Whenever spaceflight makes the news, you always get the bleeding heart chatterati going on about how the money should be spend on social programs, aid etc. This knee jerk reaction has developed over the history of spaceflight because it has been historically state funded.

But SS1 changed that. For the first time, people were going into space purely on private money. I think this had a lot of the chattering class naysayers in a spin because now they didn't know what to say. The same social program/aid/etc stuff came up as they failed to break the habit.

I think the advent of private spaceflight has gotten them rather confused. It may take some time for them to come to terms with the fact that their stock whinge isn't applicable anymore.

But people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates giving their money to charities might become the rallying cry for no-spacers.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

I remember hearing some people complain about private citizens like Dennis Tito spending their own money ($20 million) to go visit the ISS on a Russian Soyuz capsule. The critics felt better qualified to determine how others should spend their own money than the owners of that money.

The same will no doubt be true when private spaceflight begins. "Why should someone spend $200,000 for a suborbital jaunt when they could've spent that money on [insert their favorite cause]..."

I.e., SpaceShipOne

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There is a simple solution to this problem. Answer the question. Unless you do not have a good answer.

Some people always think they know the best way to spend other people's money. Some call them "busy bodies." I call them "Governments."

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

It seems to me that the naysayers that think money is wasted on space don't realize there are many other things large sums of money are spent on, not only by govts, but also the general public.

And they seem to miss the potential benifits of what can be achieved in space and applied to Earth.

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This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

No one has ever offered a convincing explanation why they shouldn't give me all their money.

Failing people giving all their money to me, I think space programs would be much better off in the long term if more money were spent on education and hunger and disease prevention. This is because a lot of brilliant minds are currently dying, being wasted in manual labour, or being stunted through disease and hunger. If higher education rates in developing countries were brought up to those in the developed world earth's scientific and technical brainpool would be vastly enlarged.

So I say end hunger and the worst poverty. It'll will only take about 1% of the developed world's GDP for about a decade. Then we'll have more of the most vital resouce for space exploration. Human minds and imagination.

Actually, it could also be the point where the lesser fish in the space game tell the bleeding heart to shut the heck up, they've got enough money already.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

There is a simple solution to this problem. Answer the question. Unless you do not have a good answer.


Here's the answer, simple and to the point: It's their own money. They're free to do with it pretty much as they please, just as you're free to do with your money as you please. You don't have the right to dictate how others spend their own money.

Few days ago I read a similar complaint about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett deciding how distribute Gates Foundation charity. The complainer (an Economics professor, of all things) does not believe any individual should have such power, and only a popularly elected body should have a right to run Gates Foundation.

Did I mention that I live in Massachusetts?

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Ilya,

Are you the Ilya that used to post on the MSNBC forums a few years ago? If so, good to see you're still posting.

AKA Larry J

hmmm, conflict of interest? If you're to be the beneficiary then you should not also be the judge.

Can you quanitify how much money would be needed to achive those noble goals? The US often produces a surplus of food both before and after distribution, but US food surplusage is dependent on the accessibility and cost of petroleum. However, I'm not sure if the productivity of some famine areas could increase even with petroleum based/powered technology. There are places that may always be dependent on the surplusage of other agricultural countries.

However, research into space exploration may provide alternatives to petroleum that allow agricultural equipment to be more efficient. Research into building bases on Luna and Mars might also show ways of efficient food production and preservation.

Disease prevention could probably be done to a high degree with litte actual cost since basic sanitation and a few other forms of prophylaxis are relatively cheap. What is harder is convincing people to change parts of their culture that are unsanitary.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Have you seen the move Blackhawk Down (or read the book)? The situation in Somalia was that, even though food was being delivered, the politics of the region prevented it from getting to people. The same is true of North Korea. They have horrible famines and people starve to death every winter - yet food *is* available. The problem isn't that "omg there's no food for these people!!!" the problem is that powerful (dare I say evil) men actively keep the food away from the people.

I actually think it's just a little naive to suggest that "1% of the world's GDP" would solve hunger. Unless you mean, "1% of the world's GDP spent on a military that we will use to invade countries like Somalia and NK and murder the evil men who keep food away from the people."

I was actually stationed in Korea in 1998. There was a famine up North of course, just like every year. The richest guy in Korea is the founder of the Hyundai corporation. The year I was stationed there, he bought a whole bunch of cows - I forget how many, but the caravan of tractor-trailers taking them north was absolutely huge. He gave this to the North Koreans. Just gave it to them. Free food. No strings attached. I saw the caravan on TV, and I remember that we actually had an alert that day because a North Korea division was moving South. The US Army calls an alert any time a Korean unit moves because you never know what they are going to do.

Well, the food was given to the NKs without incident and everything was quiet for about a week. Then I saw on the news where the government of NK was saying that the cows were sick and couldn't be eaten, and that they had killed and burned them. Of course, what really happened was that the NK Army took them. See, they want their people to be hungry. Weak, hungry people are easier to control. They actually got a double bonus in this situation because, not only did they get free food for the Army, they also got to instill a little hate in the people too: "those evil capitalist pigs just tried to poison you!" Hate also makes people easier to control.

