Spinoffs

In a message dated 2/22/01 1:26:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, rmenich@...
writes:

<< I remember receiving a publication called "Spinoffs" over twenty years ago
--- I think I may have received it from NSS --- that touted the
side-benefits of NASA work. NASA and its supporters have pointed to
spinoffs as one method to justify NASA spending to the public.

Lately, I've become quite jaded about the whole spinoffs concept. I have
no doubt that NASA projects have resulted in commercial products that have
positive economic benefit. That's a good thing! But NASA's efforts are
spectacularly expensive relative to terrestrial alternatives. One must
always keep in mind that when a large amount of money is spent, that that
large amount of money could have been spent in other ways, with possibly
rosier results. This is the concept of opportunity costs.

Consider an example: One space shuttle flight equates to supporting 5,000
Ph.D. students throughout their entire Ph.D. programs.
Five thousand Ph.D. theses equates to a heck of a lot of research on
potatos! ! >>

I must say that spin offs are usually unanticipated. NASA spends X space
dollars to get A.
In order to get A, NASA must solve problems B, C, and D. Along the way to
solving B, C, and D,
someone gets an idea that would have commercial applications, so without
space project A, these
commercial applications would never have occurred to the researchers. As for
the Ph.D. students,
NASA employs Ph.D. either directly or through contractors. Simply adding more
Ph.D.s simply depresses
wages unless jobs are added also.

<<[Assumptions: 5 year Ph.D. program, $20,000/yr, $500 million shuttle
flight. --- if you don't like those assumptions, adjust them as you wish,
for it will still give you a big number]

Another example: $60 billion will be spent on ISS hardware and
construction costs. I'm quite convinced that higher-payoff uses exist for
$60 billion in research funding. For example, with $60 billion, we could
conceivably completely solve the problem of producing robust, high
temperature, superconductors, the associated economic benefits of which
would dwarf anything that is likely to come out of ISS. [And by the way
... having viable high temperature superconductors would have spinoffs in
the space sector, for example, making Zubrin's magsail concept viable.] >>

But we already know about the potential of high temperature superconductors,
there is great profit potential in them so private research dollars are being
spent on it. There is plenty of money out there for that kind of reseach.
What is more iffy is the returns on space dollars. If money is redirected
away from ISS and towards high temperature superconductors, that would have
been money that could have been raised on the capital markets anyway. Monsy
is spent on ISS because it sparks the publics imagination, and in the process
of assembling the ISS we learn a number of things such as how to build large
space structures in space. The next time there is a proposal to build
something in space we'll have a better idea of how much it will cost, and how
long it will take. Things will be discovered on board the ISS such as Zero-G
manufacturing methods that will give a better idea of what can be
accomplished in orbit, without this information it will be harder to raise
money for private orbital manufacturing. A lot of things that SSI stands for
requires orbital assembly. Robots will have to be built that are able to get
around and assemble things in orbit, what better place to test them out than
on the ISS?

<< ... and we shouldn't forget that $60 billion could have been left in the
pockets of taxpayers, for them to decide how best to use it. >>

Much more than that is being proposed and its coming out of the surplus. This
is long term research we are talking about that will not be done by private
enterprise. If government does not make these investments, no one will.

<< In the long-run, space industrialization/commercialization ---- based on
the usage of extra-terrestrial but near earth resources such as the Moon or
NEAs --- will have an astounding economic impact. This is what is
exciting about SSI.

Ron Menich >>