10-Year Plan

Ed Minchau wrote:

>Oh there's money in it all right - if governments stay out of the
>way.
>

But you had said:

>>The taxpayers and the consumers are the same people.
>>
so if there is no money to be spent on space, neither as taxpayers, nor
as consumers, then there's no money for space, period. How is government
in the way?

>[...]
>The thing is, only human beings have rights. Governments and
>government entities do not.
>

The government of any country represents its people, to a better or
worse extent depending on the type of government, but every government
has some sort of "head of state" responsible for making agreements with
the governments of other countries. The ITU, in the example you complain
about, or any UN agency, exists because of agreements between countries
represented by their heads of state and other duly appointed
authorities; in the case of Canada or the US, you elect your own
government, and therefore are represented by them in the running of such
agencies.

What you really seem to be complaining about is that you, as one of 6
billion people in the world, have very little influence. Well, tough.
That's the world we live in. Be thankful you're in a democracy.

>> 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.
>>
>>
>
>Suppose for a moment that government somehow finds a way to allow
>cheap access to space, and I send some of my robots to an asteroid.
>The lander and robots are owned by me, and I have paid for the launch
>to the asteroid. Who would own the rock? My country, the country
>from which I launched, or the country where I had the robots and
>lander manufactured?
>

Nobody would own "the rock" under current international law, but you
would own your own equipment there, and your government (where you, as
owner of the equipment, are a citizen) would be responsible for your
activities with that equipment.

But you would have no legal recourse against a competitor who landed 10
days after you find tungsten there, with more equipment and scooped up
most of the rock before you could gather enough to make a profit. Unless
they directly damaged your equipment, you would have no legal recourse
if they cut away under where you had landed and set your equipment
adrift. You would have no property right, no monopoly to that material.
Wild West time!!! Or, more contemporarily, think Somalia...

And that means, you have ZERO assurance that, even aside from the risks
of getting to your dream rock, once you get there you'll be able to get
any benefit out of it. If you have your own multi-billion dollar
investment fund to put at risk, that's one thing, but it's pretty
unlikely that, without any legal property-rights backing, you'll be able
to get anybody else to help fund your little adventure.

>[...]
>
>How convenient it is to claim victory without refuting anything. I
>live in Canada - the most heavily-taxed country in the free world. I
>have seen it happen here. Don't let it happen there.
>

I grew up in Canada. It's a very nice country. I always thought
Scandinavian countries had higher taxes though. One of the reasons taxes
are higher in the northern countries is the greater expense of capital
investment needed, relative to population - given that Canada has 1/10
the population but about the same area as the US, it's not doing too bad
for government spending on a per-square-mile-basis! But there is much
less of private entrepreneurialism there than here in the US. Government
in the US has not been growing significantly bigger though; taxes are
pretty much where they always were. Sometimes they go up a bit,
sometimes down. I think the balance between public and private sectors
in the US is just about right. But NASA's fraction of that is pretty
tiny these days - less than 1% of the federal budget, and I have no
problem suggesting other places to cut so NASA can have just a bit more
money and can start seriously talking about the Moon and Mars again.

>[...]
>
>>NASA does R&D.
>>
>>
>
>Ever hear of Bell Labs?
>

Um, did you realize Bell Labs was run by AT&T? The US Telephone
monopoly? Now that the telco monopolies in the US have been broken, Bell
Labs (now with Lucent Technologies) is a shadow of its former self; with
the recent scandals there and Lucent's financial troubles I wouldn't be
surprised (though I would be very sorry) to see the place shut its doors
in the next few years. IBM's research lab has also been severely cut and
focused on near-term work in recent years. Same at Xerox, Kodak, etc.
Only the pharmaceutical companies seem to be able to spend much on
long-term R&D these days, and that's due to their strong monopoly
protections under the patent system.

A monopoly, or a government agency, can afford to fund blue-sky stuff
that may have huge payoffs many years down the road. A company in a real
competitive environment cannot afford to think beyond the next few
quarters; research has to be much more product-oriented, and very little
NASA does qualifies for that.

>[...]
>Better yet. Divide NASA up into business units, dozens of
>them. "The bidding for the robotics unit starts at $50 million
>dollars. Thank you, Mr. Oz. Do I hear 60? 60 million, Mr Rutan..."
>
What product does NASA make that would justify that? If companies wanted
to hire NASA engineers for their skills, they can do that without buying
up the buildings and centers and management structures and commitments
to existing programs that are there now.

>
>Pretty pictures, a handful of people at a time into space, "massively
>inefficient"... and you say that even more money for NASA will cure
>what ails it? The definition of insanity: to do the same thing over
>and over again, expecting the results to be different.
>
We haven't tried giving NASA more money or a new direction since the big
and somewhat unimaginative "Space Exploration Initiative" was shot down
by congress under Bush-I. What I'm suggesting is funding for HR4742 -
the "Space Settlement Initiative", or something of that sort, a
sensible step-by-step plan with a long term vision of space enterprise I
would think all space advocates could agree with. I agree we shouldn't
be doing the same thing over and over again; what we need is something
new and different, which hasn't been tried in decades: give NASA some
positive feedback to work in a new direction, instead of the constant
negatives which seems to be all the space advocacy community can come up
with lately.

