...If You Were Given a Ticket to Mars, Would you Go? ...Not me!

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:05:30 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
: (Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
: monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : Otherwise
: : your policy makes no sense. It also doesn't get PEOPLE into space. It
: : gets you a lot of specialized systems for moving water.
:
: : NASA could also purchase thousands of tickets to orbit, and thousands
: : of cubic feet of habitable volume..
:
: Why should the government buy tickets of ANY sort?!?

: Because it would be a much more cost-effective way to get their
: employees into space than developing and building their own vehicles,
: which is the current procedure.

So NASA and not USA are to blame for the high cost of space access? Maybe
USA is happy with how much NASA spends on them? Do you think NASA can
force USA to make cheaper access to space by buying tickets?

Eric

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 05:15:09 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
: McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
: such a way as to indicate that:

: (Rand Simberg) wrote:
:
: :On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 18:21:59 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
: :McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
: :such a way as to indicate that:
: :
: ::You've got to have something to do with the water first.
: ::
: :rink it, break it down and breathe it, use it for propellant.
: :
: :And who's doing all that? There's nobody up there, remember? All
: :that funding went to paying people to send up water.
: :
: :Who said to use *all* the funding for that?
:
: Money you spend on one thing you cannot spend on another.

: Who said otherwise? The fact remains that you can use some of the
: money to purchase one kind of thing, and some of the money to purchase
: another kind of thing. Do you spend all *your* money on one kind of
: thing?

: ::NASA could also purchase thousands of tickets to orbit, and thousands
: :f cubic feet of habitable volume..
: :
: :Except you can't plan a program betting on the come
: :
: :Of course you can. They simply choose not to.
:
: No, you can't. How do you make plans for a program when you have no
: clue whether you will or will not have something?

: You do have a clue. You know there are people capable of building
: rockets, so if you provide them with a market, they'll satisfy it.

What do you mean by 'provide'? How do you do that with space access?

Think of the Internet and how it created markets once it was turned over
to the private sector. Now think of ISS. What market would exist if all
the sudden ISS was turned over to the private sector? My prediction is
that it would end up dropping out of the sky like Mir. Mir was available
remember. It could have had rockets sent to it, but didn't.

: : so they'd have to
: :spend the money for their own programs in any case.
: :
: :Only if their programs are of national importance. Historically,
: :space programs are not. We still don't have a fully-functional space
: :station up, over twenty years after Reagan announced the program, so
: :betting on them getting results by spending money on their own plans
: :is a lousy bet as well.
:
: It's still a better bet than a hey nonny nonny and a prayer while
: throwing money up in the air.

: Well, if someone were proposing that, I suppose it might be.

: :And how do you think the airmail case would have worked if it only
: :paid for airmail delivery to Antarctica?
: :
: :Who knows? I suspect that it would have developed vehicles that could
: :access Antarctica cheaply.
:
: I suspect it wouldn't, since there wouldn't be any point to delivering
: airmail to Antarctica, given the paucity of population.

: There was no point in delivering airmail at all, until the government
: subsidized it. It was moving fine on the ground. You seem to be
: missing the point.

Air mail provided faster service, something we cherish today. To claim
that air service wasn't superior to ground servic is false on its face.

: :Unfortunately, that's not a particularly
: :useful thing to do, since we're constrained by treaties from doing
: :anything useful with Antactica.
:
: That's a lovely red herring you have there. Do you have something in
: blue?

: Sorry, it's true.

: :And man in LEO isn't ever going to get it unless someone comes up with
: :a 'killer app'; something that either cannot be done down here or is
: :so prohibitively expensive that it winds up being cheaper in space
: :despite the transport costs.
: :
: :There is. It's called "going into space."
:
: And private enterprise will fund this as anything other than a stunt
: why, again?

: Because a lot of people want to go into space, and will pay for the
: privilege.

Where are they all?!? Lance Bass (NSYNC) and Radio Shack, what happened to
that? For all those pople we sure as hell aren't accomodating them!

: You've got to have some reason for going other than "look
: what I did".

: Their reasons are theirs. I don't care what they are, as long as they
: want to go.

Space tourism, in and of itself, won't spawn a space industry
infrastructure.

: :Other than that, NASA needs to refocus (as it has been) on
: :exploration. Get men back to the Moon and to Mars and *FIND* the
: :reasons why people need to be there.
: :
: :They won't find that. The reasons exist within the people themselves.
:
: In other words, it will never happen your way.

: We'll see, but certainly the government doesn't currently plan to do
: it my way, except on a very small scale, with COTS.

In your case, COTW (commercial off-the-wall)...


