15 thoughts on “Time For Republicans To Act Like Conservatives”
Being depressed by the comments over there.
Apparently “smart” people have a greater right to employment than others.
(No mention that productive employment is what actually matters. The lost opportunity cost of all those smart people costs the US far more than the few billions per year in budget – the wasted budget is not the primary reason why the pork needs to stop, the wasted potential is.)
NASA should be funded because they indirectly achieve so much useful research that greatly benefits the US, justifying their budget many times over. NASA developed all these technologies that enabled the modern world…
(Constructive productivity focussed research is invariably far more effective than spurious random research for the sake of spurious random research. These people could be off creating the next tech boom and saving the economy, but instead they are being actively held on the bench at NASA, wasting away far below their productive potential).
And the property rights in space holding back space development fallacy.
(Meaningful property rights will not happen until people actually go there and establish ownership in some physically meaningful manner.)
Both sides in this debate are, as is usual in the sci-fi-driven world of space politics, far removed from economic and political reality. The first part of that reality is that the NewSpace vision of CCDev, as some sort of rational government decision to “buy a ticket” on the cheapest flight, is dead. There never were any existing “space airliners”, so outside of NASA buying rides on the Soyuz that analogy was always hopelessly flawed. HSF has been, is, and will remain over 99.5% funded by government space agencies who launch astronauts for the sake of launching astronauts. Meanwhile SpaceX, the most promising CCDev possibility, shot itself in the foot when Musk flamed Republicans as “s*c**l*sts” and donated almost exclusively this election cycle to the Democrats. The last place Republicans want to dish pork to is California. If government was hyperrational and apolitical they would still choose the most economical supplier, SpaceX, but they are far from being either. Even if CCDev is funded by the new Congress, which is doubtful, SpaceX will not be a major participant in it.
And since SpaceX is the only government contractor actually willing to do CCDev on anything actually approaching “buy a ticket” terms, CCDev as NewSpace has envisioned it is dead. It may still be called “commercial”, and many NewSpacers may be fooled by such rhetoric, but it will end up practically indistinguishable from a traditional government contract.
SpaceX now must do what I have long been urging it to do, namely throw off the NASA albatross and focus on real commerce. They have taken a nice first step with the Iridium contract. Unfortunately for most NewSpace companies, real space commerce, participating in and building on services that actually provide value to people here on earth, is radically removed from the HSF-obsessed NewSpace vision.
The more general lesson of the Zheng He fleets that Rand failed to draw is that one cannot privatize an economic fantasy. The “treasure fleets” were far too oversized for the commercial trade of the day (high-value low-bulk cargo like spices, silks, and silver). The Portuguese fleets, having been designed for real commerce in the first place, were properly scaled and otherwise properly designed for commerce. What was true of the Zheng He fleets is true of HSF today — even CCDev is on far too large a scale for anything close to a sufficient market of private customers to afford. Space commerce that actually pays for itself — and there is plenty of it — is unmanned. Ditto for space operations that actually contribute to our national security.
Rand accurately observes that his opponents follow a NASA-inspired cargo cult, but fails to recognize the same thing is true of the NewSpace camp and its obsession with HSF. These sci-fi-driven philosophies of NASA funding are about as relevant to actual commercial space activity as the old paintings of glass lunar domes or, for that matter, those ancient Byzantine paintings of the heavenly pilgrimages of our dearly departed saints.
“There never were any existing “space airliners”, so outside of NASA buying rides on the Soyuz that analogy was always hopelessly flawed.”
So, aside from the long-established, concrete existence of “space airliners” and the long-established fact that NASA buys rides for its astronauts on them (i.e. NASA buying rides on Soyuz), the analogy of “space airliners” is hopelessly flawed?
I just wanted to make sure I had that one straight, is all…
SpaceX is a human spaceflight company. They’re doing satellite launches to pay the bills. Should the day come when Musk gives up on human spaceflight he’ll no-doubt sell SpaceX to ULA and move onto something else.
