Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Space

What Do They Know?

5 Comments

As Clark says, I don’t know why anyone would think that space scientists or astronauts are experts on business. I don’t really care what Kathy Sullivan thinks the prospects are for suborbital tourism, and if I thought that astronauts’ opinions on the matter were of value, I can find many astronauts (including John Herrington, Rick Searfoss, etc.) who would disagree with her.

And who is this “Alvin” Aldrin of which they speak? Is that Andy’s evil twin? When I do a search for “Alvin Aldrin” I only get one hit–this article.

A couple other questions for Alvin/Andy. What numbers was he using for the Raptor cost? Marginal, or average per-unit? It makes a big difference.

In addition, I always get annoyed when people use a military fighter as a cost analogue for a spaceship. A lot of that dollar-per-pound number for the plane comes from something in it that weighs nothing at all–software. The avionics for the weapons systems, and the defensive systems are non-trivial in cost as well. Designing a combat aircraft, designed to kill other things and avoid being actively killed by other things, is an entirely different problem than designing a vehicle that has to only contend with passive and predictable nature (and pretty benign nature, for the most part, at least for suborbital). I’d bet that Burt’s own cost numbers for the SS2 already put the lie to Andy’s chart.

[Late afternoon update]

Jeff Foust has a much more extensive writeup of the discussion, which he apparently attended. As I suspected, it was Andy, not Alvin, Aldrin.

5 thoughts on “What Do They Know?”

  1. So, you’re saying that because AAAS is scientists, and scientists don’t know anything about business, they should not discuss the issue of space tourism at all?

    Of the four people on the panel, Sullivan and Sagdeev were the scientists. Aldrin’s a businessman, and Launius is a historian. I guess we can rule out Launius as well. So the only person who is qualified to speak on this subject is Aldrin, I guess. But you disagree with him, so at least that’s a case where you are disagreeing with what he says rather than simply ruling out a class of people based upon who they are.

    You’re an engineer, right? What do engineers know about business? Should they be allowed to have an opinion on this too?

    See the can of worms you open up when you dismiss whole groups of people based upon who they are rather than their individual arguments?

  2. So, you’re saying that because AAAS is scientists, and scientists don’t know anything about business, they should not discuss the issue of space tourism at all?

    You’re saying that scientific conferences should hold sessions on topics that are unrelated to science?

    Hm. Does that work in reverse, too? Should poetry conferences (for example) hold sessions on string theory or evolutionary biology? Should the statements made by poets on those subjects be reported and given the same weight as statements made by physicists or biologists?

    Aldrin’s a businessman

    Is he? How does being a strategic planner for Boeing NASA Space Systems make him a businessman? What business is he engaged in, other than trying to win NASA contracts?

    See the can of worms you open up when you dismiss whole groups of people based upon who they are rather than their individual arguments?

    Scientists dismiss whole groups of people, such as creationists and flat earthers, because those groups have no data to support their beliefs.

    Why, then, should we accept statements made by scientists without data, in fields outside their area of expertise?

  3. If Kathy Sullivan considers spaceflight to be a mere “lark,” I wonder — how does she justify the billions of dollars NASA spent on her “lark” and those of her fellow astronauts?

    Does Andrew Aldrin think NASA’s VSE is a “lark”?

    Or is it only a lark when someone who doesn’t work for the government gets to do it?

    And what about spending billions of dollars on unmanned space probes so AAAS can add more pictures to their collections? Is that a “lark”? Why or why not?

  4. So, you’re saying that because AAAS is scientists, and scientists don’t know anything about business, they should not discuss the issue of space tourism at all?

    They can discuss whatever they want. And I can grant their discussion as much, or little value and credibility as I want. None of them, as far as I know (with the possible exception of Andy) have done any market research in this area, or any experience evaluating business plans.

Comments are closed.