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Privatization of Space Exploration Should our first message to extraterrestrials be "Have it Your Wa

#1 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 03:09 AM

I figured I would start a topic that, unless someone's REALLY aching for a beating, no one can pull racism and bigotry into the mix.

So, the American government spends billions upon billions of our tax dollars on space exploration "for the sake of science" alone (i.e. not for commercial or militaristic reasons). In the past several years, not much has come of this. Our schools are crap, people are starving to death in Africa, and wespend SO much more money on NASA than most anything else. Privatization of space exploration would free up this money for other, more practical purposes, as well as the commercial aspects (advertising, vacations, etc) providing a huge incentive for major companies to start exploration of their own.

((I know more for the argument for this side, and I know the arguments against, and rather tend to agree with that side... But I'm just trying to get it started...))

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 09:40 AM

Our space program isn’t just about collecting space rocks. Its also the reason we have all those nifty satellites up there doing gps stuff and putting cell phone calls and tv signals through. We could never have done that without our space program.

As for why its so important for people to do useless things like walk on the moon - ask China. They are planning sending folk to do just that, some time in the distant future. Sure they could spend that money on something else, and sure if they want moon rocks so bad they could just buy them on ebay, but they still want to do it. Its a challenge for many reasons and they are rising to it.

Its natural for humans to want to explore, and we need to explore space if our species ever wants to survive the extinction of our planet in 5 billion years. Actually, the sun will be too hot for life to survive in about 2 billion years, so we will have to learn how to colonize space before that happens (not that I think we’d really live that long but who knows).

The space program is important on global scale - not too long ago, people thought we may be the only planet that has intelligent life. Only recently we have discovered over 130 planets outside our solar system. Now its pretty much a guarantee no matter who you talk to in the scientific community that there is intelligent life out there somewhere. When we are finally able to prove it, it will change the course of human history forever. How many religions beliefs systems will be changed or discarded when we know for a fact that this is not the only planet “god” created life on. (Oh how I despise that argument from the fundamentalists).

Learning is a part of our nature, and its what made us evolve into the beings we are today. If we stop learning and discovering, we will stop evolving.

And hey, since there’s starving kids all over the world, why watch tv when you can be out feeding them. Why try to cure cancer when you can be sewing clothes for the homeless, why waste your time going to school when you could be bandaging up some folks in Africa.

Humans have been curious about 'what’s out there' since we crawled out of our caves 2 million years ago. There’s no way we can just extinguish our desire to learn.
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 09:57 AM

I know that privatisation may free up money directly:
But how would citizens know where that money is going to, if it is handled by the same group or person who chose to over fund space exploration at the cost of those cutbacks? So if schools or learning institutes are not in their interest, would it could be easy for them to cloud that over with other excuses after privatisation?

As all that funding goes towards space exploration, are there any courses at schools to help recruit those who take an interest?

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 13 February 2006 - 10:12 AM

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 10:08 AM

mellow.gif Hmmm. It seems I was so buys ranting I totally missed the privatization thing. Oh well.

Yeah I dont have an opinion on that. Sorry.
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#5 User is offline   Deepsycher Icon

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 10:36 AM

At the cost of privatising of space exploration, here are some examples I thought of:

There are always the benefits of privatisation by over pricing services in the future, when shuttles are designed to take more people.
Out of space research can generate a lot of profit for interest of businesses to use commercially.
How about the impact, could there be a less fair chance of recruitment, or less interested people?

As the government owns it, people pay the price for future research maybe with importance.
Due to the imbalance and using the term, "the grass is greener over the other side" it looks like a "no win" situation on both sides.

One important question as above, if funding was deducted from space exploration, where will the money really go?


Will be back later...

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 13 February 2006 - 10:37 AM

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 11:06 AM

I'd like to say thank you to Spoon Poetic. I imagine it will be difficult to find racism issues in here.
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#7 User is offline   Gobbler Icon

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 11:08 AM

QUOTE (Spoon Poetic @ Feb 13 2006, 09:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
So, the American government spends billions upon billions of our tax dollars on space exploration "for the sake of science" alone (i.e. not for commercial or militaristic reasons). In the past several years, not much has come of this. Our schools are crap, people are starving to death in Africa, and wespend SO much more money on NASA than most anything else. Privatization of space exploration would free up this money for other, more practical purposes, as well as the commercial aspects (advertising, vacations, etc) providing a huge incentive for major companies to start exploration of their own.

You make it sound as if the government would have to allow this privatization first, but maybe my English skills fail me there. Sure it would free up money - if some companies would get to it. Thinking about our current situation, there are only a few who could finance this, but it would most likely be a total waste of money. The technology isn't good and secure enough, we can barely keep a space station alive and there's simply not enough profit you could make from it. I guess the spendings on the NASA are quite justified in this context, as this research helps to improve the situation little by little, thus making the whole topic more interesting for the companies.

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 01:17 PM

Actually, several companies are anxious to get on this, and they do have the recources. And space exploration basically is a government monopoly. Private companies have offered to send up satellites for cellphone companies and the like, but then so that it all stays with NASA, they jump in and offer to do it at a loss of billions of dollars - our tax dollars.