Should SpaceX not get some of the upcoming CCDev2 contracts, they’ll still be in a better position to be the first to sell seats to NASA, Space Adventures and anyone else who wants them.
MfK, Rand’s analogy is to a government employee buying tickets on an existing private, commercial airliner that sells millions of tickets to private customers, like our troops sometimes fly commercial instead of USAF. For most of its history 100% of Soyuz’ revenue came from the Soviet/Russian government, and still well over 90% of it revenue comes from there, and most of the remaining fraction from unmanned satellite launches. Its private tourist launches (less than one per year) are sold at the marginal costs (unused seat) of marginal costs (already existing rocket and capsule): Soyuz could not come within an order of magnitude of being economically developed from scratch if orbital tourism was to be its main market.
Nevertheless, Soyuz as a very mature rocket and capsule comes far closer to Rand’s analogy than the CCDev program, for which no such mature rocket and no capsule that has ever flown a human exists. NASA with some help from the DoD funded the development of Falcon and Dragon for ISS cargo transport, and NASA would heavily fund further development of the Dragon capsule to get it to the point where it could to NASA’s satisfaction fly its first astronaut. All of which could hardly be less analogous to “buying a ticket for a government employee.” The analogy is a preposterous sham.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention the other basic political problem facing CCDev: it is hopelessly tied to an internationally controlled s*c**l*st fraud of astronomical proportions, the International Space Station. Call CCDev “commercial” all you like but the ISS which is its only reason for existence is nothing but a heavenly communist cathedral. That monstrosity has defrauded more people of more money than Bernie Madoff. Tea Partiers will when the have actually gained control (they haven’t yet, but probably will in 2012) do not have a more visible target to cut than that idiotic white elephant.
Trent, feel free to believe whatever you like about what business you think SpaceX is in, or even what business Musk (already a minority owner) may daydream that it’s in. The reality is that so far it has been almost entirely in the NASA contracting business, but it’s not getting any more big COTS/CRS or CCDev like contracts from NASA. If by the end of its currently contracted CRS flights SpaceX is not getting most of its revenue from unmanned satellite launches, they will not succeed in their stated goal of lowering launch costs, as they will have too few launches to amortize their overhead and capital investments over. HSF will end up about as important to their business as the Google Lunar X-Prize is to Google.
googaw, I really don’t know where you get your fantasies from, but Musk is not a minority owner of SpaceX.. Please prove otherwise.
The Republicans actually need to start acting more like libertarians when it comes to space. Conservatives have never been interested in spending much on space (except for defense), but to the extent they have supported it at all, they have supported NASA-only.
It may be a moot point, however. There is a rumor that James Oberstar, having lost his House seat, has volunteered to be the next Secretary of Transportation. That would be the death-blow to commercial human space flight.
Trent, Musk sold some of the company to venture capitalists. Then his ex-wife got half of the remainder. That makes him a minority owner. Although the point is moot, since Musk does not have the business incompetence you impute to him, namely that he would neglect the real business of launching satellites for the fantasy business of private HSF. Or for that matter that he would consider the way they pay the bills to be different from the business they’re in. Don’t confuse hype with reality.
MfK, it would be extremely unfortunate if we went from the good news of Oberstar losing his House seat to the terrible news of him becoming Secretary of Transportation.
No one should be surprised that Musk contributed to Democrats more than Republicans. He received a lot of government support for retooling his Tesla production line and people who buy his vehicles get a great tax credit.
Aside from that, if you look at the contributions of most corporations, they generally give more money to the party in power and almost always give money to both parties. Expect Musk to do the same.
According to the marital agreement, Justine would receive approximately $20 million dollars after tax, half in the form of the house and half in support payments. … Justine said no to this offer and continued to insist on receiving ownership in Tesla and SpaceX.
On May 3rd this year, the California court agreed with [Elon’s] position, declaring the marital agreement both valid and enforceable. … Justine has decided to appeal…
You have evidence that Justine won her appeal? While we don’t know how much he sold to investors, He invested $100m and they later provided $20m. I see no evidence that Elon is a minority shareholder.
