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Tapering Mars prizes:
Year -First Prize ---- Second Prize ---- Third Prize ---- Fourth Prize
2014 $100 billion ---- $70 billion ------- $40 billion
2015 $105 billion ---- $75 billion ------- $45 billion
2016 $110 billion ---- $80 billion ------- $50 billion
2017 Mars Mission -- $85 billion ------- $55 billion ---- $25 billion
2018 ----------------- $90 billion ------- $60 billion ---- $30 billion
2019 ----------------- $95 billion ------- $65 billion ---- $35 billion
Just as an aside. If you undermine George Bush, you will undermine what ever manned Mars program there is. Democrats will surely go after it just like they went after the Iraq War. the Mars program is closely associated with Bush, His Father pushed it, the Democrats defeated it, George W. Bush revived it and canceled the Shuttle. How much do you want to bet that the Democrats will try to cancel it or defund it, once they get into power? John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were aberrations, their kind perished at about the time the Democrats switched sides on the Vietnam War.
If democracy is only fair and just then why do we need to force it at the point of a gun?
Because others supress it at the point of a sword.
My, your very argumentative today.
I would take it as a given that all societes must run as democracies because all governments must have the public trust, and they spend public funds. That government should govern with the consent of the governed, is a basic principle.
What other government would you propose besides democracy?
If a government isn't a democracy, it is something else - a government that rules by force without the concent of the government. Most Arab governments rule without their publics consent, simply by virtue that they got most of the guns.
I don’t believe that Iraqi’s blame us for making them commit crimes. Which Iraqi’s are saying that? As for Iraq having these problems prior to our ‘invasion and liberation’ from the hands of a lone despot, it now appears that instead of a lone despot perpetrating rape, pillage, and mass murder- we have nobly replaced the lone despot with an endless number of blood thirsty criminals who rape, pillage and commit mass murder.
You know perfectly well that Saddam Hussein didn't rape and murder all these people with his own hands, instead he had his henchmen do his bidding.
So their were alot of people doing rapes and murders under Saddam's direction, but that still makes it alot of rapes and murders. The difference now is that alot of these criminals are either acting on their own or at the behest of a number of armed groups operating in the country. Does it really matter if Saddam's man is your murderer or if its an Al Qaeda man? Also alot of Iraqis asked for our help to over throw Saddam and so we overthrew him.
A striking success this policy of foreign intervention without just cause or reason!
Oh boo hoo! Poor Saddam! Sniff sniff.
And they are doing a bang up job of that, right? I mean, 8 years of Republican control of Congress and the White House is an obvious sign that Big media has an anti Republican agenda and that they control who and how we vote as Americans! I mean, it is plain as day that Big Media is liberally biased and affecting how Americans vote! My GOD!
They are trying, I didn't say they were automatically succeeding. Alot of Americans, just like myself discount what they report. Obviously their intention is to influence the politics of my country on the sly, but to maintain viewership they must at least maintain the appearance of a disinterested News Organization, everytime the give biased coverage they alienate some people, viewership declines and down goes their advertising revenue. They try to operate it as a business most of the time while saving it for crucial moments when it comes time to Bash President Bush and his party, especially just prior to an election. Polls have become notoriously unreliable on the eve of an election. News organizations publish exit polls prior to the closing just so voters of a certain stripe will maybe get discouraged and not bother to vote "as their candidate doesn't stand a chance anyway according to the polls."
Reuters did not fabricate photos- they were duped by a photographer. Big difference.
They were willing dupes, they did not want to know how the photos were obtained, they just liked the bad press it gave the Israelis, and so they ran with it, letting their critics find out they were frauds. Obviously they were more interested inundermining the Israeli war than in being a reputable news organization. If they were interested, they would examine the photos and check their authenticity, that an amature independent blogger found this out and not the proffessionals ar Reuters speaks volumes. Naturally they have independent reporters so that they have a scapegoat and plausible deniablity when their fraud gets found out, but they were more interested in the political damage this may do to the Israelis than in getting their facts straight, and you know what, it worked! The Arabs howled in protest and forced the UN and the USA to pressure the Israelis to withdraw and by the time this fraud was founf out, it was too late. The Arab street believed what it wanted to believe, and "any news report that says the Jews are bad, must be true, right?"
Americans did not invade Iraq for no reason- they were duped by their leaders. But in the end, in a democracy, we have only ourselves to blame. We get what we’re worth.
By Saddam Hussien. Either he tricked us into believing that he had WMD before the fact, or he hid the WMD he had, some in Syria, and some were found in Iraq, but the Liberals by that time were in full "Get Bush" mode, and they wouldn't let little things like 500 barrels of chemical weapons get in their way.
Nonsense, unless you are offering an unlimited number of prizes then it isn't open-ended, sustained presence. And if you do offer an unlimited number of "prizes," then its no longer a prize system, and the government might as well pay a contractor directly.
You say that there is no harm in the government offering such a prize, but then you go right around and propose the government pay money to a hypothetical mega insurance company. Money down the drain, even in the unlikely event the government would make such an arrangement with any corporation, and assuming any insurance company would make such a vast policy.
