From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Mon Jul 15 2002 - 04:14:46 MDT
On Monday, July 15, 2002 1:32 AM Damien Broderick
d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
>>Yeap. I suggest scrapping NASA all together and let the market rule
in
>>rocketry and spaceflight.
>
> I've been wondering how those who extol the market's unparalleled
success
> in getting things done faster and cheaper and better account for the
lack
> of a free enterprise space flight system superior to NASA's. I gather
that
> in the US certain things are forbidden by law, but surely the market
can't
> be stalled by petty national restrictions? Or is it the looming
presence of
> a vast state-funded entity that is (allegedly) incompetent but *at
least
> there in place*, that inhibits potential rivals? Still, why doesn't
someone
> do what Venter did--use the publicly-funded and hence free data and
> industrial support system and zoom away in parallel *with superior
outcomes*?
Simple. NASA is subsidized. It doesn't have to worry about economics.
Technologically, NASA is not incompetent. (See David P. Gump's _Space
Enterprise: Beyond NASA_. It's a little dated, but it details some of
the abuses of NASA.) That's why we get overspending just about
everywhere on its projects, the ISS being merely the most touted
example. (It's been overbudget since the 1980s.)
Imagine if there were a NASA in the computer industry. It did all the
computing back in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Do you think we would
have PCs now?
This is kind of along the same lines as why we don't have private roads
(or private monies) for the most part. The government can enter any
arena and outcompete others simply by paying for stuff with taxes as
well as making regulations so that private competitors don't have a
chance. (With private rocketry, there are export restrictions and the
like, though, granted, I don't think any of these have been fatal to any
private firm.) This does not mean the government is better at it than
the private firms -- any more than the mob coming in and running the
carting industry makes non-mob connected carting firms somehow less
efficient or less competent.
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:27 MST