Imagine the incentive to a profit-minded business if it were granted the right to any stellar body it reached and exploited. Competition is a huge incentive for private companies to expand and explore. Space exploration wouldn't cease, it'd get bigger, better, faster.
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 01:32 PM

Umm, actually, they are granted these rights, if I remember it right... I think I've read something about that a few months ago...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law

There. True, it's in its infancy, but it doesn't explicitly prevent privat enterprises from space exploration, I think. I've also heard that companies as groups of people can claim the use of a specific object in space, but I can't find any reliable sources now, so maybe it was just a piece of fiction.

I'll do some more research, maybe I'll find something useful...

This post has been edited by Gobbler: 13 February 2006 - 01:33 PM

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Posted 13 February 2006 - 02:06 PM

Because, that is what man does. He is continuously trying to out due his past achievements. Whether it make sense or not is irrelvant. I'm not going to write off the space program just yet.

Even if we did abandon NASA, people in Africa would continue to starve. Is your school system really that bad? Are your teachers unqualified? I hear about it from time to time but don't know too much about the US school system.
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 02:28 PM

((Education in the South is CRAP. My state went up! 49th in the US, baby! From 51st! (We were behind freaking Puerto Rico!)))
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 02:33 PM

I was stationed in GA - I hear that state is one of the worst. Michigans probably not that much better though.
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 05:25 PM

Yep, GA's 50th now.

As far as the debate - Gobbler, you're right, some private companies have been able to do a bit here and there, but I'm talking about complete privatization of space exporation and expansion. Disband NASA, and let competition and profit be the fuel for space programs all over the country. (NASA does a pretty good job of keeping most of it within their own.) Spend those billions of dollars on our schools, or our poor, or national security and let private companies shell out the bucks for discoveries out in space - yes, they would happen, tenfold, because what company wouldn't want to be known as the company who found the first bug on Mars or how to sustain life on the moon? NASA really hasn't been making much headway, for the money it's been spending, and it's the taxpayer's dollar they're using to fund themselves. Many times they end up wasting billions of dollars because of a failed project.
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 05:58 PM

I think its a noble cause and I'll gladly chip in my 13 cents a month or whatever it is.
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Posted 13 February 2006 - 06:47 PM

QUOTE (Spoon Poetic @ Feb 13 2006, 01:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Imagine the incentive to a profit-minded business if it were granted the right to any stellar body it reached and exploited. Competition is a huge incentive for private companies to expand and explore. Space exploration wouldn't cease, it'd get bigger, better, faster.


Something that mankind has been doing for far too long already. Be it our environment or each other (slaves and the poor for example). As for companies, I already don't trust most of them worth a damn. On the plus side, I do agree with you that private companies would make many more discoveries and advancements than NASA and all of the other space research divisions in the world combined. Unfortunately, this would probably be at an even greater expense to everyone that's middle class or lower. I think that it would look something like the environment of the movie Blade Runner.

I also agree that NASA seems very inefficeint compared to the amount of money that is poured into it. The money that was wasted on exploring Mars alone (because the dumb fucks who happen to be rocket scientists forgot to convert between English and metric) was billions upon billions of dollars. I think that for a four year period, NASA should be given just enough funding to work on their current projects and not be allowed to start any new ones. Even then, they should be given just enough to get by. All of that extra money should be used to reduce our country's debt and to help bolster funding for everything else that ought to be. No more of this tax break bullshit and trickle down theory. Those are just things that help keep the rich rich, and the poor slightly better off for a moment and then living in a worse environment where they lose even more money.

Another place where we could throw less money away is the military. Honest to God we already have the greatest military in the world. I'm not being beligerant, one-on one (nukes aside) anyone else is toast. An example of the technology possesed by the military is guns that can automatically aim at vital areas on the human body (there aren't very many of these though). Although I am glad they've just ordered body armor for all of the troops at war, the actual amount of casualties don't justify it. So far, US casualties are less than 500 (that's including wounded). Iraqi casualties range between an estimated 40,000 to 50,000. At the least, that's one for every eighty enemies. That isn't a war, that is a slaughter. We don't need to keep developing new military technologies for a little while. Just enough money to keep our current military force up and running. No giving defense developers excess money (ie more than they actually deserve). It's ludacris.

There are many other things were money is just thrown away. Some examples are redecorating almost the entire White House everytime someone new comes into office, the President's Ball, and other such shit that serve no purpose when it comes to what a government ought to be doing. That is to say, working for the people. I estimate that there is an easy couple billion tossed away there alone.

Say these efforts were made in a period of four years, one presidential term. I can't possibly say how much money that would add up to be, but I'm sure it would be enough to cover and vastly improve everthing in America that actually needs to be. After that period, there would be a surplus of money because so much would no longer be needed to be spent on improving our country. That money could go back into where it was saved from, and also be used for a ton of foriegn aid.

With the improvement of our society, I'm sure that we would end up with a greater population of learned people. With that we could make greater achievements all around. Eventually we could end up with an even greater amount of discovery made than if we stay our course, and a better society to top it all off.

Now imagine if we just taxed the wealthy a bit more devil.gif .
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