Actually it was just a suggestion. Government could actually act as its own insurance company, it simply works out an agreement that it would legally be requires to sell bonds to pay for the prize if somebody won it. If no one wins it, the government doesn't run a deficit, no big deal.
And frankly, even $30Bn is barely enough to get there and and half-heartedly do any exploring, and thats with NASA's pre-existing infrastructure. So you would not even have any return. The size of the prizes must be really staggering, like $100Bn, and at this point it just gets silly. Nobody, especially us, could nor should take such an idea seriously.
Ok, so what if the government does offer a $100bn prise from day one? Suppose tommorow or the next day its in session Congress appropriates $100 billion for a Mars prize, the President signs it and it takes effect on January 1, 2007 and it lasts until midhight on Janaury 1, 2008 at which time that $100 billion goes back into general funds as revenue for fiscal 2008, if no one wins it, it costs the government nothing. It can be a bill that contigent upon someone winning the prize the Government sells $100 billion in bonds and awards the amount to the winner, otherwise the money is not spend, there is no deficit and it costs the taxpayer nothing. I think it is safe to say that the chances of someone winning this prize for fiscal 2007 are nil. If the prize is reenacted for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 etc, the chances improve however as companies respond. The government ups the ante each time. First prise $100 billion, second prize $70 billion, third prize $40 billion, increment the prizes by $5 billion each year so that next year its $105bn, 75bn, and 45bn respectively. if someone wins the fist prize add a fourth prize for $20 bn and increment it $5bn per year. we do after all want the companies to develop cheaper ways of getting to Mars. If $100 bn covers their startup costs then additional missions with established infrastructure will cost less. if someone fails to get their first and comes in second instead, the $70bn prise will limit their downside loss, so you can have three giant companies competing with each other and all three will get a prize of they all send successful missions, but remember the money does't actually get spend until someone wins.
I fail to see how this nonsense about a prize system is even remotely plausable versus what Austin Stanley and myself have stated.
Are you listening? I didn't say a one time prise, I said a series of prizes. If you say that no company would go for them, there is really no harm in the government offering them, as it doesn't really cost the government any money unless they're collected. They are appropriated and if not collected they go back as revenue to be appropriated the next year. tax payers only pay for the added amount. Over 6 years at a rate of $5 billion a year, the amount will reach $30 billion, and by paying a premium to an insurance company, the government can offer $30 billion on the first year. An insurance company can offer a policy that pays the difference between the amount in the pot ans $30 billion. If you think it an unlikely event that the prize will be collected before 6 years then the Insurance company risks nothing.
Ok, maybe its an over-generalization of the Iraqi people, but its very frusterating when they commit the crimes and then blame us for making them commit them. Iraqi society had these problems before we got there. it is not our fault that Sunnis are the minority and they don't like it and so violently resist democracy. Democracy is only fair and just.
I'm not sure I trust the News reports or opinion polls either, it seems the News organizations have a lot of good new to report, but if they did report it, they would boost the chances or republicans, and so they've turned it into the Mark Foley show, even though Mark Foley has resigned, they are saying, the Speaker must have known, because he supposedly prys into every private communication between all Republican congressmen and ex-pages, and if some former aid says he brought this to the attention of the speaker on his word, he could not possibly be lying for political reasons could he? I could also say I saw Bill Clinton in silk stalkings running around butt naked in the streets of Chappaqua, now where's the News Media to report my story? Why don't they take me on my word, that I'm not lying? Is it because it wouldn't suit their political purpose? That the Newsmedia is in fact biased in favor of one political party over another.
Reuters fabricated photos of the Israeli bombings in Lebanon, why couldn't they fabricate an opinion poll which says 6 out of 10 Iraqis want to see US soldiers dead? I think the Media wants to see the US to lose this war so Democrats can get elected, so therefore they'll report and say anything to undermine morale or support for this war, even lie perhaps. The "Get Bush" mentality makes all their reports suspect.
So the cards on the table declare that western powers once again draw lines in the sand and tell people they are such and such a group? Yes, that seems to be working...
No, merely that we stop agonizing over everything that might people not like us when they already don't like us. We don't have to run around pummelling them into the dirt at every chance, but we don't have to bend over backwards to be friendly either.
The important thing to remember is that "self determination" as applied to nations. . . is an illusion. If it is in our vital interest to exert a certain degree of force and the recipient of that force can't stop it. . . Well, so history flows.
And the crude must flow as well.
Our interests lie in the resources in that area. Stability is required, and we have to pay a price for it. That's *the* card on the table. All of this that we are going through is simply a higher ante, so to speak.
Indeed, the ante is now for dominance of the planet and the future direction of human civilization. The "West as the center of the world" paradigm that has stood for centuries is in danger of toppling and not just because of a few Arabs that blow themselves up. The foundation needs shoring up and one way or another a society can only become or remain dominant at someone else's expense.
As for stability, in the Middle East it's illusory. Artificial economies in nations run by at-best unpopular and often hated autocrats separated by artificial borders is not stability. It's tension waiting to snap.
