I haven’t said much about Sean Penn’s idiotic slamming of George Bush and Bill O’Reilly, but I couldn’t let this pass.

“He doesn’t provoke thought or challenge my head or my spirit,” Penn says of the highest-rated President of all time. “I don’t think he does the country’s either.”

I’ve never heard Sean Penn say anything that would lead me to believe that there is any possibility of provoking thought. And when it comes to challenging his head, it sounds like just metabolizing might do that.

As for the second statement, it would have been much more accurate if he’d just quit at the third word.

My question is, why does what entertainment figures say even get reported? Why is it news?

The Washington Times informs us that Marion Frances Berry is getting pro bono work from a Washington law firm to help her with her absurd case to keep a Clinton interim appointment on the Civil Rights Commission beyond the appointed term.

Only one problem–it’s illegal. According to commission statute, “”The Commission shall not accept or utilize services of voluntary or uncompensated personnel. This limitation shall apply with respect to services of members of the commission as it does with respect to services by other persons.”

Funny, she had no problem at all in invoking the same law to keep John Lott’s statistical data out of Abby Thernstrom’s dissent in the commission’s nonsensical report on the “disenfranchisement of blacks” in the Florida election.

As presently constituted, this commission has become a running joke, except that it’s not really funny, and, like Jesse Jackson’s antics, it continues to distract blacks from dealing with their real problems.

According to Space Daily, the main Japanese space agency (NASDA) is proposing building a space tourism vehicle to be launched on their H-2 rocket by 2008. I’m not sure that this is the best way to develop that industry, or that the Japanese government will decide to do it, given their financial straits, but it’s interesting that NASDA has much more vision on this subject than NASA, much of which still won’t even seriously discuss public space travel.

Mark Whittington notes:

First, I don’t think you can say that the US space program was “socialistic” in 1961-71, because it’s purpose was not economic, but rather oriented toward national security/prestige. The moment the nation decided to run a national space line-an economic function which would have been best run by the private sector-then the space program became socialistic.

Well, sort of. But remember that NASA was more than just Apollo, and in its formation, it absorbed the old National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), which did have an economic function (one that it performed quite well). It provided basic technologies to the aviation industry that resulted in many of the advances from the thirties through the fifties. Once that happened, NASA’s technology development served mainly NASA’s needs, rather than industry’s, and that happened in the sixties.

But the point remains that once we established this government agency to do “space,” it became the be-all and end-all of space in many people’s minds, and all of the government “commercialization” efforts that have occurred as a result have been funneled through NASA. We certainly don’t have anything resembling the traditional American free-enterprise model when it comes to human space flight. At least until recently, with things like the X-Prize and XCOR.

Also, while creating a “frontier” in which everyone can participate is a good goal, I don’t see any action items that a NASA could do to implement that goal. What do you propose? Technology development? Core markets? Something else?

What he said. Technology development (that has broad application–not commercial prototypes masquerading as X vehicles, as X-33 and X-34 were) would be nice, but not sufficient.

Core markets are essential. The launch cost problem is fundamentally a market problem, in that there is insufficient market to provide the economies of scale necessary to reduce launch costs. If instead of spending billions per year to send a couple dozen people into space, the government took that same several billion and issued RFQs and POs for tens of thousands of people to go into space (at a much lower cost per person), and sold whatever they didn’t need on the open market, this would spur an entirely new industry dedicated to low-cost access. It would be a subsidization similar to the airmail subsidy that got the airline industry going in the thirties. I’m not necessarily proposing that, but it would be the quickest way to achieve my proposed goal.

Also recall that I didn’t necessarily propose that NASA do anything. I proposed a thorough overhaul of federal space policy to meet my goals. One possible outcome of that is a total disappearance of NASA in its current form. As I said, until we decide what we are trying to accomplish in space, there’s no point in figuring out what NASA should do, since NASA (at least the forty-four-year-old NASA to which we’ve grown accustomed) may turn out to be irrelevant.

My biggest concern about O’Keefe will be that, in the absence of some policy direction beyond “fix space station,” his concern will be not to do the right thing, but to “do the thing right.”

Reader “Paul” comments:

I disagree that we need to define a goal; implicit in “define a goal” is the assumption that someone, somewhere, is smart enough, and has enough data to accurately pick a goal. And the assumption that one exists.

Picking goals doesn’t require being “smart.” Since they are subjective, it just requires reaching a political consensus, after a rational national debate (something that hasn’t occurred with regard to space in four decades). Choosing goals doesn’t require data, and goals exist as soon as we decide they do–they aren’t floating around somewhere in the aether waiting to be discovered.

It’s achieving goals that requires being smart, and this is what the competitive market generally does much better than governments, particularly for goals that are individual.