I found this…
What does Justine want from Elon to settle this thing?
The house, alimony and child support, 6 million cash, 10 percent of his stock in Tesla, 5 percent of his stock in SpaceX, (and he retains all voting rights) and a Tesla Roadster (I really, really want one…)
Still sounds like Elon remains in control. If she loses her appeal, which seems likely, she does not get the above, instead she gets $10m and the house.
ken, why waste your time replying to a moron who clearly doesn’t even understand basic corporate finance?
Musk’s ex should ask for more cash and let him keep the house.
The Republicans actually need to start acting more like libertarians when it comes to space. Conservatives have never been interested in spending much on space (except for defense), but to the extent they have supported it at all, they have supported NASA-only.
That would come as a big surprise to Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Dana Rohrabacher, Bob Walker, etc.
Don’t confuse conservatives with the country-club Republicans who’ve tried to steal the brand.
Ronald Reagan defined conservatism like this: “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom.”
Contrast that to “compassionate” “conservatives” who only want to increase the size and power of government. They are not conservatives, in the American sense of the word. They’re more like “conservatives” in the old, European sense: the Tories whom Reagan spoke of.
Reagan said that, “Government is not the solution to every problem. In more and more cases, government is the problem.” The big-spending country clubbers don’t believe that. They think that big government is the solution to every problem, whether it’s prescription drug prices or space exploration. The only difference between them and the Democrats is which group they want to get the goodies.
The Tea Party represents a return to the old, principled limited-government conservatism of Ronald Reagan. We can only hope they will be able to stand up to the “Tories,” who won’t go down without a fight.
Elon Musk recently hosted a fundraiser for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher at SpaceX.
Googah simply does not care about the facts. He’s concocted a fantasy world in which Iridium only sells it’s services to commercial customers, not the Federal government, the satellite industry does not receive subsidies through government-operated ranges, etc., and satellite launchers aren’t the beneficiary of hundreds of billions in government missile R&D. I’ve tried to explain these things to him, but he simply refuses to learn. It’s impossible to have a serious conversation with him.
Being depressed by the comments over there.
Apparently “smart” people have a greater right to employment than others.
(No mention that productive employment is what actually matters. The lost opportunity cost of all those smart people costs the US far more than the few billions per year in budget – the wasted budget is not the primary reason why the pork needs to stop, the wasted potential is.)
NASA should be funded because they indirectly achieve so much useful research that greatly benefits the US, justifying their budget many times over. NASA developed all these technologies that enabled the modern world…
(Constructive productivity focussed research is invariably far more effective than spurious random research for the sake of spurious random research. These people could be off creating the next tech boom and saving the economy, but instead they are being actively held on the bench at NASA, wasting away far below their productive potential).
And the property rights in space holding back space development fallacy.
(Meaningful property rights will not happen until people actually go there and establish ownership in some physically meaningful manner.)
Both sides in this debate are, as is usual in the sci-fi-driven world of space politics, far removed from economic and political reality. The first part of that reality is that the NewSpace vision of CCDev, as some sort of rational government decision to “buy a ticket” on the cheapest flight, is dead. There never were any existing “space airliners”, so outside of NASA buying rides on the Soyuz that analogy was always hopelessly flawed. HSF has been, is, and will remain over 99.5% funded by government space agencies who launch astronauts for the sake of launching astronauts. Meanwhile SpaceX, the most promising CCDev possibility, shot itself in the foot when Musk flamed Republicans as “s*c**l*sts” and donated almost exclusively this election cycle to the Democrats. The last place Republicans want to dish pork to is California. If government was hyperrational and apolitical they would still choose the most economical supplier, SpaceX, but they are far from being either. Even if CCDev is funded by the new Congress, which is doubtful, SpaceX will not be a major participant in it.
And since SpaceX is the only government contractor actually willing to do CCDev on anything actually approaching “buy a ticket” terms, CCDev as NewSpace has envisioned it is dead. It may still be called “commercial”, and many NewSpacers may be fooled by such rhetoric, but it will end up practically indistinguishable from a traditional government contract.