It would be nice if our energy supply came from a sensible source like the Sun, rather than a bunch of prayerful militants that attack us for not converting to their religion.
Obviously, everyone knows that Beer is a vegtable.
We can survive without middle east oil, we did so before and we can do so again. My weapon of choice to use against the Middle East would be a car that doesn't run on gasoline or diesel, and that replaces those cars that do, not just here, but in the whole World, then the Arab World will reap what it has sowed in bad customer relations when it diverted some of its petrodollars to kill some of us.
Sure thing. While you're at it, why not ask for world peace, equality among all men, and a terraformed Mars by next Christmas. But then, I'm a bit disconnected.
Reducing the demand for oil results in a drop in price of oil which in turn makes the use of oil more economical which drives further reliance on oil.
In order to really undermine the entire cycle simply outline above, the world would need to change the entire underlying infrastructure of energy generation. If you have about a hundred years or so, maybe it could be done- maybe.
But without vast technological breakthroughs (and landing a man on mars is easier by comparison) oil will always be a cheap and economical way of getting the job done.
The key thing is to internalize all the costs of Arab oil, not just the costs of the price of the barrel of oil, but they costs that the Arabs impose on us, when they use those petrodollars to wage war on us and kill Americans, we also have to internalize the costs of our additional security measures to protect ourselves from them. All the security measures at airports, should not be paid for by the airlines but by the arabs that sell us the oil, it is their riches that are paying for the madrassas that train suicide bombers and terrorists. An imported crude oil tax will change matters significantly. Its funny that the libs only talk about a gasoline tax, I think an imported crude oil tax would be more effective, one that doesn't punish domestic oil companies for the actions of foreign terrorists funded by arab petrodollars. I want out domestic oil companies to profit from the higher oil prices caused by import duties on crude oil, that way they can take those profits and do some domestic oil exploration, and use some of that money to develop alternatives to oil. And the Government can take the proceeds from those oil tariffs and put up big prizes that reward energy companies and car companies if they build cars and infrastructure to fuel those cars using alternatives to petroleum-derived gasoline. The prize system I mentions to encourage private companies to go to Mars can also work here. Once the alternatives to oil are established and the infrastructure is in place, the Arabs can then feel the pain of all the bad customer relations thay have sown over so many years.
If the private corporations are already running the missions, they will strive to reduce costs to strengthen their bottom line, its a part of their nature. A government agency that is doing it won't make any particular effort to reduce costs, why should they? It is not their money, and they are not being evaluationg on their ability to reduce costs. A governments cost consciousness is intermitent, they are usually only concerned about costs when congressional bean counters are in the room. The question of survival is not a concern for a government agency. Arrayed against those government bean counters that want to reduce costs and balance the budget are those special interests, and labor unions that want to preserve jobs, their are congressmen and Denators whose votes are crucial to getting the appropriations,and if labor unions made contributions totheir campaigns, they will tend to exert pressure on the contractors to give into the Union's demands if they want the contract, it is the government's money after all and a cost plus contract, so most contractors simply shrug their shoulders and give the labor leaders whatever they ask for, and they pass on the additional cost to the government, why shouldn't they, its not their bottom line?
Governments are typically concerned with many different factors, private corporations are concerned with only one, their profits. Now who do you think is more likely to cut costs, buerocrats who want to preserve their jobs, and congressmen who want to help them to do it, or the CEO of a private corporation who wants to keep his job and satisfy the shareholders who hired him in the first place, but giving them the returns and profitability that they ask for? The prize money makes them jump through hoops to get that prise money, they have to get humans to Mars, get them to do useful scientific work and bring them safely back to Earth to win the prize, and private corporations will try to do those things as efficiently as possible, they are always looking for ways to make things cheaper, government agencies are not.
Most people do not appreciate foreigners with guns breaking down their doors- even if the foreigners are doing so in the name of 'freedom'.
You and every red blooded american would be deeply offended and in arms if a foriegn army occupied your soil. I doubt you would greet them and cherish them for long if they stayed around for years while crime and violence escalated around you.
meh.
It is not US forces that are commiting the crime or escalating the violence. Everytime a muslim blows himself up in the middle of a crowded square, it should be obvious to everybody that it was not a US soldier. The violence and the crime are a characteristic of the muslim community in Iraq, the US army did not cring it with them. Iraqis are by their nature a violent people, we saw how violence they were when they invaded Kuwait, perhaps it was not just their government directing them toward that violence at that time, maybe they just love to kill and maim, that being so, I don't know why they are complaining about violence that is their own community's doing and saying the US caused it all. Do they expect us to put them all in straight jackets?
So you are saying the US Army should assemble all the rockets, build the space vehicles and launch the mission because it is more efficient than the private sector? The US Army does have a large supply of manpower. Instead of fighting and shooting, they could be put on an assembly line and trained to do a number of tasks that are required to get to Mars, and if they don't follow orders, they get court marshalled.