As I said in the post, if we don’t have a goal, there’s no point in having a program, since there’s no way to determine whether or not it’s being successful. Maybe your goal is to not have a government space program at all. I don’t necessarily disagree with that, but it’s orthogonal to my point, which is that we have no national goals at all for the money that we spend on federal space activities (at least none directly related to doing interesting things in space).

The funding decisions are made almost totally on the basis of jobs in various congressional districts, foreign aid to Russia, and “international cooperation,” all of which can be achieved without launching a single scrap of hardware into orbit, as we saw for fifteen years on the space station program.

One of the best aspects of privitization is that each organization involved can have its own vision, and the market will weed out the bad ideas.

I think that you’re confusing privatization with “free market.” Privatization simply means taking an existing government function and transferring it to a private entity. The only market for the service, at least initially, is the government. The situation remains a monopsony (the demand-equivalent of a monopoly–a single large customer in the market). It’s primarily a means of saving taxpayer money, but if done cleverly can eventually be leveraged into an more useful commercial venture.

Ken Layne saw a UFO up in the Owens Valley. No biggie, I see ’em all the time, if you take “Unidentified Flying Object” literally. I almost never know what I’m looking at up there–they fly too durn high. But his guess that it’s some super-secret whatchamacallit from an Air Force base is probably correct.

My uneducated guess is that our weird hovering/speedy triangle aircraft was headed home to Edwards AFB.

My slightly more educated guess is that “home” is not Edwards, but Groom Lake or Nellis in Nevada. Better security.

Anyway, read it if you’d like a nice travelogue of a trip up the back of the Sierras. It’s one of my own favorite drives.

My joy at seeing the Cornhuskers get the snot kicked out of them is extremely tempered by the fact that it’s being done by the Hurricanes.

And speaking of college football, Professor Reynolds continues to refuse to see the error of his fight-song ways.

Oh, well, what do you expect from someone who thinks that bourbon is the all-American beverage?

Here’s an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about a new web site that allows anyone to see exactly where farm subsidies go.

One revealing quote:

“I wish we didn’t have to have the subsidies, but if they weren’t there, a lot of people would be growing nothing, I can tell you that,” Walsh said.

Yeah, that’s right. If we didn’t pay people not to grow things, we’d all starve…

Professor Reynolds has a column on space policy at Tech Central Station today. Fortunately, it’s a subject with which he’s more familiar than what constitutes a good college fight song (“Rocky Top, my grandmother’s pajamas,” he said, eyes rolling heavenward).

(Now, speaking as an erstwhile bluegrass guitar picker, as a good ‘ol bluegrass tune, “Rocky Top” is great.

But c’mon…there may be a few college fight songs that “Rocky Top” is better than, but I doubt if they’re from any colleges in America, and “Hail To The Victors” is most certainly not among them. Sheesh!

Besides, our stadium is still bigger than yours…)

Anyway, I basically agree with the editorial, but it needs a little elaboration.

…The civilian commercial space industry has been booming in terms of revenue. But the technology of getting into space hasn?t progressed much since the 1960s (some would say that the balky, expensive space shuttle is actually a step backward), industry concentration is even worse, and there?s no prospect of any improvement.

This was a deliberate consolidation forced by NASA (and Dan Goldin), based on the socialistic principle that competition is inefficient (which is a subject for another column, about NASA’s disastrous “Centers of Excellence” policy). From a manned-space standpoint, there is now only one major aerospace contractor, because though Boeing and Lockheed Martin (“Lockmart”) are separate companies, they are joined at the hip through the United Space Alliance, which operates the Shuttle under contract to NASA. This is a result of a shotgun wedding at Dan Goldin’s insistence. Step one of a rediversification of the industry would be to allow USA its independence from both its parents as part of an overall Shuttle/ISS privatization deal.

[Update]

Speak of the devil. Aviation Now has an article today on just that subject which, if it were actually news (at least to me), would have superheated steam coming out of my ears.

JSC is worried about “safety.” Of course, their concerns have nothing to do with the fact that their cozy little empire might get broken up…

Do they seriously believe that if a private contractor took over the system that they would risk irreplaceable billion-dollar assets (i.e., the Orbiter fleet) to cut a few corners? Only governments, who can always go back to the taxpayer for more money (as they did in 1986) do that.

From the article:

The report says asset “transfer mechanisms that could be used include a facility contract, government-owned contractor-operated arrangement, lease, sale, license–or ‘gift.'” Congress is likely to frown on the “gift” option for turning over shuttle assets, while potential corporate bidders might cringe at the Johnson report’s assessment of commercial principles. “Shuttle privatization implementation needs to redirect the profit motive, allowing it to be a factor, but not the decisive influencing criteria,” the report said.