SpaceX now must do what I have long been urging it to do, namely throw off the NASA albatross and focus on real commerce. They have taken a nice first step with the Iridium contract. Unfortunately for most NewSpace companies, real space commerce, participating in and building on services that actually provide value to people here on earth, is radically removed from the HSF-obsessed NewSpace vision.
The more general lesson of the Zheng He fleets that Rand failed to draw is that one cannot privatize an economic fantasy. The “treasure fleets” were far too oversized for the commercial trade of the day (high-value low-bulk cargo like spices, silks, and silver). The Portuguese fleets, having been designed for real commerce in the first place, were properly scaled and otherwise properly designed for commerce. What was true of the Zheng He fleets is true of HSF today — even CCDev is on far too large a scale for anything close to a sufficient market of private customers to afford. Space commerce that actually pays for itself — and there is plenty of it — is unmanned. Ditto for space operations that actually contribute to our national security.
Rand accurately observes that his opponents follow a NASA-inspired cargo cult, but fails to recognize the same thing is true of the NewSpace camp and its obsession with HSF. These sci-fi-driven philosophies of NASA funding are about as relevant to actual commercial space activity as the old paintings of glass lunar domes or, for that matter, those ancient Byzantine paintings of the heavenly pilgrimages of our dearly departed saints.
“There never were any existing “space airliners”, so outside of NASA buying rides on the Soyuz that analogy was always hopelessly flawed.”
So, aside from the long-established, concrete existence of “space airliners” and the long-established fact that NASA buys rides for its astronauts on them (i.e. NASA buying rides on Soyuz), the analogy of “space airliners” is hopelessly flawed?
I just wanted to make sure I had that one straight, is all…
SpaceX is a human spaceflight company. They’re doing satellite launches to pay the bills. Should the day come when Musk gives up on human spaceflight he’ll no-doubt sell SpaceX to ULA and move onto something else.
Should SpaceX not get some of the upcoming CCDev2 contracts, they’ll still be in a better position to be the first to sell seats to NASA, Space Adventures and anyone else who wants them.
MfK, Rand’s analogy is to a government employee buying tickets on an existing private, commercial airliner that sells millions of tickets to private customers, like our troops sometimes fly commercial instead of USAF. For most of its history 100% of Soyuz’ revenue came from the Soviet/Russian government, and still well over 90% of it revenue comes from there, and most of the remaining fraction from unmanned satellite launches. Its private tourist launches (less than one per year) are sold at the marginal costs (unused seat) of marginal costs (already existing rocket and capsule): Soyuz could not come within an order of magnitude of being economically developed from scratch if orbital tourism was to be its main market.
Nevertheless, Soyuz as a very mature rocket and capsule comes far closer to Rand’s analogy than the CCDev program, for which no such mature rocket and no capsule that has ever flown a human exists. NASA with some help from the DoD funded the development of Falcon and Dragon for ISS cargo transport, and NASA would heavily fund further development of the Dragon capsule to get it to the point where it could to NASA’s satisfaction fly its first astronaut. All of which could hardly be less analogous to “buying a ticket for a government employee.” The analogy is a preposterous sham.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention the other basic political problem facing CCDev: it is hopelessly tied to an internationally controlled s*c**l*st fraud of astronomical proportions, the International Space Station. Call CCDev “commercial” all you like but the ISS which is its only reason for existence is nothing but a heavenly communist cathedral. That monstrosity has defrauded more people of more money than Bernie Madoff. Tea Partiers will when the have actually gained control (they haven’t yet, but probably will in 2012) do not have a more visible target to cut than that idiotic white elephant.
Trent, feel free to believe whatever you like about what business you think SpaceX is in, or even what business Musk (already a minority owner) may daydream that it’s in. The reality is that so far it has been almost entirely in the NASA contracting business, but it’s not getting any more big COTS/CRS or CCDev like contracts from NASA. If by the end of its currently contracted CRS flights SpaceX is not getting most of its revenue from unmanned satellite launches, they will not succeed in their stated goal of lowering launch costs, as they will have too few launches to amortize their overhead and capital investments over. HSF will end up about as important to their business as the Google Lunar X-Prize is to Google.
googaw, I really don’t know where you get your fantasies from, but Musk is not a minority owner of SpaceX.. Please prove otherwise.