The bold part of you're statment higlights the problem with this plan. Risk. Space travel is VERY risky. Both from a simple human point of view, and even more so from a finacial point of view. Rockets malfunction, blow up, people even die. These sorts of failures are costly both in terms of human life and (more importantly to a coporation) capital. Space-X is struggling with this very issue right now.
Now for the goverment, this risk is managable. The gov. has basicaly limitless pockets and does not demand immediat tangible results (ie money) as a return on its investment. This is not true for a corporation, which has both limited finacal resources, and must show a return on it's investment. And when dealing with the billions of dollars you are talking about as 'seed' money for a space enterprise, coporations (or any other finacer with that kind of money) are very averse to risk. The private sector simply cannot afford to throw away that kind of money on a failed mission attempt.
What is $30 billion to the US economy? It is about 1% of Federal spending, but as a part of the economy as a whole it is a much smaller fraction. Last I looked at the figures Gross Domestic Product for the USA was $12 trillion, as a fraction, it would be a mere 0.25% of the US economy, and I didn't say foreign firms couldn't compete. NASA will give US firms access to US technology such as the Ares rocket, but the Russians can come up with their own technology and spend their own equivalent of $30 billion. I also mentioned that there would be three prizes. The first prize for the company that gets their first, the second prize for the company that gets their second, and the thrid prize for the company that gets there third, and as prizes are won, we would add even more prizes to that list and do so as long as we want the missions to continue. The only castasrpophic risk is if something bad were to happen in space because the corporation launched the mission too early. Haste makes waste as they say. With greater risk, greater reward is demanded. The prizes would just keep growing over time until their sufficient to induce activity on the part of the private sector. A billion dollars is not as much as it used to be, both in terms of inflation and as a proportion of the US economy. Multi-billion dollar companies fail all the time, witness Enron, and the US economy has survived them. There is no such thing as too big to fail, if there is, then it becomes a government run corporation and it ends up just as inefficient as any other government agency.
If a private space mission fails, then the only one to blame is the corporate management for not taking sufficient safety precautions. Even if the rewards are greater than what a government agency would spend to do the same thing, and just look at how efficiently the ISS was managed, a competion does allow for mission design to evolve and become more efficient. The rule under capitalism is survival of the fittest, under government it is survival of the fattest. Efficiency is not always rewarded under government management, their is a conflict between doing things efficiently and creating jobs for one's congressional district, getting contributions from the local Unions who are working on these projects and money gets thrown around to make things happen politically rather than being spent on the most efficient mission designs.
Again dealing with risk is one of the few places the goverment has a critical advantage over private coporations. Because of the reasons I pointed out before, deepest pockets and no need for immediat financial return. Private coporations can't match this, and frankly don't want to. If you look back in history, virtualy every large scale, high-risk program (like Apollo, Dams, Canals, transcontiental railroads, ect) were either goverment run or basicaly goverment financed.
Government has deep pockets alright, it builds bridges to nowhere, it builds spaceships that do not fly and then abandons them, it compromises the designs of spaceships based on politics as the Shuttle was, it tries to do one thing, changes its mind, decides to do another, it orders one thing, then adds requirements to it while it is being built and their are cost overruns, forcing engineers to chisel it down to reduce costs and balance the budget. With private corporations, its always the bottom line, it it can realize a profit by going to Mars it will. I don't think any of those companies are too big to fail. If people are put out of work, they go find a job with another company. with the prize constantly growing, someones eventually going to win it, and the government doesn't really spend a dime until its actually won. $5 billion a year over the next 6 years is $30 billion. if the accumulation is predicatable corporations are going to be able to tell what the prize is going to be for any given year. So while government is adding $5 billion the pot, private corporations may be raising $2 billion dollars per year in private capital markets, all to achieve a 250% return on their investment. For each individual stockholder, its not $2 billion; it is whatever he invested, it might be $250, or it might be $2,500. Makes little difference to him what he's investing in just as long as he receives a return on that investment, it could be oil rigs, or it could be a venture to win the Mars Prize money. A return is a return.
All you really need is an agency that awards prizes for missions accomplished. The scientists and engineers working for the government aren't inherently smarter than those working for private corporations. All we really need is to supply a reason for private corporations to go to Mars. Private corporations already supply everything NASA has and uses. If Lockheed can build an Ares V rocket for NASA, it can also build one for itself, it uses the same assembly process to do both. Government Bureocrats don't work any magic that makes space travel happen, they simply pay for it and that is all. Almost all the expertise is in the hands of private corporations. Whats needed is to bring some competition into the mix. NASA should simply state what it wants and award prizes for whoever accomplish these goals. I don't know what an international space agency would do that would be any different. We could march the US Army in and train them to mbe scientists and engineers and how to assemble and launch rockets, but I don't see how that would be any more cost effective than if we let a private corporation do it.
Detroit says 'Beer tree'?
Interesting analogy. Weird. But interesting.
So the cards on the table declare that western powers once again draw lines in the sand and tell people they are such and such a group? Yes, that seems to be working...
The cards on the table...
Our interests lie in the resources in that area. Stability is required, and we have to pay a price for it. That's *the* card on the table. All of this that we are going through is simply a higher ante, so to speak.
