…this is the rare cut that won’t make the public squeal.
Try testing that theory. Though, considering NASA’s mismanagement, he does have a point. Give me one or two years of their $18b funding and I’d have a colony started BEO within ten years.
The benefits are “mostly like the pyramids — national prestige and being part of history.”
It makes you wonder. Would Egypt be better off today if the Pharaohs had skipped all that tomb-building and instead focused their resources on universal health care?
No, High Speed Rail Chariots!
bbbeard,
If you knew anything about Gene Healy, you wouldn’t mistake him for a fan of universal health care. Just sayin.
~Jon
I know nothing about the guy (and based on that article do not care to), but out of idle curiosity – Exactly what is he a fan of?
He is a fan of limited government.
And I am a fan of all that is good and richeous. 🙂
“No, High Speed Rail Chariots!”
You’ve got it wrong.
Its “Amtrak in Spaaaaace!””
I don’t think the Pharaohs had the requisite epistemology, Paul…
How do we know the pyramids weren’t an essential part of the Egyptian space program? Obviously it ran out of funding long before they got into orbit, but look at the technology it produced. Stones, cut stones, stone cutting tools, ropes, lightweight composite chariots, bronze thingies, storage jars, visual diagrams, gold thingies, and advances in mathematics, geometry, astronomy, medicine, and after-life navigation.
It’s true — they even had their own versions of Velcro (leather thongs) and Tang (ox urine).
And let’s not forget that the Egyptian’s built their “space program” with thousands of small, wooden sleds rather than one, giant heavy lift wooden sled.
That’s because they had a Pharaoh instead of a Senate. I think it’s obvious why tourists don’t flock to ancient Roman launch complexes. They didn’t manage to build any, instead using primitive siege engines to hurl screaming humans over ramparts in what they claimed was suborbital zero-G research, but was actually a jobs program and convenient way to dispose of the adventurous space proponents who wanted to experience flight for themselves.
Can we get one of those for our senators?
@Jonathan Goff: If you knew anything about Gene Healy, you wouldn’t mistake him for a fan of universal health care. Just sayin.
One of the ironies of the last few years in spaceflight is that anti-statist libertarians and statist liberals find common cause in getting the government out of space. The former, because it frees up more resources for free enterprise, the latter, because it frees up more resources for state-run welfare.
So: perhaps the Pharaohs should have skipped their tomb-building and let people keep more of their tax money, thereby sparking a renaissance in private tomb-building.
I know that’s a simplification. But just sayin’.
Well, perhaps the Pharaoh’s tried the Keynsian method of stimulating private tomb building by pushing the demand side, by killing lots of Egyptians. Since tombs were such a large part of the Egyptian economy, it would be a logical stimulus to get them out of recessions.
I’d accuse Healy of plagiarizing me, except that “bridge to nowhere” so obviously describes NASA “infrastructure” projects like Shuttle and ISS that it must have occurred to many people independently to describe them that way.
I love the optimistic past tense.
So when discussing social security, perhaps the Pharaohs got confused as to the meaning of pyramid scheme?
…this is the rare cut that won’t make the public squeal.
Try testing that theory. Though, considering NASA’s mismanagement, he does have a point. Give me one or two years of their $18b funding and I’d have a colony started BEO within ten years.
The benefits are “mostly like the pyramids — national prestige and being part of history.”
It makes you wonder. Would Egypt be better off today if the Pharaohs had skipped all that tomb-building and instead focused their resources on universal health care?
No, High Speed
RailChariots!bbbeard,
If you knew anything about Gene Healy, you wouldn’t mistake him for a fan of universal health care. Just sayin.
~Jon
I know nothing about the guy (and based on that article do not care to), but out of idle curiosity – Exactly what is he a fan of?
He is a fan of limited government.
And I am a fan of all that is good and richeous. 🙂
“No, High Speed Rail Chariots!”
You’ve got it wrong.
Its “Amtrak in Spaaaaace!””
I don’t think the Pharaohs had the requisite epistemology, Paul…
How do we know the pyramids weren’t an essential part of the Egyptian space program? Obviously it ran out of funding long before they got into orbit, but look at the technology it produced. Stones, cut stones, stone cutting tools, ropes, lightweight composite chariots, bronze thingies, storage jars, visual diagrams, gold thingies, and advances in mathematics, geometry, astronomy, medicine, and after-life navigation.
It’s true — they even had their own versions of Velcro (leather thongs) and Tang (ox urine).
And let’s not forget that the Egyptian’s built their “space program” with thousands of small, wooden sleds rather than one, giant heavy lift wooden sled.
That’s because they had a Pharaoh instead of a Senate. I think it’s obvious why tourists don’t flock to ancient Roman launch complexes. They didn’t manage to build any, instead using primitive siege engines to hurl screaming humans over ramparts in what they claimed was suborbital zero-G research, but was actually a jobs program and convenient way to dispose of the adventurous space proponents who wanted to experience flight for themselves.
Can we get one of those for our senators?
@Jonathan Goff: If you knew anything about Gene Healy, you wouldn’t mistake him for a fan of universal health care. Just sayin.
One of the ironies of the last few years in spaceflight is that anti-statist libertarians and statist liberals find common cause in getting the government out of space. The former, because it frees up more resources for free enterprise, the latter, because it frees up more resources for state-run welfare.
So: perhaps the Pharaohs should have skipped their tomb-building and let people keep more of their tax money, thereby sparking a renaissance in private tomb-building.
I know that’s a simplification. But just sayin’.
Well, perhaps the Pharaoh’s tried the Keynsian method of stimulating private tomb building by pushing the demand side, by killing lots of Egyptians. Since tombs were such a large part of the Egyptian economy, it would be a logical stimulus to get them out of recessions.
I’d accuse Healy of plagiarizing me, except that “bridge to nowhere” so obviously describes NASA “infrastructure” projects like Shuttle and ISS that it must have occurred to many people independently to describe them that way.
I love the optimistic past tense.
So when discussing social security, perhaps the Pharaohs got confused as to the meaning of pyramid scheme?