far is SpaceX, started by a co-founder of PayPal. It recently (December 2008) won a contract from NASA to resupply the ISS. I believe the X is because the goal of the founder is to improve the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 10. http://www.spacex.com/ http://www.spacex.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
- mixmax 17y agoThere's also http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/ http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/ started by a crazy friend of mine. From their mission statement: "Our mission is very simple. We are working towards launching a human being into space. This is a non-profit suborbital space endeavor, based entirely on sponsors and volunteers." They've done a number of successful booster tests and are well on their way to the goal.
- ErrantX 17y agoThe problem is that they worry foreign companies will muscle into the picture. Imagine if China landed the first Moon Base in 2020 and was wellestablished there before the US even landed another astronaut. Highly unlikely BUT the fear is there - and with that fear comes the other one; strategic habitation of the Moon establishes something of a superiority over other countries. Summary: the US govt. will guard NASA as long as it can. It can use it to make sure that it holds onto much of the tech (or at least controls who makes it).
- hvs 17y agoI don't disagree, and considering the amount of military hardware that NASA puts up, they will be keeping NASA for quite some time. What should be done and what is actually done are usually two completely different things when it comes to the U.S. gov't.
- ErrantX 17y agooh hell yeh agreed. I said fear. should have said irrational fear. Such things can do much for furthering tech (example: the space race) but also hamper it (example: the current NASA situation). Catch 22 :)
- gaius 17y agoDoes NASA even do that? I thought the USAF launched US military satellites?
- roundsquare 17y agoBut isn't that self defeating? If China decides that they want to go to the moon for strategic purposes and that private enterprise is the way to do it, then they will loosen up restrictions and tell the American engineers to come over and help. I'd imagine a lot of them would go to China because they see NASA getting less and less prominent. I don't see how this helps strategically.
- philwelch 17y agoCan you think of any strategic value to the moon? I can't.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y agoThere's always the "drop giant rocks on your enemies" approach, if you like the blunt end of things. On the other hand, once you're out of Earth's gravity well, you're halfway to anywhere.
- philwelch 17y ago