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11-02-05 12:59 PM
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Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - World Affairs / Debate - NASA Goes Up Again: Discovery Touches Down | |
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beneficii

Lakitu
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Posted on 07-28-05 01:12 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by alte Hexe
Originally posted by beneficii
Originally posted by Arwon
Originally posted by beneficii
Originally posted by Arwon
The private sector is terrible at high risk upfront investments with only a long-term payoff (eg transport and utilities infrastructure). They're pretty decent at taking over these sorts of ventures later on... well, they can be, but as for building them... no.


Well, the evidence suggests otherwise; explain ventures like Branson's company and his challenge to have the first orbital launch by 2010 and also Virgin Galactica. Also explain how the private sector did all those aviation challenges so well and help made advances.


The infrastructure's already been laid down... NASA and the USSR's equivalent have been researching and developing for 30 years. Branson isn't starting from zero.

And aviation advances? Well, in the early days, mostly during the World Wars with heavy influence from government money!
as you know, launching into space is quite different from smuggling drugs.

There were innovations in World War II, but how much from the private sector as compared to the government sector is debatable. In the decade leading up to World War II, in many countries the government started having more control over the production of aircraft, though I think in the U.S. that didn't happen until the country entered the war.



On point 1: WTF!?

On point 2: Aviation wasn't private until...Hell, it's still not god damned private except for private jets like the Gulf Stream V and stuff. Pretty much every civilian aircraft is built on government contracts because airlines are generally part owned by the governments who have to police their skies. Simple fact is that the private industry doesn't always equal innovation. Plus, these are very different issues. The airplane had a practical civilian mode as well being relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of travel. Rocketry and space travel on the other hand has only had appropriate infrastructure since around...I don't know...The day Gagarin got into space they started making it. And giving that there is still no safe, cost-effective method of getting into space, there won't be any real infrastructure. Space travel will, for the coming decades, either be for research or military applications. The costs are too expensive for the companies to be able to handle sales to civilians (100'000 dollars a seat on something that costs about 250'000-400'000 to launch...with no guarantee of safety). Private companies will hop on in about 50 years, that is, if space turns out to be a completely viable industry at all.


In your quoting of my post, why did you omit the whole first half of it?
alte Hexe

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Posted on 07-28-05 01:13 AM Link | Quote
Because I was making a point because I don't know enough about WW1 to make an accurate statement and because I wanted to point out that you made an inane comparison.
beneficii

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Posted on 07-28-05 01:23 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by alte Hexe
Because I was making a point because I don't know enough about WW1 to make an accurate statement and because I wanted to point out that you made an inane comparison.


Well, you could have given some indication. Also the inane comparison you mentioned isn't inane when seen in the context of the paragraph itself. I was pointing out space launches being illegal for a time for anyone other than the government, meaning that if a private group were to do a space launch during that time, they'd have been handcuffed, they'd have been hauled off to jail, and all their stuff for the launch would have been confiscated for evidence. I made a comparison to drug smuggling at that point to indicate that it is not so easy to make a space launch as it is to smuggle drugs, basically to say that a private group wouldn't have dared try it while it was illegal. That's what I meant by that.

Originally, aviation was private, started by a couple of brothers taking a spin around thier hometown. Of course, governments (especially militaries) have found loads of uses for it since then, but it wasn't until around mid-century that the U.S. government (at least) began to control the industry more and more. Also, the more space vehicles there are and the more people there are signing up, the less the prices are going to be for space launches, because designers will be mass producing to meet the demand and they'll be coming up with more efficient ways of launching into space. It's the economy of scale.
alte Hexe

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Posted on 07-28-05 01:36 AM Link | Quote
No, it is still an inane comparison.

Originally it was government controlled ventures that did it and hobbyists. Not companies. In and around 1917 the US military scooped up pretty much all rights to that in America.

P.S: It is widely acknowledged outside of USA that it was actually a Brazilian that made the first flight, not the Wright brothers.

Again, no it doens't work that way. beneficii, the more is less philosophy doesn't work on something like space travel. More means more expensive. You can't mass produce these things like military technology. At least not for the next couple of decades. Additionally, the economy can't support something like this. It DEVOURS money like no tomorrow and which sort of company will have the venture capital to start with something that costs trillions of dollars in R&D? Yeah...
beneficii

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Posted on 07-28-05 02:08 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by alte Hexe
No, it is still an inane comparison.

Originally it was government controlled ventures that did it and hobbyists. Not companies. In and around 1917 the US military scooped up pretty much all rights to that in America.

P.S: It is widely acknowledged outside of USA that it was actually a Brazilian that made the first flight, not the Wright brothers.