You seem a little disconnected...
Beer does not grow on a tree.
We can survive without middle east oil, we did so before and we can do so again. My weapon of choice to use against the Middle East would be a car that doesn't run on gasoline or diesel, and that replaces those cars that do, not just here, but in the whole World, then the Arab World will reap what it has sowed in bad customer relations when it diverted some of its petrodollars to kill some of us.
We can't solve their problems. We can encourage them to keep their problems to themselves otherwise we'll give them greater problems! I'm sorry the Middle East is such a basketcase. We didn't make it that way. If they need a Great Satan to rail against to keep their society in order, let them find another one, we're too dangerous! I think the problem is that we've failed to communicate this fact to them. If we're to be their Great Satan, let them be afraid of us, and maybe they'll will find another littler Great Satan that would be less of a challenge for them. Not Israel though! Islam is like the guy in the Zoo who jumps over the fence and immediately wants to wrestle the Grizzly Bear.
Well it seems all this terrorist violence has a definite beginning. There was a time when their wasn't a suicide bomber every day, and suddenly there was. If people were always doing this, then I think we'd have terrorist attacks throughout history and there have been not. As for the strategy of suicide passenger airliner hijackings, that tactic wasn't invented in Christiandom, it was imported here from other parts of the World.
LOL. I hope none of you are seriously entertaining this tripe as sensible or well reasoned.
Sure, it is easy to look at the surface of the issues and say, "It's the Muslims fault." I mean, that makes us noble. It's *those* savages that can't be reasoned with. We are the civilization of peace!
and I hear the pages of a history book slowly being opened.
Meanwhile, the western -christian- civilization engages in wholesale genocide of native american, jew, gay, crippled etc. throughout its long and peaceful history. Let's not even mention the OH SO charitable chrisitan tradition of slavery!
That is not happening now in Western -christian- civilization. There is such a thing called evolution, biological forms evolve and so do civilization. To be sure we were more beastial and uncivilized in the past, but that is how we measure progress. Unfortunately for us, Islamic civilization has not progressed as far as our own, and they are giving us problems by exporting their savagery to us.
It is not politically correct to look at things from a civilizational perspective, but sometimes we have to, because Islamic civilization is making us change the way we live, especially around airports. We in the West do not usually do stuff like praise god and then blow ourselves up along with a bunch of other people, that idea was imported from the East. It is a shame that we make such progress in improving the relations between black and white, men and women, increasing equality throughout and reducing discrimination, and then this Islamic Fanatacism thing comes to our civilization and bites us on the but. It is not politically correct to look at these things, but it is necessary in order to safeguard ourselves. I want Muslims to feel ashamed for what their civilization is doing. There are decent muslims around, I don't want those muslims to feel that suicide terrorism is normal or understandable, and we shouldn't make accomodations for it and give them an understanding pat on the back as they kill us. The first step toward solving a problem is understanding that something is wrong. Normal people do not behave the way these terrorists do, and normal civilizations do not applaud them for it, or elect terrorists into their government.
The fact that these people can get elected by the majority of the people indicates their is something seriously wrong with public attitudes. You don't like to point this out because it hurts feelings and sensibilities, I understand this, but we also don't like to be killed. If Muslims feel embarrased or ashamed, then maybe they might do something about it to correct the situation. Even if the Pope criticises Islam for violence, we get protests of more violence.
What is going on is the exploitation of the ignorant and the poor. This isn't a problem with Islam, or even with religion in general- it is a fundamental problem with humanity. Human beings exploit one another. Human beings use religion, sex, class, race, ideology, appearance... you name it, against one another.
Too bad we didn't cause it, but Muslims are making it are problem aren't they?
There are poor everywhere, they all don't engage in violence, they don't all let themselves be manipulated into acts of violence against other people, only Muslims are particularly troublesome in this regard.
I think we should try to be less understanding of their motivations and do something to deter them. Give them the message that they'd better not mess with us or else we'll mess with them.
Some people are so reflexive and self-consious about being politically correct all the time that they don't see the danger until their head in on a chopping block. I'm sorry that is so, but some people will see the danger before others, and I think slowly public awareness is growing. Sometimes it is better to be blunt and honest.
The criterion was that a Manned Mars program not exceed 1% of the US budget, other parts of the space program are considered extra. But also consider, that 1% does not stay fixed. The US economy is growing and so is the US budget and so is that 1%. Things will be tight in the early years, but as the program progresses things will loosen up. The sorts of vehicles we will develop to explore Mars will also increase the potential of what we can do in the rest of the Solar System. The idea is to reduce the cost of space travel so we can do more with the same amount of dollars. I think the first manned Mars missions will be expensive, but the idea is to introduce compeditive pressure between firms to reduce costs as they try to maximise profits. The Mars prize system actually creates a market for going to Mars. The prizes grow over time, because the US government keeps adding to them. The competing firms are sandwiched between two types of pressure; they don't want to hurry their programs along too fast otherwise they risk mission failure and they won't collect the prize money, if they wait too long, then someone else will collect the prize money and they'll have to settle for second prize. Of course the earlier they go, the less the prize is worth.