>[...]
>
>For many people, that $100 can mean the difference between eating and
>not. The $50 less paid in taxes every year helps, too. Don't forget
>the multiplier effect.
>
People who have trouble finding enough to eat don't pay taxes in this
country. And they get plenty of money already from the government. And
there's plenty of other support structures around. I can't imagine it's
any worse in Canada. I don't even know what you mean by "don't forget
the multiplier effect" - do you think money spent by NASA goes up in
flames somehow, never to re-enter the economy?

>[...]
>You seem to be of the opinion that there is a limited amount of money
>in the world, and that money "comes from" somewhere. It doesn't.
>Money is made by people who work. The money will be made by
>companies who sell things that people want to buy.
>
Um. I'm no economist, but here's how I understand it. At any given time,
for a given level of productivity and employment, there is a limited
yearly "value added" in an economy. The money represented by that value
"comes from" whatever demand there is, and "goes to" salaries. Over that
yearly period, whatever comes in as salaries (and investment dividends)
then goes out again as taxes, direct spending, or savings and
investment. The only way to have "more money" total in the economy,
other than expanding the employed population, is to improve productivity
- generally that means capital investment of one sort or another. Some
types of capital investment (roads, rails, utility infrastructure,
security measures, legal system, scientific R&D) are of benefit to all
in common, and need government sponsorship, whether directly through
taxes or indirectly through regulated monopolies. The only other option
is for private individuals to see the need, and contribute to the common
good out of the goodness of their hearts. The level of that investment,
due to our general selfishness, is never as high as can be achieved
through a good government.

If you don't think your government is making the right investments to
improve general productivity, then it is your right, and responsibility,
to work to change that. I claim space infrastructure should be an
important part of government capital investment.

>[...] You said it yourself. "NASA... is just a way for government to spend
>a bunch of money... mostly in southern congressional districts..."
>
From the point of view of a business-person who might want to buy in to
their business, that's all NASA is. From the point of view of somebody
with an interest in space development, NASA is an awful lot more than
that. It's R&D, investment in infrastructure, as I said elsewhere.

>
>Now tell me again in small words why NASA needs more taxpayer dollars.
>
Because they have a lot of good people who have been stifled by years of
congressional inconsistency and upper-management indecision and
obfuscation. Give NASA a consistent mission and consistently improved
budget, involving humans beyond low earth orbit, and they will flourish.
Give them a little bit of trust here.

>>[...]
>>
>>(2) any private
>>company trying to use a non-US launcher has to run the
>>state department "export control" gauntlet.
>>
>>
>
>1) Thus bloating Boeing and LockMart at NASA's "infinite" teat.
>
Hey, it's not an unreasonable requirement for government funds to be
expended within that country; but it does act as a trade-protectionist
measure, yes. If other US launch firms can do it cheaper though, they're
welcome to compete.

>2) I am not familiar with this. Please fill me in.
>
http://pmdtc.org/reference.htm
- the infamous "International Traffic in Arms Regulations"
Exporting satellites used to be almost a rubber stamp through the
Department of Commerce, but then the Republicans lashed into the Clinton
administration for letting some companies launch satellites in China,
and since then it's been regulated by the US State department, and
really cracked down on. I believe the US Congress itself must grant
specific exception for anybody trying to launch from China, now.

>[...]
>
>Private property rights! Now we're getting somewhere.
>
Yup. It's possible this alone would provide enough investment incentive
without further capital investment by the government. I'd like to see both.

>http://www.permanent.com/archimedes
>
>I have Class D claims on 11 Parthenope, 18 Melpemone, 121 Hermione
>(and it satellite and libration orbits), and 243 Ida (and its
>satellite Dactyl, as well as libration orbits).
>
I met Larry Roberts (who runs the Archimedes Institute) recently. His
claims registry is a nice idea - but it's not exactly any better
(perhaps on worse ground legally) than Dennis Hope's Lunar Embassy,
which sells real estate "certificates" for the Moon and other celestial
bodies, and has prior claims to most of the solar system. Your claims,
in any case, can be easily superceded by more specific or higher-class
claims, so they don't really mean much at present. I believe there are
some legal systems that might recognize such claims, but the US,
Canadian and British common law system doesn't, at least at present.

>Liberia, Ivory Coast, Congo, Columbia... these are not anarchies,
>they are thugocracies.
>
Well, they lack a central government capable of providing much in the
way of common capital investment to their people (or have at times in
the recent past) whatever you want to call them. If you don't want
government, that's the sort of thing you end up with.

Arthur