10-Year Plan

On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Ed Minchau wrote:

> The taxpayers and the consumers are the same people. You can't ask
> them to cough up another dime when there are snipers picking them off
> while they pump gas.

Um, I claimed the problem was not enough money being spent on
space development. You seem to be saying that there is no
more money to be spent that way, neither as consumers nor
as taxpayers? Where do you propose the money comes from then?
If there's no money in it, how can commercial firms justify
any investment at all?

> You cannot bequeath exclusive rights to a
> property in space: neither can governments. Only individual people
> can claim property rights in space.

Why is space different from Earth? Only through some rather
vague treaties. And we already have "property rights" in space
through the spectrum allocations for geo-synchronous satellites
etc. Those rights come to corporations and government entities
through an international body (the ITU). The model certainly
could be extended to all sorts of usage rights, if there was a general
desire for it. But too many people think they don't need any
government regulation in space, and therefore they get no generally
recognized rights, and consequently no investment.

[anti-tax rant deleted - but note that US taxpayers pay considerably
less of their income than any other developed country; most current
taxes go to social programs, not NASA; the defense department budget
is 25 times NASA's; and NASA's has not grown, rather it has been
shrinking for decades. Is it because space enthusiasts have, more
than most others, swallowed the anti-government myth to their own loss?]

> [...]
>
> Really want to make it private? Put NASA up for sale: immediately
> after the sale, divide the total amount by the number of Americans
> and send them each a cheque. "The bidding opens at 20 billion
> dollars. Thank you Mr. Gates. 25 Billion, mister Branson. Thirty
> Billion, Mr. Perot. 32 billion, Mr Gates..."

NASA doesn't make money. Why would a businessman pay anything for it?
NASA does R&D. It produces lots of pretty pictures. It gets people
up into space. It operates massively inefficient launch infrastructure
(Kennedy, shuttles). It kowtows to congress and thousands of "space nuts"
who think they know how it should be run. Are you proposing NASA
become a new "Amtrak", with constant multi-billion dollar "subsidies"
from the federal government? What would a businessman do with
the thousands of PhD engineers and scientists? Probably fire most
of them right off the bat - they contribute nothing to any bottom line.
You'd be lucky if it fetched even $1 billion in a sale. And even
$30 billion adds up to $100 per US citizen - what's the point of
that, compared to the loss? You need an extra couple of golf outings
or dinners for two?

> [...]
> I agree with you in principle, putting the money where the mouth is
> and all, but I want something that will eventually get ME into
> space. Not my ashes, not a recorded message from me, but me.

Sure, but that lets you off REALLY easy because you need to
spend none of your precious money for years, maybe never.
Unless you happen to think $20 million is a bargain.
But TransOrbital (and investing in other space companies) provides
a way to contribute something now. Show you care. Or do you
not really care that much about space development, you really only
care about yourself?

> [...]
> A one-track mind like a government will not make all of the above
> possible. Hundreds or thousands of companies in diverse fields, in
> the quest for profit, will.

Oh I agree. But where's that profit going to come from? There's
no sign of even any revenues right now, let alone profits. If
you're not willing to part with any cash of your own, what exactly
are these space companies going to make money on? Have you actually
looked at what the market opportunities are? It's very grim for
the foreseeable future - unless there's some massive kickstart,
which could come from government, if we so choose.

> > Barring that, laws to provide monopoly grants to major
> > corporations...
>
> You mean, like the monopoly grant that they already give NASA?

NASA has no monopoly. It is just a way for the government
to spend a bunch of money on space-related things, mostly in
southern congressional districts (there's essentially no NASA
spending in my state, NY, which I'd like to see change...)

Other than for telecommunications, there are only two
space-related "monopoly's" the US government
enforces right now, and they're not so much "monopoly's" as
regulations: (1) all NASA-funded launch contracts must use
a US company (basically Boeing or Lockheed), and (2) any private
company trying to use a non-US launcher has to run the
state department "export control" gauntlet.

What I mean by "monopoly" here is, basically any sort of
"property right". If you own a home, the government recognizes
your exclusive right of ownership - I can't just bring a bunch
of my friends along, kick you out and move in. It's against
the law. We need similar laws and regulations for space development.
It's way too much of a free-for-all right now for any serious
investor to be interested.

Alan Wasser's space settlement initiative is a good example of
what I'm talking about: property rights on a celestial
body are recognized for those commercial entities that satisfy
certain regulatory requirements, on a first-come first-served basis.

> > >>My point: despite the fervent wishes of many, the free market
> isn't
> > >>going to get us there all by itself.
>
> The free market will get there itself, if government gets the hell
> out of the way.

Funny, there doesn't seem to be much business investment in
the world's anarchies... (Liberia, Ivory Coast, Congo, Colombia,
Afghanistan, etc...) In truth there's no such thing as a free
market independent of government regulation. And there is, so far,
no such market for space development.

Arthur