In principle it builds up like the megamillions lottery, it starts out at $5,000,000, not many are interested and not too many buy tickets, so no one wins the first drawing, the money collected goes into the pot and the prize is not $10,000,000. $10,000,000 attracts more people to buy tickets, the probability of winning remains the same but now theirs more people buying tickets, so the probability of actually getting a winner increases by the next drawing over the first. The chance of winning is still remote and their are still not enough ticket holders to produce a winner so the money goes right back into the pot. the prize goes to $25,000,000. And people rush to buy tickets, this increases the lottery revenue, and the prize doubles to $50,000,000, no one wins the next drawing and so it doubles again to $100,000,000. At this point people sitting on the fence are going to have to decide whether the $100,000,000 is enough of an inducement to get them to buy a ticket. Each ticket costs $1, and if they win, they'd rather get more money than less. If they wait, then someone is likely to win this round because now their is so many people buying tickets, the chance of getting a winner is now around 50% or greater.
Its like that with a Mars prize too, the firms can wait longer for the prize to get bigger, but in so doing they risk someone else winning the prize and their settling for something less or their waiting for the second prize to get bigger and more to their liking. I think this sequence of prizes will produce a certain frequency of Mars missions. Each mission will be a little different, have different objectives and a different target landing site, but not so much that the lose of the first contest couldn't use most of his equipment for the second.
I don't think the US ever specifically supported the Taliban over the other forces fighting the Soviet Union. Are you saying we were wrong to oppose Soviet Empire building? We gave them weapons so they could fight off the invaders, we respected their culture and their local sensibilities, while the Soviets tried to force them into the mold of the "Soviet Man", and what did we get for all that help? We get stabbed in the back that's what, that makes them even less sympathetic and more evil and ungrateful in my eyes, not less so. The worst villians are the ones who pretend to be your friends.
Alot of places and countries live in poverty, and most of those places don't attack us for no reason as the Afghans did. I do not understand the motivations for the attack on 9/11, most of the liberal rationalizations of the motives of our enemy are very thin and require that I accept their version of reality that the US is an expanding imperialist empire with alot of invisible strings everywhere and our mere act of breathing is exploiting the impoverished, and somehow greedy capitalists in top hats are rubbing their hands together and getting rich from all this poverty. That is a rather "Soviet" explaination, and I don't except it. the best explaination I can think up is that the Taliban are simply stupid to take on a big superpower and to attack it for no reason.
I think the Afghans supported the Taliban. They were fighting each other for years after the Soviets were driven out and suddenly they all spontaneously lay down their arms when these young "johnny come latelys" graduated from their madrassas and invaded Afghanistan from Pakistan, they let these lunatics govern their country and they supported them through their lack of resistance, then some "brilliant fanatic thought it would be a great time to go attack America. In retrospect, I wish we made Afghanistan alot sorrier for messing with us, and that we didn't make targets of our soldiers by trying to rebuild their country. All these attacks against our soldiers seem to indicate to me that we've been much too kind to them, that they don't appreciate our efforts or sacrifice, and maybe next time something like this happens, we should try harder to make them regret it for the sake of future deterrence.
Muslims seem like this, you are either cruel or you are weak, you are never kind, and they repay your kindness with violence. I hope I am wrong, I really do. I would prefer George Bush to be right, that these people only need to be freed from tyranny and to have some democracy, but recent polls state that 6 out of 10 Iraqis want American Soldiers Dead! Maybe the poll is wrong or false, cooked up by a liberal media that wants to undermine support for the war. The assumptions of the Liberals are of course the Iraqis hate us for liberating them, that the Iraqis aren't ready for democracy, that they love their dictators. But if we accept those assumptions, we must also accept then that the people are therefore the enemy, and why should we care what they want?
There are two possible outcomes for this war, either we win and Iraq and Afghanistan become democracies, or we lose and Iraq and Afghanistan become dictatorships and havens supporting terrorism. If the second happens, we can't just leave them alone, can we? For they will continue to attack us. Maybe next time we should make the people, not just their government pay a heavy price for their support of terror. You attack a bear, you get mauled. My estimation of the Islamic world goes down everytime I hear about large numbers of them supporting terror or terrorist attacks against our soldiers. I will want very little to do with them if we lose this war, because I will blame them and their ingratitude. A Muslim who is not ready for democracy is not someone that I'd want in my country or immigrating to my country. If Iraqis and Afghanistanis fail democracy, they should not be allowed to come to the US. If they don't want democracy their, why should they be allowed to come here and enjoy the democracy we have here?
If their is a miscalculation on Bush's part, it is the failure of Islamic people to live up to his expectations of a "religion of peace", their failure to accept democracy and to live in peace with their neighbors. George Bush thought highly of them and had great expectations of their ability to become civilized. The Democrats of course had much lower expectations of them, that they are savages, uncultured, undemocratic, cruel and brutal, totally unreformable and undemocratic and that no effort should be expended to teach them better ways, because such would be totally useless and a waste of our efforts and our soldiers lives.
