Space Travel for the Rich

(Tkalbfus1) :


I do not mind rich people paying their way to go into space as that is like
the tip of a wedge to get more and more people into space. Space
tourism creates a dynamic and an incentive to make space travel cheaper.

Execpt for trains which work best for moving bulk goods I think this has been
true for every major transportation device created in the last two hundred
years. Only if a poorer person built it themselves could they afford one of
the early models.

The first bikes were rich men's toys.
The first cars required you had lots of money just to maintain them.
The cruise ships did carry poor people as stowage, but keep them away from
most of the ship, it was the rich customers that got the cruise ships built.
The first commerial jet planes tied directly into the jet setting crowd.
And the same for the first private jet planes.
Segways are not for the poor, neither are GoldWings.

The rich pay the development costs, the mass market supplies the big buck
profits.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
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"redneckj" :

What are you two going on about, I heard that all entrepreneurs
are rich. Inventors too, just one good idea and you're set for
life.

But like 'belling the cat' first you have to catch that good idea.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

Pete Lynn wrote:
"redneckj" wrote in message
...

What are you two going on about, I heard that all entrepreneurs
are rich. Inventors too, just one good idea and you're set for
life.

I assume you are joking, society does not particularly like change, it
has even less inclination to spend money on it. Innovators work for the
future, not the present, hence their undervaluing and relative poverty.
Rarely does it pay off directly, though the world is usually a better
place for it, and that is the real reward that keeps innovators trying.

Are you crazy or just ignorant?

The ranks of the super-rich are typically jam-packed
with those who have made vast fortunes from
innovating.

In article ,
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:

The ranks of the super-rich are typically jam-packed
with those who have made vast fortunes from
innovating.

Of course, the ranks of the super-poor are jam-packed with those who
have lost vast fortunes from innovating, too.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
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"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message
...
Pete Lynn wrote:
"redneckj" wrote in message
...

What are you two going on about, I heard that all entrepreneurs
are rich. Inventors too, just one good idea and you're set for
life.

I assume you are joking, society does not particularly like change,
it has even less inclination to spend money on it. Innovators work
for the future, not the present, hence their undervaluing and
relative
poverty. Rarely does it pay off directly, though the world is
usually
a better place for it, and that is the real reward that keeps
innovators trying.

Are you crazy or just ignorant?

To be honest I would like to think I know more about such things than
most. I have devoted many years to trying to understand this process so
that I might learn how to win. :-)

The ranks of the super-rich are typically jam-packed
with those who have made vast fortunes from
innovating.

True, though for everyone that succeeds there are more that fail, and
most who do succeed do so more by hard work than by innovation.

Take the X-Prize for example. One team won $10 million, I am guessing
the sum total opportunity costs, (not direct costs), for those who
competed might have been in excess of $100 million. Now perhaps this
time round that money will actually be recouped by some groups moving on
to bigger and better things, or maybe not. Think of all the earlier
attempts, Rotary, Kistler, Beal, etc., I do not expect those
expenditures to be recouped anytime soon, and definitely not by the
majority of those who invested.

Usually in such circumstances the first groups spend a lot of money, go
bust, have their useful technology bought at a small fraction of the
costs by the next group who takes it a bit further. This sunk cost
process continues until someone makes a go of it, or the entire concept
is abandoned. Xcor is I think an example of the second iteration,
hopefully two iterations will be enough. Most out there niche
industries follow this procedure, I can give many other examples.

Yes some innovators make it big, to be the best, the richest, you have
to innovate, you have to win the game, innovate or die. However my
original point was that society directly rewards R&D poorly, at below
opportunity cost. Generally speaking those involved in R&D, especially
at the bleeding edge, could on average earn more elsewhere. However,
without anyone doing R&D, the economy would soon collapse.

R&D does not tend to be reimbursed for the society wide benefits it
produces to the extent that other industries are. The reason for this
is partly that these benefits are hard to quantify, and partly because
the losers in the R&D game suffer while the society as a whole benefits
and a form of protectionism arises which is not easily resisted.

I hope this is a little clearer.

Pete.

"Pete Lynn" wrote in message
...
"redneckj" wrote in message
...

What are you two going on about, I heard that all entrepreneurs
are rich. Inventors too, just one good idea and you're set for
life.

I assume you are joking, society does not particularly like change, it
has even less inclination to spend money on it. Innovators work for the
future, not the present, hence their undervaluing and relative poverty.
Rarely does it pay off directly, though the world is usually a better
place for it, and that is the real reward that keeps innovators trying.

I was joking. Len and Dan know that I am a bit of an entrepreneur
and more than a bit of an inventor. The mention of 70 hour weeks at
less than minimum wage hit a little too close to home.

Pete.

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"redneckj" :

What are you two going on about, I heard that all entrepreneurs
are rich. Inventors too, just one good idea and you're set for
life.

But like 'belling the cat' first you have to catch that good idea.

The best idea I seem to have had is to focus on innovations that
I can use myself. Using these gadjets on the job, I am constantly
advised to get a patent. And being told in all seriousness the line
I posted orriginally. I've read that Mark Twain went broke backing
the typewriter, and that Thomas Edison was nearly broke when
he died. The inventor of the rimfire cartrige licensed the rights to
Smith and Wesson just before the civil war. A line in the contract
required him to defend the patent from his royalties. The defence
costs exceded his royalties. And so on.

Not a personal shot Earl, just one of my hot buttons.
One good idea is a fantasy without an overwhelming
supply of good luck.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

"redneckj" wrote in message
...

I was joking. Len and Dan know that I am a bit of an entrepreneur
and more than a bit of an inventor. The mention of 70 hour weeks at
less than minimum wage hit a little too close to home.

Tell me about it. :-)

Pete.

"Pete Lynn" wrote in message

plonk you **** wit

im aka and im a firefighter in Doveton vic 3788,
give me a time and place to meet. I'll even buy you a beer and then we
can look for ******s in and burn then like i did with my mom. and i like
to trap kids in the restroom in the park and strip them take pics. of
them then i let the kids go so they can run in the park nude.



--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

(G EddieA95) wrote in message ...
tourism creates a dynamic and an incentive to make space travel cheaper.

Execpt for trains which work best for moving bulk goods I think this has been
true for every major transportation device created in the last two hundred
years.

Trains too. One forgets that it was the "iron horse" that made long-haul
overland travelling practical.

I think that is mostly an US problem. The subculture around automobiles and
suburbia, brought along by cheap gas plus a large public highway system mixed
with certain cultural traits caused trains to lose most of their place in the
human transportation market.

In other parts of the world where there has been investment in better railway
systems (e.g. Japan and Europe) or where people cannot afford personal
transportation (e.g. India) trains are still much in use by people.