Hellloooooo!!

It is not profitable to destroy irreplaceable assets on which your business is dependent. But of course the writers of the report, who have never had to actually meet a payroll, wouldn’t know that. The profit motive is both necessary and sufficient to ensure crew safety.

“Existing contracts are structured such that contract length and terms significantly influence the contractor to make short-term profit-motivated decisions. An overemphasis on profit can result in program weakness with a reduction of critical skills,” the report said. “Short-term cost reduction at the expense of long-term health will not be acceptable.”

Astronauts strapped into any privatized shuttle would certainly agree with that.

Uh, sorry guys, but whatever happened to the astronauts of “The Right Stuff”? You know, the ones who went to funerals every week for their comrades lost in test flights? Well, don’t worry. Regardless of how concerned we are about your safety (frankly, if they don’t like the risks, they should go get another job–there’s a long line of people who would love to go in their place, are perfectly competent to do so, and will take the risk), you’re probably safe because it would be stupid to lose another Orbiter. The factory and tooling for building them doesn’t exist any more, and it would require several billion dollars to replace it. The money would be much better spent on a modern launch vehicle.

[End Update]

[3 PM Update]

UPI columnist Jim Bennett suggests that the FAA might properly take umbrage at the notion that they can’t properly license launches to ensure safety. That is exactly the implication of the notion that “…Shuttle privatization implementation needs to redirect the profit motive, allowing it to be a factor, but not the decisive influencing criteria.” They are saying that the FAA will not properly do its job in regulating a private Shuttle operator. FAA/AST (the entity that licenses commercial launch) should provide a formal response to this report.

[End Update]

Overall, Glenn has a good set of policy recommendations, but one major thing is lacking–a definition of a goal. What do we, as a nation, want to accomplish in space? We have not had a national debate on this subject since, well, Sputnik. Back then we decided that we wanted to beat the Russkies and not go to sleep under a communist moon. To achieve that goal, we set up a socialist space program, and have never looked back, at least as a country.

Until we can define our new goals, it’s pointless to detemine how to achieve them, and reform will be difficult, because we won’t know how to measure whether or not it’s working, and it will be all too easy to continue funding the status quo, because it creates “jobs” (even as it destroys, or at least prevents the creation of, wealth) and promotes “international cooperation” (though the notion that this somehow advances us in space endeavors remains an unproven shibboleth). As the Chesire Cat said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” That’s where we are with space policy right now.

Here’s my goal:

Let’s make space into a real frontier (hint–frontiers are places that everyday people go to live, work and play–not PhDs). It will be measured by the numbers of people (in hundreds, thousands, millions, as opposed to the few at a time envisioned by our visionary space agency) leaving the planet with their own resources. (If they happen to return as well, that’s fine, but it doesn’t need to be measured). If they’re doing it with their own money, by definition, that means there must be something worth doing up there. Let’s do it with a minimal input of taxpayer dollars (i.e., less than NASA’s current budget).

The achievement of such a goal would require a total redirection and reorganization of not just NASA, but of our entire federal space policy apparatus, including DoD, Department of Commerce, and the FAA/DOT. But since our current space policy remains mired in a Cold-War mentality (and the Cold War has been over for over a decade now) it would be appropriate, indeed overdue, to overhaul the policy now. Mr. O’Keefe will be bringing a clean broom to the agency. Let’s hope that the Administration will have a little imagination.

Discuss.

Professor Reynolds has a column on space policy at Tech Central Station today. Fortunately, it’s a subject with which he’s more familiar than what constitutes a good college fight song (“Rocky Top, my grandmother’s pajamas,” he said, eyes rolling heavenward).

(Now, speaking as an erstwhile bluegrass guitar picker, as a good ‘ol bluegrass tune, “Rocky Top” is great.

But c’mon…there may be a few college fight songs that “Rocky Top” is better than, but I doubt if they’re from any colleges in America, and “Hail To The Victors” is most certainly not among them. Sheesh!

Besides, our stadium is still bigger than yours…)

Anyway, I basically agree with the editorial, but it needs a little elaboration.

…The civilian commercial space industry has been booming in terms of revenue. But the technology of getting into space hasn?t progressed much since the 1960s (some would say that the balky, expensive space shuttle is actually a step backward), industry concentration is even worse, and there?s no prospect of any improvement.