Again, no it doens't work that way. beneficii, the more is less philosophy doesn't work on something like space travel. More means more expensive. You can't mass produce these things like military technology. At least not for the next couple of decades. Additionally, the economy can't support something like this. It DEVOURS money like no tomorrow and which sort of company will have the venture capital to start with something that costs trillions of dollars in R&D? Yeah...


Right, hobbyists, private people working with private funds, and for a while it was in the realms of the hobbyists. Also, regarding the Wright brothers not being the inventors, it seems that many have made different claims and this Wikipedia article on the Wright brothers makes no mention of a Brazilian. It is mentioned in the talk page however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

I think we can be certain that if the Wright brothers did not invent the airplane, then they were certainly responsible for many of the innovations that made its widespread use possible. Also, the article states that there are many claims to the inventor of the airplane, and I remember for quite a while the U.S. government claimed that one of its own invented the airplane, but that was later discredited (and turned out that the guy couldn't get his craft to fly).

You're also forgetting the many contests that were held before and after World War I that awarded prizes for first feats in aviation, including the Orteig Prize. Of course the government had a hand in it, why would it not get involved? Some government involvements were the Signal Air Corps (I think is what it's name was), when the Italian military bombed a village in Libya (the first warplane bombing) ca. 1907, and the mass production of planes during World War I. Still, especially during the '20s, there was a lot of private innovation and there was a lot of barnstorming too (which would be illegal today). If I recall, the first package delivery took place in 1924, when a store in Chicago had something shipped to a customer in California.

In regards to that last poing: Well, that one guy's group already got funding from one of the founders of Microsoft to build SpaceShipOne, and plus R&D is already occuring in Branson's labs and elsewhere with not that much money being spent. I think you are extremely overexaggerating with that trillion dollar figure; again as I said, things will get cheaper as time goes on. It's just like how the computer got progressively cheaper in the '80s and down to how it is today; the market began to get into it more and more. If I recall, in 1982 computers were really expensive (these used processing chips btw), but the price went way down in 1983 and didn't go back up.

Also, why are you bringing up the government's inability to bring costs down (in fact, if anything, the government's made them go up) to mean that the free market is simply unable to? Shame on you! You should know better than to think that if the government can't bring costs down, the free market surely can't!
alte Hexe

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Posted on 07-28-05 02:15 AM Link | Quote
Because the free-market would need to free up and create trillions of dollars of new wealth in order to make those things go up and research how to do it. There is no way to easily mass-produce the technology, and there is no way to make the heavy and medium lifters effectively. The technology is also a NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.

Pull your head out of the propoganda and understand that NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE PRIVATIZED. The free-market can do somethings, and there are somethings it can't do. One of the things it can't do is build something that will cost trillions to bring down the cost by a miniscule degree.
beneficii

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Posted on 07-28-05 02:27 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by alte Hexe
Because the free-market would need to free up and create trillions of dollars of new wealth in order to make those things go up and research how to do it. There is no way to easily mass-produce the technology, and there is no way to make the heavy and medium lifters effectively. The technology is also a NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.

Pull your head out of the propoganda and understand that NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE PRIVATIZED. The free-market can do somethings, and there are somethings it can't do. One of the things it can't do is build something that will cost trillions to bring down the cost by a miniscule degree.


It wouldn't need to. People would be making willing investments in it: they can either choose to or not. I personally think that there will be enough to start a space industry. Either way, I think NASA should be abolished because taxpayers should not be forced to pay for it.

I don't buy the national security risk. Because you brought up the national security risk, I take it to mean that you want private ventures like the SpaceShipOne outlawed again (please confirm or deny this). Perhaps you can pull your head out of propaganda and realize just because stuff like rockets are legal and unregulated, doesn't mean that national security is threatened.. (After all, when aviation was unregulated in the 20s and federally machine guns and high explosives were legal in the 20s, where was all national security being threatened--aside from that related to Prohibition, which was another failed government venture?) Because of this, I do not buy the national security risk.

How do you know the free market will be unable to bring down the cost?
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Posted on 08-09-05 06:47 PM Link | Quote
Discovery safely touched down in California about one and a half hours ago, in a perfect landing. The rest of the fleet is still indefinately grounded, although NASA has not officially declared Atlantis' next mission to be canceled. If the issue of debris falling from any part of the shuttle during lift-off can be solved, Atlantis is due to begin a mission in September. Discovery's next flight is due to begin in April 2006.
beneficii

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Posted on 08-09-05 09:18 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Kasumi-Astra
Discovery safely touched down in California about one and a half hours ago, in a perfect landing. The rest of the fleet is still indefinately grounded, although NASA has not officially declared Atlantis' next mission to be canceled. If the issue of debris falling from any part of the shuttle during lift-off can be solved, Atlantis is due to begin a mission in September. Discovery's next flight is due to begin in April 2006.


I'm glad they managed to get home okay.
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