Unpopularity of space exploration

deagleninja · 2004-06-09 12:15:30

Good points John. I have no problem with a person or company becoming wealthy. However, those tactics you described along with buying patents to pre-mature technology and shelving it so that buisness can go on as usual has to stop.

When a company starts employing dirty tactics instead of bettering itself, everyone loses. This is what I mean by runaway capitalism.

John Creighton · 2004-06-09 12:19:53

Indeed, any major aerospace project, whether for NASA or the military employs huge numbers of people. If we want to redistribute wealth, this is the way to do it. Employ people doing something useful. Just don't raise taxes to do it.

Without taxes how would you pay for it?

John Creighton · 2004-06-09 12:27:29

I agree, my point was that in redistribution schemes services are never exchanged for what is taken. An individual's property is taken without compensation for use by others, it's theft.

Again what entiles the person the property. It is law. Clearly it is good for people to own stuff. How many people what to share there clothes? The choice with what a person can on and to what extent a person can own property is up to the state and the society. For instance in Price Edward Island no one living out side the province is allowed to own more then a certain percentage of the land? Clearly a society doesn’t always make the best choices (for instance the land redistribution in Africa) and clearly if any property is expropriated it is good practice to offer compensation. And clearly some people obtain certain sentimental value to property and don’t feel the state should be able to expropriate it for things like air ports and highways (see the Alstrialian movie it is not a house it is a home). But these are all details.

John Creighton · 2004-06-09 12:48:29

It is only theft if you own it. The state has liberty to define ownership as at wishes.
Spoken like a true communist.
I'm not saying you are a commie, BTW. No offense intended.

Spoken like a true mud slinging politician.

Lower taxes may be a good thing, but first convince my they are affordable and don’t come at to great a cost. Clearly communism hasn’t had a good success recorded if it every really existed in the first place and the transition to communism is usually disruptive to the productivity of the society. Does Cuba have real communism? Does it work? I don’t know. But I know Cuba does not have the opportunity to trade as other countries because of the Helms Bertin law. One obvious observation of Cuba is there lack of technological growth. Is this a symptom of communism or a symptom of a small country not having the opportunity to participate in trade. Russia on the other had had some of the best mathematicians and control engineers in the world. But Russia collapsed and did Russia ever really have true communism? Did Russia collapse because of communism or was it the effort to compete with the United States at a military level?

Most people won’t advocate communism. It seems far to inflexible for a knowledge based society, it usually implies a significant loss of liberty and most people think people who work harder and are more productive should be rewarded for it. Is capitalism a good system to reward people for their work? Maybe not, but at least it is better then communism as most people will agree. All that said, someday I plan to read the communist manifesto. I here it is a good book.

Cobra Commander · 2004-06-09 13:04:04

Without taxes how would you pay for it?

I just said don't raise taxes. Government needs some revenue, but high progressive rates on wages isn't a good way to do it. There are plenty of other, less 'oppressive' apporaches.

Again what entiles the person the property. It is law.

No, law establishes the means for protecting property rights. In the absence of law there is still property, it just ends up in the hands of whoever has the most goons with guns. Laws don't create anything and they don't prevent anything. Laws define.

The choice with what a person can on and to what extent a person can own property is up to the state and the society.

Which justifies all sorts of abuses. Society says I should seize your house. Simple, but see where this goes?

Clearly a society doesn’t always make the best choices (for instance the land redistribution in Africa) and clearly if any property is expropriated it is good practice to offer compensation.

So society can make bad decisions in this matter? Doesn't really inspire confidence.

And clearly some people obtain certain sentimental value to property and don’t feel the state should be able to expropriate it for things like air ports and highways (see the Alstrialian movie it is not a house it is a home). But these are all details.

Me again. Society wants me to remind you that we need your house. Gotta build a road, good of society, you understand. Here's a ten spot for your trouble.

That's wrong. And so is this:

Hey, see you made a thousand dollars, workin' hard. We're gonna need three... four hundred of that. Society again, they only made a hundred bucks. Not fair, you know.

Spoken like a true mud slinging politician.

Oh, that stings. Gettin' the spinmeisters at campaign headquarters on this one.