The Republicans actually need to start acting more like libertarians when it comes to space. Conservatives have never been interested in spending much on space (except for defense), but to the extent they have supported it at all, they have supported NASA-only.
It may be a moot point, however. There is a rumor that James Oberstar, having lost his House seat, has volunteered to be the next Secretary of Transportation. That would be the death-blow to commercial human space flight.
Trent, Musk sold some of the company to venture capitalists. Then his ex-wife got half of the remainder. That makes him a minority owner. Although the point is moot, since Musk does not have the business incompetence you impute to him, namely that he would neglect the real business of launching satellites for the fantasy business of private HSF. Or for that matter that he would consider the way they pay the bills to be different from the business they’re in. Don’t confuse hype with reality.
MfK, it would be extremely unfortunate if we went from the good news of Oberstar losing his House seat to the terrible news of him becoming Secretary of Transportation.
No one should be surprised that Musk contributed to Democrats more than Republicans. He received a lot of government support for retooling his Tesla production line and people who buy his vehicles get a great tax credit.
Aside from that, if you look at the contributions of most corporations, they generally give more money to the party in power and almost always give money to both parties. Expect Musk to do the same.
According to the marital agreement, Justine would receive approximately $20 million dollars after tax, half in the form of the house and half in support payments. … Justine said no to this offer and continued to insist on receiving ownership in Tesla and SpaceX.
On May 3rd this year, the California court agreed with [Elon’s] position, declaring the marital agreement both valid and enforceable. … Justine has decided to appeal…
You have evidence that Justine won her appeal? While we don’t know how much he sold to investors, He invested $100m and they later provided $20m. I see no evidence that Elon is a minority shareholder.
I found this…
What does Justine want from Elon to settle this thing?
The house, alimony and child support, 6 million cash, 10 percent of his stock in Tesla, 5 percent of his stock in SpaceX, (and he retains all voting rights) and a Tesla Roadster (I really, really want one…)
Still sounds like Elon remains in control. If she loses her appeal, which seems likely, she does not get the above, instead she gets $10m and the house.
ken, why waste your time replying to a moron who clearly doesn’t even understand basic corporate finance?
Musk’s ex should ask for more cash and let him keep the house.
The Republicans actually need to start acting more like libertarians when it comes to space. Conservatives have never been interested in spending much on space (except for defense), but to the extent they have supported it at all, they have supported NASA-only.
That would come as a big surprise to Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Dana Rohrabacher, Bob Walker, etc.
Don’t confuse conservatives with the country-club Republicans who’ve tried to steal the brand.
Ronald Reagan defined conservatism like this: “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom.”
Contrast that to “compassionate” “conservatives” who only want to increase the size and power of government. They are not conservatives, in the American sense of the word. They’re more like “conservatives” in the old, European sense: the Tories whom Reagan spoke of.
Reagan said that, “Government is not the solution to every problem. In more and more cases, government is the problem.” The big-spending country clubbers don’t believe that. They think that big government is the solution to every problem, whether it’s prescription drug prices or space exploration. The only difference between them and the Democrats is which group they want to get the goodies.
The Tea Party represents a return to the old, principled limited-government conservatism of Ronald Reagan. We can only hope they will be able to stand up to the “Tories,” who won’t go down without a fight.
Elon Musk recently hosted a fundraiser for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher at SpaceX.
Googah simply does not care about the facts. He’s concocted a fantasy world in which Iridium only sells it’s services to commercial customers, not the Federal government, the satellite industry does not receive subsidies through government-operated ranges, etc., and satellite launchers aren’t the beneficiary of hundreds of billions in government missile R&D. I’ve tried to explain these things to him, but he simply refuses to learn. It’s impossible to have a serious conversation with him.