If the Democrats get their wish and we lose the war, then I as a consequence will want little to do with the Third World, especially the Muslim part of it, because the Democratic stereotype of typical muslims will tend to ring true.
Senator Frisk's priorities are different from mine. My priority is to punish and get rid of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, if Afghanistan is a mess afterwards, too bad! They shouldn't have allowed Al Qaeda to use their country as a staging ground to attack the United States in the first place, and they shouldn't have supported the Taliban to the degree which they did that allowed them to take power and to play host to Al Qaeda in the first place. If there is not peace, if the Afghans suffer, then if they want peace they should stop collectively supporting the Taliban or else we'll punish them for doing so. War is a collective business, it is one society versus another. If their are tribal regions and they hide members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda, then we punish those regions that collectively support those groups. I'm sick and tired of lame old excuses such as "Oh we don't have control over those regions of the country, oh the tribes are not cooperating, some of them sympathize with radical element etc."
We need to apply fuzzy logic here, we need to decide if the local tribes, villiages etc are supporting our efforts to fight the Taliban or are they giving them refuge and hiding members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. At some point we have to decide whose side the locals are really on. They could not be on our side if the locals are not turning in members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and improvised explosives repeatedly go off in the vicintity of our soldiers and suicide mombers from the local community repeatedly blow themselves up to kill us. This is a war, we don't have the resources to decide individual guilt or innocense. As the weight of evidence accumulates and it becomes increasingly unlikely that the locals are cooperating or doing their part to help fight and root out these terrorists, we must decide on whose side these local communities actually are on. If it seems unlikely that the locals are actually as oblivious of their surroundings and who's in them and doing what, if they are increasingly "incompetent", "unknowledgable" and they continue as a community to protest their innocense and how they are actually on our side, then common sense should prevail, and maybe the lawyer logic should be abandoned for more fuzzy logic. We should ask questions such as does this community as a whole support us or the terrorists, and if we conclude they support the terrorists. Well, I'm not saying we should attack them or kill them, but perhaps we should closely watch them, restrict their movements, or relocate them out of the area and disarm them so they may be more easily guarded. This is war, and the objective is to win, it is not our job to decide guilt or innocense, we must apprehend and kill the Terrorists where ever we find them. If people support the terrorists, we should see to it that they suffer accordingly. If they don't like living in camps, then they should rat out the terrorists, and then we can go after them.
The exact tactics, I am not so sure about. I am sort of squeemish about harming innocent people, but not so much that I'm willing to forfeit the war. Some compromise in our tactics should be worked out, somewhere between criminal proceedings and fighting an all out no holds bar war against them. We afford as many civil rights to individuals as we can, while still bringing the war to a successful conclusion. I don't believe in making peace with terrorists or in allowing them to participate in government, they are criminals and don't belong in government. They have not made peace with us, they have not appologized for their crimes or paid us reparations for damages done and lives lost. I don't think we should sacrifice justice for ourselves so the Afghans can have peace with them. We must be flexible in how we fight them, not inflexible, lawyerly, logic robots, that are incappacitated by our inability to prosecute in sufficient volume to win the war. Wars are sweeping and injust, their are many innocent victims of it, but that does not mean that we should not fight them when they are brought to us and our shores.
The Civil War was won with much injustice to many innocents, but we won that war, and I'm glad we did. So much the better than to lose it and our country.
QALAT, Afghanistan — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" and their allies into the government.
The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.
"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,217198,00.html
I don't like this idea, of bringing people who should be in jail into government. I don't care if they are popular with some people, all that means to me is that the people with whom they are popular with should be in jail too, because as far as I'm concerned, they are my enemy, they hosted Al Qaeda who attacked my country and my home state with their suicide bombers and the refused to hand over Bin Laden when he was in their possession! As far as I'm concerned they are not forgiven, and the US Army should hunt them all down and all of their supporters down to extinction! I think Senator Bill Frist has lost track of why we are are there. Rebuilding Afghanistan is only a secondary objective in my opinion, the primary objective is to hunt down Al Qaeda and the Taliban, make no compromises with them. None of this compromises with evil. The Tabiban murdered innocent people and oppressed Afghanistan, they should not be allowed back into power because of their violence and their supporters should be expelled from the country. I don't care if no other country will take them, let them swim or float around on boats.
I think including any terrorist group in any form of government is a bad idea, it will only lead to trouble and reduce our effectiveness in fighting terrorism. The President of Iran is also a terrorist, in my opnion, he should have been welcomed to our country with a hail of bullets from the moment he stepped off the plane and I'd tell the UN what it can go do with itsself and it protocol. Terrorists are terrorists, I don't care if they are the leaders of nations, or if they are popular or in government, they are still terrorists, and if we are to win the war on terror, we must not make exceptions. Damn the protocol, damn the international relations, and damn the Muslim world if they support terror. If Islam is a peaceful religion, let them show it by fighting terror, all terror, even against the Jews!