Eric

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 21:06:02 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : Otherwise
: : your policy makes no sense. It also doesn't get PEOPLE into space. It
: : gets you a lot of specialized systems for moving water.
:
: : NASA could also purchase thousands of tickets to orbit, and thousands
: : of cubic feet of habitable volume..
:
: Why should the government buy tickets of ANY sort?!?

: Because it would be a much more cost-effective way to get their
: employees into space than developing and building their own vehicles,
: which is the current procedure.

So NASA and not USA are to blame for the high cost of space access? Maybe
USA is happy with how much NASA spends on them? Do you think NASA can
force USA to make cheaper access to space by buying tickets?

I said nothing about USA.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 15:44:58 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
:McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
:such a way as to indicate that:
:
::::You've got to have something to do with the water first.
::::
:::rink it, break it down and breathe it, use it for propellant.
:::
:::And who's doing all that? There's nobody up there, remember? All
:::that funding went to paying people to send up water.
:::
:::Who said to use *all* the funding for that?
::
::Money you spend on one thing you cannot spend on another.
::
::Who said otherwise? The fact remains that you can use some of the
::money to purchase one kind of thing, and some of the money to purchase
::another kind of thing. Do you spend all *your* money on one kind of
::thing?
:
:This sort of thinking is lovely if you assume an unlimited budget.
:
:So you're saying that you *do* spend all your money on one thing? Or
:that you have an unlimited budget? Which is it.

Reading not your strong suit, Mr Simberg? And fallacy of the excluded
middle, even in the made up version you claim to have read.

Pathetic.

:Honest, it works even with a finite budget. Give it a try sometime.
:You spend a certain amount on this, and a certain amount on that. The
:two amounts add up to the total.

Honest, every dollar you spend on A is a dollar you don't have to
spend on B. Think about it.

:Again, spending money to pay for pounds of useless water delivered to
:orbit (getting rid of water is typically a big problem for manned
:platforms) means you have less money to spend for having people up
:there to receive that water.
:
:Yes? So?
:
:That doesn't mean that you don't have enough.

But that's much more likely than that you do, since you don't 'have
enough' *before* you start paying people to boost useless water.

::::NASA could also purchase thousands of tickets to orbit, and thousands
:::f cubic feet of habitable volume..
:::
:::Except you can't plan a program betting on the come
:::
:::Of course you can. They simply choose not to.
::
::No, you can't. How do you make plans for a program when you have no
::clue whether you will or will not have something?
::
::You do have a clue. You know there are people capable of building
::rockets, so if you provide them with a market, they'll satisfy it.
:
:And what do you do while you're waiting for them to come up with their
:special purpose system to meet your current 'tickets'?
:
:Same as we're doing now, buying rides from the Russians, or waiting
:several years for the CEV to get built. There are worse things than
:not sending NASA astronauts into space.

Oh, I see. So you favour a stillborn space program.

:What do you do
:when you want to make the next step? What if no one takes you up on
:it?
:
:If at some point it becomes clear that no one is going to take you up
n it (that won't take very long if it's going to happen, though I
:can't imagine why that would be the case), then you make other plans.

So you can spend all of your money revising plans and none of it
actually doing anything.

:Not a practical way to try to run a program.
:
:I disagree.

Of course you do. Ever done any program management?

::: so they'd have to
:::spend the money for their own programs in any case.
:::
:::Only if their programs are of national importance. Historically,
:::space programs are not. We still don't have a fully-functional space
:::station up, over twenty years after Reagan announced the program, so
:::betting on them getting results by spending money on their own plans
:::is a lousy bet as well.
::
::It's still a better bet than a hey nonny nonny and a prayer while
::throwing money up in the air.
::
::Well, if someone were proposing that, I suppose it might be.
:
:It's what you're proposing.
:
:No, it's not. I am proposing putting incentives out the market (and
:no money would change hands until the merchandise was delivered), not
:"throwing money up in the air."

And where does this money come from?

:::And how do you think the airmail case would have worked if it only
:::paid for airmail delivery to Antarctica?
:::
:::Who knows? I suspect that it would have developed vehicles that could
:::access Antarctica cheaply.
::
::I suspect it wouldn't, since there wouldn't be any point to delivering
::airmail to Antarctica, given the paucity of population.
::
::There was no point in delivering airmail at all, until the government
::subsidized it. It was moving fine on the ground.
:
:Of course there was. Faster delivery of an already existing and
:needed service (mail) was a reasonable feature to promote.
:
:So? It still required subsidization. Anything that gets subsidized
:will generate more of it. You're taking the airmail example far too
:literally.

So anything that gets subsidized may "generate more of it", but is
"it" useful in any way to you?