Lower taxes may be a good thing, but first convince my they are affordable and don’t come at to great a cost.

And there's the real bone of contention, what is government's purpose. I suspect we have a significant gap in philosophies in that regard.

And yes, the Communist Manifesto is certainly an interesting read. Plenty of dog-eared pages in my copy.

John Creighton · 2004-06-09 13:14:01

I agree the hard working people that make the least income get it the worst, be they the upper middle class, the lower middle class or the working pore. But why? They carry the most votes.

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-09 13:16:54

The issue with regards to NASA contracting to large corporations is that these corporations make a profit, and they would go under without the massive public subsidy they recieve, not just from NASA of course. Particularly, from the Pentagon, and probably most importantly from the fact that most of them pay about zero taxes.

If you want to employ people, you should use public programs, which will be more efficient. In fact, I think the biggest source of the inefficiency in NASA that is so often talked about is the bureaucratic structures imposed by the present system.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-06-09 20:46:13

Hellfire, Anatoli!!
I only turned my back for a few hours and two or three pages of posts appeared!
Now I feel like I'm butting in on something just by answering your question.

Anyhow, just before I make a quick exit from this thread, the news I was thinking of was the evening news on Channel 7. But it doesn't make much difference which program you watch, space exploration is just some kind of comical 'nerdsville' to most of these journalists - and they should know better!!
Journalists are supposed to be educated people, though I've always had my doubts. But I suppose you can get through highschool and into university and then on into a fancy career in T.V. (or politics! ) without ever understanding even the most basic of scientific knowledge.
Mathematicians and scientists are expected to have at least a smattering of languages, geography, history etc. and I believe most of them probably do. But it seems that far greater numbers of people manage to get through the system, and into powerful positions, with an effectively zero knowledge of basic science and mathematics.
This latter group is virtually incapable of comprehending the possibilities involved in space exploration because they've never had their eyes opened to the full glories of the solar system, the galaxy, etc. They just don't get it! In scientific terms, these people really are ignorant, in the most fundamental sense of the word.

I guess these people, united in a kind of elite club of scientific ignorance, find it conveniently reassuring to dismiss what they don't understand and laugh it off as fantasy and science fiction.
I believe this is important as far as our cause is concerned because it's a widespread and insidious problem. Too many prominent public figures are propagating this tacit ridicule of space exploration and I don't know what we can do about it.

[O.K. That's it. You can get back to the political philosophy debate now. I'm outta here! ]

Cobra Commander · 2004-06-10 13:49:09

Anyhow, just before I make a quick exit from this thread, the news I was thinking of was the evening news on Channel 7. But it doesn't make much difference which program you watch, space exploration is just some kind of comical 'nerdsville' to most of these journalists - and they should know better!!

And there's part of the problem and a bit of a catch-22. Journalistic sneering at the space program hurts efforts to undertake ambitious projects, yet the source of much of the derision and general lack of interest is that, from the perspective of many, nothing exciting is being done. It's all in the realm of engineers and programmers, code and formulas and graphs. To many people, it's kinda boring. Many people, and as a result most journalists, just don't care about what's actually being done and anything truly exciting is on paper, never expected to materialize. A little car trundling across Mars looking at rocks can't compete with wars, NBA playoffs and car chases.

So we need to do something exciting and ambitious. Unfortunately, NASA needs to make the first moves. That requires leadership and vision, two qualities that have been in short supply of late. When space becomes exciting again, then the media will be our greatest friend in promoting the missions. Make it about people and pushing back the frontiers of new worlds instead of robots and spectrographs and you're halfway to everywhere. It doesn't even require a huge program to do this, send more men to the moon, do it as PR, it'll pay off if done as a catalyst for public support of a bigger effort. Send more probes to Mars or Venus, or both, but make it about determining how people can live there rather than soil composition. Make it about what these places can and will be, not what they once were.

Less refined, give the people something to conquer and they shall. Make it glorious.

John Creighton · 2004-06-11 11:31:10

If you want to employ people, you should use public programs, which will be more efficient. In fact, I think the biggest source of the inefficiency in NASA that is so often talked about is the bureaucratic structures imposed by the present system.

Which programs and what precentage of the GDP should the government spend on them?