A full out test would need to reproduce the Martian environment. Reduce the air pressure to Martain levels, reduce the temperature and light levels to that of Mars also, and with an airplane also reproduce the gravity. Have a fully functioning Mars suit pressurized and take it though its paces onboard the airplane. Have the astronaut bend over, pick up rocks with his suited gloved hand, remark on the balance and feel of the suit, its comfort etc. Try walking around in it. That way you can report on problems with the suit before it is sent to Mars. If you removed the life support pack, they suit wouldn't be balanced right as it would be if it was used on Mars. Might also want test out the suits seals, its life support functions as well. The airplane test would the the final intergrated test on a series of tests on the suit. We can only reproduce the Martian environment for a short period of time on an airplane, but that might be long enough to take a few strides and pick up rocks in the suit.
I believe 1% of the US budget is $27 billion, I think that is enough each year to get a decent sized manned Mars program going. The idea in the long run is or should be to reduce costs, so we can send more people there and eventually establish a colony. I'm really not in favor of $500 billion annual budgets. If $27 billion is not enough, then spend that $27 billion to reduce costs and make it enough. I think $27 billion is enough to get some good R&D going. If $27 billion is enough then its a little r and a big D. If $27 billion is not enough then its a big R and a little d. See what I'm getting at?
Funny thing, if you said Texas is a red state in the 1980s, they would have laughed and reminded you that Cuba is red, Russia is Red, and China is Red, but not Texas!
I don't know what you find wrong with the prize system, I did mention three prizes, so if a company doesn't win the first prize, it still has a chance of winning the second or third if they are the second or third to land humans on Mars. As soon as the first prise is won, then a fourth prize is added. the prizes start out small but they grow bigger over time with each annual budget, because with each fiscal year, NASA would add some of its money to the prizes, and they would increase in value and become ever more tempting. Legally the prizes get reappropiated every year because that's how the US Constitution works, but if you count the prize money that is not spend as revenue for next year, you can balance your bodget by reappropriating the same amount and adding a little extra to it the next year, by no means a budget buster, The US taxpayer only pays the difference between last years prize and this years prize, not the whole thing every year if it is not won. Do you get my drift? Just because the prize is worth $40 billion a particular year, doesn't mean that the tax payer pays the whole $40 billion if the prize is won, he only pays the additional amount over last years amount for that particular year, the bulk of the prize is carried over from last year,and the government keeps on adding to the prize until someone wins it. There will always be three prizes to win at any given time for as long as the program lasts. The government only pays for success and the private companies worry about the risks.
I do think private companies manage costs better than the government does, they are more focused on the bottom line, the government is less so, as they can always make up for it by raising more revenue through taxes. I think with private companies, if the prize is big enough, they will take the risk, if the prize is not big enough, they will wait for it to get bigger before making the attempt, but if they wait too long, some other company may make the attempt and take the prize away from them. Many companies will fail, and thus write off the cost of the attempt, stock prices will go down, but the prize is still out their, companies know that getting to Mars is possible if the manage the program right, so many will try and some will succeed.. The ultimate goal is the bring down the costs of each suceeding mission, I don't know how this will be done, but it is up to the markets and the clever corporations to figure this out. Ultimately I want travel to Mars to be cheap enough so that we can begin to establish colonies on Mars. People running government programs could care less about cost, so long as the taxpayer is paying for it, and far as the government employees are concerned, its all about jobs. If they get paid to service the Shuttle and its expensive, they don't care, part of that expense is their salary and they are happy to recieve it. Government employees and managers have no motivation to bring down costs, instead their goal is to maintian their employment and jobs. The union asks for a raise, give it to them, they want increased health benefits and a retirement package, why not, the government is paying, and the managers like happy employees if they have no other goals, and their are no pressures on them to reduce costs.
Maybe the next spy satellite should have a nuke onboard that explodes it its sensors are blinded. Serve the Chinese right, I think, for damaging our property.
Maybe not, we could probably leave the Moons alone. The place we do need an elevator is on Earth, it doesn't matter if we can lift things easily off of Mars, if our main problem is getting people off Earth. Some kind of conveyor type of system will be required to get large numbers of people off of Earth. We can hardly utilize the resources of the Solar System if we're stuck on one planet. A Martian elevator would make Mars more compedative with the asteroids. I think the place where the bulk of humanity is going to live will be in free floating space colonies that rotate to produce their own gravity. I think long term residency on Mars will produce human adaptation to its low 0.38-G gravity field, that sort of limits the places humans from that planet can go, and I'm not sure whether their will be long term health problems. We already have enough problems of not getting enough exercise and becoming obese under a full 1-G of gravity!
There will be buyers for them if NASA adds some prizes for probes to the outer planets, and what about the outer outer planets or dwarf planets Sedna, Pluto, and Xena? If NASA creates a market for them, there will be buyers.
I think private enterprise is the way to go, you just need to make in profitable with seed money. If their are prizes then their will be private corporations trying to win those prizes and as long as their is a market for Ares type boosters, the manufacturer will build more and make improvements to the boosters and the manufacturing process to reduce costs.