::You seem to be missing the point.
:
:There was no one in Antarctica to receive mail, just as there would be
:no one in space to receive whatever you're paying people to loft up
:there in your new program.
:
:I already told you, one of the things that you pay to loft up is
eople.

And what do you do with those people if nobody happens to be able to
do it? What do you do with your program plan? How do you justify a
budget?

:::Unfortunately, that's not a particularly
:::useful thing to do, since we're constrained by treaties from doing
:::anything useful with Antactica.
::
::That's a lovely red herring you have there. Do you have something in
::blue?
::
::Sorry, it's true.
:
:You say that as if it means something.
:
:It does mean something. There are a lot of resources in Antarctica
:that we would be exploiting if it weren't for treaties.

Which is absolutely irrelevant to what we're talking about.

Again, that's a lovely red herring you have there. Do you have
something in blue?

:::There is. It's called "going into space."
::
::And private enterprise will fund this as anything other than a stunt
::why, again?
::
::Because a lot of people want to go into space, and will pay for the
:rivilege.
:
:And why do all these people want to go into space?
:
:What difference does it make?

Because why they want to go and what they want to do is going to
affect where the specialized technology to get them there
concentrates.

It ain't just magic, Rand.

:How much did folks making transatlantic flights push state of the art
:in passenger planes?
:
:Quite a bit, actually.

No, not so much. It pushed design of systems to get a couple of
people across an ocean non-stop. The technology for air transport got
pushed a lot more by things like airmail than it ever got pushed by
'one-off' adventurers.

::You've got to have some reason for going other than "look
::what I did".
::
::Their reasons are theirs. I don't care what they are, as long as they
::want to go.
:
:And what are they going to do when they get there?
:
:Whatever they choose to pay to do, and providers offer them. There
:are lots of possibilities, with cheap launch.

Cheap launch to where?

::In other words, it will never happen your way.
::
::We'll see, but certainly the government doesn't currently plan to do
::it my way, except on a very small scale, with COTS.
:
:That's because the government can see that it will never happen your
:way, so why plan it that way?
:
:Because the government is wrong.

Oh? And you know this how, precisely?

The government is right in this case. Your way will never work
because you need a critical mass of stuff 'out there' to drive private
enterprise. They may be wrong about how to get that critical mass
created, but your way will never work without it.

:Of course, that doesn't mean they'll manage to execute in such a way
:as to get things started their way, either, but the odds are better
:than yours.
:
:Not based on history.

Oh? I'd suggest you need to take another, much closer look with your
eyes and mind open.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 15:46:07 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
:McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
:such a way as to indicate that:
:
:::: Otherwise
:::: your policy makes no sense. It also doesn't get PEOPLE into space. It
:::: gets you a lot of specialized systems for moving water.
:::
:::: NASA could also purchase thousands of tickets to orbit, and thousands
:::: of cubic feet of habitable volume..
:::
:::Why should the government buy tickets of ANY sort?!?
:::
:::Because it would be a much more cost-effective way to get their
:::employees into space than developing and building their own vehicles,
:::which is the current procedure.
::
::Except there won't be anywhere to go and hence no need for tickets.
::
::If the government leases habitable volume, there would be somewhere to
::go as well.
:
:Except what are they leasing habitable volume FOR?
:
:To generate demand for it, and dramatically reduce its cost, so that
:they and others can afford to do many more things in space. Whatever
:capacity the government doesn't want to use, they can auction back on
:the market.
:
:Where are they leasing it?
:
:In LEO, initially. Perhaps later, at L1 or on the moon.
:
:How can they plan a program around "well, maybe someone
:will someday deliver some to us, but we don't know when, where, or how
:much they will deliver or what they'll charge"?
:
:They can specify all of those things.

If they can do that, it's cheaper for them to just contract the job
directly rather than bet on the come with a 'prize'.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 21:06:02 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
: (Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
: monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : : Otherwise
: : : your policy makes no sense. It also doesn't get PEOPLE into space. It
: : : gets you a lot of specialized systems for moving water.
: :
: : : NASA could also purchase thousands of tickets to orbit, and thousands
: : : of cubic feet of habitable volume..
: :
: : Why should the government buy tickets of ANY sort?!?
:
: : Because it would be a much more cost-effective way to get their
: : employees into space than developing and building their own vehicles,
: : which is the current procedure.
:
: So NASA and not USA are to blame for the high cost of space access? Maybe
: USA is happy with how much NASA spends on them? Do you think NASA can
: force USA to make cheaper access to space by buying tickets?

: I said nothing about USA.

You usually say nothing about anything, so why am I surprized. But saying
nothing is part of the problem, really.

Eric