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-11 12:21:43

Well, to try and answer your question,

Certainly there are extreme problems within NASA regarding corporate welfare or "pork" as it is more neutrally called. The decision making over which contracts go to whom, what kinds of projects will be funded, are dominated to a totally unacceptable degree by political considerations, as opposed to the scientific. Any number of programs illustrate this bountifully, X-33, Shuttle, ISS. Zubrin has written quite a bit about "cost plus" subsidy systems and their decadence.

Its understood in the aerospace community (and in many others) that government subsidy is a crucial method of keeping large corporations competitive and afloat. So for instance I was reading the Financial Times yesterday, the lead story in their money section (or whatever it is called, I forget) was, roughly, "Some guy in the Pentagon says more contracts might go to European firms", this was big news, although they did note that actually implementing the policy would be difficult because of "political considerations". You can find this sort of thing in the Wall Street Journal often enough as well.

So in my view the evidence in favor of the general outlook I'm putting forth here is just massive.

As to what should be done, it is not an easy thing. Zubrin has suggested that we need to re-start the fire in the space program, get things moving, put a priority on it and so on, force the bureaucrats or whoever into action.

What I think that means is to discipline the giant corporations and put science first, to not give in to everything they desire. It has often been noted that this "giving to everybody" is what makes NASA inefficient. That is why the "90-day report" of Bush I was such nonsense.

So I think that should be done, insofar as it is possible, and I think you could really do some great projects, put men on Mars and so on, if it was done. The process worked reasonably well during Apollo and I don't really see why it can't be made to work like that again.

Ultimately however, I tend to think that the best solution lies in an overthrow of the corporate system as a whole, and the restructing of these huge organizations according to the dictates of the engineers and people working in them. That is a much bigger goal. It is far beyond the scope of space advocacy groups.

John Creighton · 2004-06-11 12:39:31

So you think NASA sould do there development publicly instead of privetly?

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-11 20:10:18

I tend to think that if you had the power to make the huge corporations that work with NASA part of a not-for-profit system, you might easily have the momentum to overthrow the corporate system as whole and organize the economy along more rational lines. So that is in a sense a whole different ball game.

It is possible that the best that can be done while the current system exists is to discipline the huge corporations in a way that puts state goals first on the list of priorities, as opposed to a corporate welfare bonanza. This is what Zubrin has suggested. In some ways in reminds me of what they do more generally in some of the first world Asian countries.

Gennaro · 2004-06-11 20:51:28

Hm, I wonder how an organization like NASA actually operates. Who decides what and who has a say in those decisions?

It couldn't be as simple (and efficient) as ten guys deciding on strategy, then just handing down the what's to be achieved to lower levels or offer orders like, we want a machine that can do this and are willing to pay such for a series of x, please compete for the contract, right?

MarsDog · 2004-06-11 23:17:29

The low popularity has to do with the presentation.
TV shows such as robot wars , junkyard teams competing to build, reenacting ancient events; the public can relate to.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-04-01 05:54:02

Americans feel favorably about many federal agencies, especially the Park Service, Postal Service and NASA
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 … -and-nasa/

It was once as high as 4% of the US Budget, today it is less than half of one percent.

Nixon cut the budget and NASA’s budget actually decreased during the time of Bill Clinton

SpaceNut · 2023-04-01 08:48:52

Those that are nay sayers are looking at the price tag and saying what did it do for me for all of these agencies. This has been going on since Apollo in that the poor have always questioned it in that way. The showing of a lower cost mission via rockets of the last decade has only made this even more gouse when looking at the disparity of cost.

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#51 2004-06-09 12:15:30

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#52 2004-06-09 12:19:53

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#53 2004-06-09 12:27:29

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#54 2004-06-09 12:48:29

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#55 2004-06-09 13:04:04

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#56 2004-06-09 13:14:01

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#57 2004-06-09 13:16:54

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#58 2004-06-09 20:46:13

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#59 2004-06-10 13:49:09

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#60 2004-06-11 11:31:10

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#61 2004-06-11 12:21:43

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#62 2004-06-11 12:39:31

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#63 2004-06-11 20:10:18

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#65 2004-06-11 23:17:29

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