Lee Cary is concerned. I'm not, mostly because I don't think that Obama has a chance in hell of winning, but also because I don't believe that Ares/Orion is "the way forward," so it's hard for me to be very upset about either a delay, or cancellation.
I don't think that Obama has a chance in hell of winning
Money is lying on the table for you at Intrade. Millions of dollars, probably.
Idea futures markets (like Intrade) work when many people contribute their best, objective, cold-blooded judgement through placing cash bets. However, they haven't been performing very well as predictors on elections. It seems that even when cash is at stake, people let their wishful thinking on elections cloud their judgement.
How many people have ever put money on their favorite candidate's opponent? Apparently, not many.
I'm not citing Intrade as any special authority on the election. That's not the point at all. The point is, if you know better, here is your chance to get rich. Put your money where your mouth is. To hear Rand tell it, betting against the Democrats in the general election is a risk-negligible way to turn $100,000 into $250,000 in less than seven months. Rand did say that he was short on cash, so this would vindicate him twice over. He would soak those idiotic wishful so-called "liberals", and improve his own financial situation.
For almost half a century the Left has been talking about killing NASA and diverting its funding to their pet projects. (Based on the assumption that money is being stuffed into rockets and being lost forever.) Should the Obamadhi actually accomplish this goal it might be the best possible way to get out of our current dead end with space utilization. With the side effect of reducing by one the number of sources of easy money for future social engineering.
Idea futures markets (like Intrade) work when many people contribute their best, objective, cold-blooded judgement through placing cash bets.However, they haven't been performing very well as predictors on elections.
Compared to what? Talking heads? Polls? While there are legal issues with betting from the US, it is worth noting that TradeSports has Obama at 46.3-46.9% of winning the presidency right now. Book orders are kind of light, but you should be able to sink a few thousand dollars at or above 40. Maybe a lot more, depending on the market and how skillful a trader you are.
That's more than 50% return on a sure thing that comes due in November. Getting back on subject, this is as strong an indication as one can get this far ahead of time that Obama has roughly a 45% of becoming the next president of the US.
For almost half a century the Left has been talking about killing NASA and diverting its funding to their pet projects.
Ahem.
Raoul, have you missed all the people talking about about killing DoD projects and diverting military funding to NASA's pet projects?
In the interest of objectivity, could I point out that it was the Left (specifically John Kennedy) that created Project Apollo? And that one of the goals was to take manned space programs away from the US military?
Even today, Most NASA employees and contractors seem to be liberal Democrats. Bush tried to buy NASA employees with VSE; the response from their union was to endorse John Kerry over George W. Bush. Keith Cowing endorsed Kerry, and have you noticed that NASA centers that are named after politicians always pick liberal Democrats (Kennedy, Johnson, Glenn) and never Republicans?
Raoul, here is a quote from Dava Newman, an MIT professor working on spacesuits from NASA.
This sort of "one world" anti-military sentiment is something I hear quite often from people in the aerospace industry (even from many working on military projects). In my opinion, it's a myth that workers in the aerospace industry (and NASA, in particular) are "right wing."
"She entered Notre Dame with dreams of becoming the world's best sports lawyer. She wanted to represent Kareem Abdul-Jabbar... But before she graduated, two things changed her course: She fell in love with flight, especially human space flight; and she despised Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- Star Wars. Space was no place for war. So, law be damned, aerospace engineering it was -- human aerospace engineering, because, as she once said to an audience of young students, that's the key to ensuring 'cooperative, global human space exploration rather than ... militarization of space, to which I'm opposed.'"
http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2000/02/16/davanewman/
Hmmmm . . .
Yes, Cortez did burn his boats but that was to keep his people in Mexico and prevent them from returning to Europe.
If POTUS Obama is to duplicate that feat, NASA will need to put people back on the Moon no later than January 2017 to allow those astronauts to be stranded. And if those astronauts stayed on the Moon and built a new society, why would we object?
NASA will need to put people back on the Moon no later than January 2017 to allow those astronauts to be stranded. And if those astronauts stayed on the Moon and built a new society, why would we object?
Because 8 astronauts per year (85% of them male) does not constitute a viable breeding population. With a gene pool that tiny, your "society" would be inbred with widespread genetic defects within two generations and extinction shortly thereafter.
A genetically viable settlement would require hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals. Putting that many people on the Moon will require reducing the cost of space transportation -- not increasing it, as "Apollo on Steroids" would.
Do you think you can ignore the laws of biology as well as economics?
"Even today, Most NASA employees and contractors seem to be liberal Democrats."
Maybe in the NASA circles you're familiar with, Ed, but this is not at all true in my experience. I've met very, very few liberal Democrats in ten years in the aerospace industry, about half of which has been spent working on NASA projects.
Could be that the left-leaning coworkers do outnumber us libertarians and conservatives, but simply choose to keep their politics to themselves. Doubtful, though, given my other experiences with Democrats. I think it's far more likely that if my coworkers were mostly liberal Democrats, at least some would feel emboldened/compelled to jump into office political discussions in which they perceive a conservative or libertarian ideology...or use "hostile work environment" complaints to shut down (non-lefty) political talk in the office altogether.
could be that the left-leaning coworkers do outnumber us libertarians and conservatives"
"Us libertarians and conservatives"?
T.L., your MarsBlog is a cheerleader for Apollo on Steroids, a $100 billion jobs program for aerospace engineers that will increase the cost of access to space. Meanwhile, China has military spaceplane hardware on the runway, while the US military spaceplane continues to be unfunded.
If you call yourself a "libertarian/conservative" but advocate the same policies as JFK, you've made my point whether you realize it or not.
Edward --
When was your Salon article written?
Quote: "After all, the more bodies living aloft in cooperative enterprises like the International Space Station, the more out-of-place the new Star Wars initiative will seem (President Clinton signed off on Star Wars last year, despite the plan's international status as technologia non grata)"
> When was your Salon article written?
I have never written for Salon.
"T.L., your MarsBlog is a cheerleader for Apollo on Steroids..."
Is it? That's news to me. If you don't see on MarsBlog the degree of criticism that would meet your standards for libertarian purity, remember that I am not exactly in a position to express my many misgivings about the program in any detail.
I am not exactly in a position to express my many misgivings about the program in any detail
Your many misgivings?? T.L., you flayed Seth Borenstein, one of the best informed aerospace journalists, because he dared to express his misgivings instead of being a cheerleader for the program.
Are you saying you don't really believe that but your employer made you say it?
Wow, that's what you cherry pick to "prove" I'm a "cheerleader" for Orion?
I think your reading comprehension gland is overdue for its 3,000,000-word checkup, Ed.
Wow, that's what you cherry pick to "prove" I'm a "cheerleader" for Orion?
What would you like me to "cherry pick," T.L.?
I see posts from you defending Orion as recently as March 23, 2008. I see nothing about "many misgivings" -- unless not liking the document control process is what you mean by "misgivings."
If you want me to believe your employer makes you write those things and you don't really believe them, well, maybe. Then again, maybe Barack Obama doesn't believe what he says about space, either. I can only go on the available data.
For example, this quote from the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
Steve Vergala is a longtime Boeing employee who says he can feel the frustration on the factory floor.
"The rich get richer and the poor die," he said.
Maybe your floor is different, but I've met enough Boeing employee employees to believe Vergala means what he says.
Get help, Ed.