I saw that happen. I'm here to tell you, it's very naive to think that we can end hunger by just giving away food. The world doesn't work that way. The Hyundai guy might as well have spent his money on space exploration, because all he did was prop up the North Korean military for a few more years. What he did was *worse* than wasting money.

What do you mean, in a spin? I'm not a fan of manned space exploration myself and I am ecstatic about the success of SpaceShipOne. This is exactly the approach to putting people in space I've been hoping for. Let exploration of space be governed the way all previous explorations have been; by profit motive. You make it sound as if "no-spacers" were against the idea of space travel in principle and were just looking for an excuse. I think most couldn't care less about space; they just didn't want to see government money spent on it.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

First you say they are confused and don't know what to say.

Then you say they their stock whinge -- which they apparently didn't say -- isn't applicable. OK. It isn't applicable and they didn't apply it. Happy?

Next problem!

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Thanks for trying, but I'm still not convinced that people shouldn't give their money to me.

Check what Jeffrey Sachs has written. I think he's a little optimistic, but his plans will go a long way to improving conditions at low cost.

How did we get to giving away food? That would be a very inefficient way of doing things.

There are countries where nasty leaders might prevent aid helping people, so you might have to skip those countries. This means innocent people will die, but when you are working with a tight budget tough decisions have to be made to help the most people possible.

With the example of the cows being sent to North Korea it's very likely that the founder of Hyundai knew exactly what would happen to the cows and how they would go to the army. It's been going on for a long time. However, it does stop the army from stealing so much food from the peasants, so it does have some benefical effect.

Sending cows to North Korea is extremely costly. (Of course, if South Koreans want to send cows to North Korea, that's their own concern.) A much more effective use of the money would be to sell the beef in the developed world and use the money to buy grain. An even more effective method would be to give women with children a dollar in a country with a market economy and let them buy food for their children. An even more effective use of the money might be to offer microloans to people (especially women) who want to start their own businesses. This way the money will help the local economy and you will get most of it back to loan out again.

Look to China and India for examples of countries that have lifted huge populations out of extreme poverty. Mostly it's a matter of improving the market economy, education, disease control and basic infrastructure.

And yet, they still sound opposed, even though it was privately funded. That's the point. They got confused and reacted with their knee-jerk response, failing to understand that it was not government money this time.

You make a valid point, but I'm not sure they actually got confused. Some people (not all) are of the opinion that an economy is a zero sum game and that all wealth belongs to everyone. They use phrases like, "he needs to give BACK to the community" that is, he got rich by TAKING something and now it's time for him to give it back. And they say other things, like calling a tax decrease a giveaway. Like if Arby's lowers the cost of ham and cheese by $0.50, are they *giving* me $0.50? no, they just aren't taking as much. Same with taxes, but these people, who believe that all money belongs to the collective, will call it a giveaway.

And there are lots of other things that they say that give themselves away, but the point is, it all comes down to this: there are some people who really honestly believe that you should not have the right to spend your money on whatever you want. If you have extra money and choose to spend that on space exploration, they get angry because they believe that if you had extra, it should have been taken from you.

It's sad but it's true.

Makes you wonder why Communists have such good space programs

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Now I'm confused. Apparently I misunderstood you. You say they did give their usual response? Then I don't get how you thought they didn't know what to say.

Perhaps you can provide an illustrative pointer to something they said about SpaceShipOne that demonstrates that they didn't know what to say.

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Yes, that's me. I sent you a PM regarding this.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

They didn't know what to say that would apply to SS1 so they just stuck with their stock response, which only applies to governments. Or some crap.

Either way, they suck!

I think SS1 did damage to the spaceflight movement, myself--in giving false hope to NASA bashers. For all the folks who think we don't need gov't--try staying off the Interstate and pave your own road from home to work and see if you can privatize that, let alone spaceflight.

Oh. I used to think "didn't know what to say" meant that someone actually did not know what to say, so said nothing. I'm certain your new improved interpretation -- that not knowing what to say, they actually go ahead and say something anyway -- will enrich my life.

I see. Your reasoned arguments are so persuasive!

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Because technology and budget limitations have force them to stick with what they know and push those vehicles to the limits of their abilities, rather than coming up with something new and improved every few years that potentially pushes the envelope. Soviet and Chinese space vehicles aren't what you would call radical in terms of what goes into them. They are well understood systems that have been around for a number of years. They don't represent any major leaps forward in spacecraft design. Its like comparing Ford's Taurus to the Chevy Cavalier. Different versions of the same concept. But, because they are based on such a solid foundation, their operational capabilities are very predictable, and very reliable.

The shuttles were a radical advancement in spaceflight that involved a massive budget to support, pushed materials science to its breaking point, and sometimes beyond. The end result has been an extremely capable, yet not completely reliable space vehicle.

I would hesitate to say one is better than the other, but that its poor planning to be completely dependent on only one or the other. There's nothing wrong with pushing the envelope, so long as you have a solid foundation to fall back on. The US's only major mistake with regards to manned spaceflight was abandoning the Apollo design. In that one aspect, had the Buran/Energia survived the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia would likely have had an even more complete and functional space program now.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.