This was a deliberate consolidation forced by NASA (and Dan Goldin), based on the socialistic principle that competition is inefficient (which is a subject for another column, about NASA’s disastrous “Centers of Excellence” policy). From a manned-space standpoint, there is now only one major aerospace contractor, because though Boeing and Lockheed Martin (“Lockmart”) are separate companies, they are joined at the hip through the United Space Alliance, which operates the Shuttle under contract to NASA. This is a result of a shotgun wedding at Dan Goldin’s insistence. Step one of a rediversification of the industry would be to allow USA its independence from both its parents as part of an overall Shuttle/ISS privatization deal.

[Update]

Speak of the devil. Aviation Now has an article today on just that subject which, if it were actually news (at least to me), would have superheated steam coming out of my ears.

JSC is worried about “safety.” Of course, their concerns have nothing to do with the fact that their cozy little empire might get broken up…

Do they seriously believe that if a private contractor took over the system that they would risk irreplaceable billion-dollar assets (i.e., the Orbiter fleet) to cut a few corners? Only governments, who can always go back to the taxpayer for more money (as they did in 1986) do that.

From the article:

The report says asset “transfer mechanisms that could be used include a facility contract, government-owned contractor-operated arrangement, lease, sale, license–or ‘gift.'” Congress is likely to frown on the “gift” option for turning over shuttle assets, while potential corporate bidders might cringe at the Johnson report’s assessment of commercial principles. “Shuttle privatization implementation needs to redirect the profit motive, allowing it to be a factor, but not the decisive influencing criteria,” the report said.

Hellloooooo!!

It is not profitable to destroy irreplaceable assets on which your business is dependent. But of course the writers of the report, who have never had to actually meet a payroll, wouldn’t know that. The profit motive is both necessary and sufficient to ensure crew safety.

“Existing contracts are structured such that contract length and terms significantly influence the contractor to make short-term profit-motivated decisions. An overemphasis on profit can result in program weakness with a reduction of critical skills,” the report said. “Short-term cost reduction at the expense of long-term health will not be acceptable.”

Astronauts strapped into any privatized shuttle would certainly agree with that.

Uh, sorry guys, but whatever happened to the astronauts of “The Right Stuff”? You know, the ones who went to funerals every week for their comrades lost in test flights? Well, don’t worry. Regardless of how concerned we are about your safety (frankly, if they don’t like the risks, they should go get another job–there’s a long line of people who would love to go in their place, are perfectly competent to do so, and will take the risk), you’re probably safe because it would be stupid to lose another Orbiter. The factory and tooling for building them doesn’t exist any more, and it would require several billion dollars to replace it. The money would be much better spent on a modern launch vehicle.

[End Update]

[3 PM Update]

UPI columnist Jim Bennett suggests that the FAA might properly take umbrage at the notion that they can’t properly license launches to ensure safety. That is exactly the implication of the notion that “…Shuttle privatization implementation needs to redirect the profit motive, allowing it to be a factor, but not the decisive influencing criteria.” They are saying that the FAA will not properly do its job in regulating a private Shuttle operator. FAA/AST (the entity that licenses commercial launch) should provide a formal response to this report.

[End Update]

Overall, Glenn has a good set of policy recommendations, but one major thing is lacking–a definition of a goal. What do we, as a nation, want to accomplish in space? We have not had a national debate on this subject since, well, Sputnik. Back then we decided that we wanted to beat the Russkies and not go to sleep under a communist moon. To achieve that goal, we set up a socialist space program, and have never looked back, at least as a country.

Until we can define our new goals, it’s pointless to detemine how to achieve them, and reform will be difficult, because we won’t know how to measure whether or not it’s working, and it will be all too easy to continue funding the status quo, because it creates “jobs” (even as it destroys, or at least prevents the creation of, wealth) and promotes “international cooperation” (though the notion that this somehow advances us in space endeavors remains an unproven shibboleth). As the Chesire Cat said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” That’s where we are with space policy right now.

Here’s my goal:

Let’s make space into a real frontier (hint–frontiers are places that everyday people go to live, work and play–not PhDs). It will be measured by the numbers of people (in hundreds, thousands, millions, as opposed to the few at a time envisioned by our visionary space agency) leaving the planet with their own resources. (If they happen to return as well, that’s fine, but it doesn’t need to be measured). If they’re doing it with their own money, by definition, that means there must be something worth doing up there. Let’s do it with a minimal input of taxpayer dollars (i.e., less than NASA’s current budget).

The achievement of such a goal would require a total redirection and reorganization of not just NASA, but of our entire federal space policy apparatus, including DoD, Department of Commerce, and the FAA/DOT. But since our current space policy remains mired in a Cold-War mentality (and the Cold War has been over for over a decade now) it would be appropriate, indeed overdue, to overhaul the policy now. Mr. O’Keefe will be bringing a clean broom to the agency. Let’s hope that the Administration will have a little imagination.

Discuss.