NASA - National Atmospheric and Space Administration

In article o%Gei.4882$AR5.1624@trnddc06, "GO Mavs"
wrote:

Bush has done all the wrong things when it comes to NASA.. He tried cutting
funds with Hubble and decided on going back to the moon by 2019. A man will
land on the moon in 12 years to start building a moonstation. I may agree
with that at the most and mostly to explore its resources (ideally
hydrogen), but going to Mars is ridiculous.

True, but fortunately, nobody in power is talking about going to Mars.
Even the original VSE speech barely mentioned it in passing, along with
"and other destinations". The Mars nuts have somehow spun this into
sounding like an actual goal, when it is not.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout wrote:
In article o%Gei.4882$AR5.1624@trnddc06, "GO Mavs"
wrote:

Bush has done all the wrong things when it comes to NASA.. He tried cutting
funds with Hubble and decided on going back to the moon by 2019. A man will
land on the moon in 12 years to start building a moonstation. I may agree
with that at the most and mostly to explore its resources (ideally
hydrogen), but going to Mars is ridiculous.

True, but fortunately, nobody in power is talking about going to Mars.
Even the original VSE speech barely mentioned it in passing, along with
"and other destinations". The Mars nuts have somehow spun this into
sounding like an actual goal, when it is not.

That's true, in the faith based world, there are no goals.

--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

kT wrote in :

Joe Strout wrote:
In article %YGei.4881$AR5.4416@trnddc06, "GO Mavs"
wrote:

I agree about that being a fault of Bush. There is no reason we need
to send men to Mars or set up a space station on the Moon.

Yes there is. Well, maybe not sending men to Mars, but learning to
live on the Moon is the next step in humanity's expansion beyond the
Earth.

Say's who, a little birdie?

What is the other first step? We need to get out of here eventually -- sun
only last so long.

On Jun 22, 1:55 am, z wrote:

What is the other first step? We need to get out of here eventually -- sun
only last so long.

Relocate our moon to Earth's L1, then we go for Venus (or vise versa).
-
"whoever controls the past, controls the future" / George Orwell
-
Brad Guth

bush cant get anything right........

beyond that all profit from space activities should be declared
federal tax free for 30 years to help investments.

way better than spending public money.

" wrote:

beyond that all profit from space activities should be declared
federal tax free for 30 years to help investments.

way better than spending public money.

Umm... behind all the handwaving deployed on behalf of everything from
sports stadiums to mortgage interest deductibility, foregoing tax
revenues *is* precisely the same as spending public money. The
arithmetic doesn't care what you call it: look up "fungible" and
"double-entry."

I'm perfectly willing to consider the merits of arguments for Your
Favortite Subsidy X, but I'd much prefer a politics without the spin
of tax holidays, investment zones, "pump priming," etc.

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:32:44 GMT, in a place far, far away, Monte
Davis made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

" wrote:

beyond that all profit from space activities should be declared
federal tax free for 30 years to help investments.

way better than spending public money.

Umm... behind all the handwaving deployed on behalf of everything from
sports stadiums to mortgage interest deductibility, foregoing tax
revenues *is* precisely the same as spending public money.

Not if it's a foregone tax revenue from an activity that wouldn't have
otherwise happened. Not saying that's the case here, but "foregoing
tax revenues" is a slippery topic (similar to the argument about
supply-side economics). It costs the public nothing to "forego tax
revenues" if in the absence of such a policy, there would have been no
revenues to tax.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:32:44 GMT, in a place far, far away, Monte
avis made the phosphor on my monitor glow
:in such a way as to indicate that:
:
" wrote:
:
:beyond that all profit from space activities should be declared
:federal tax free for 30 years to help investments.
:
:way better than spending public money.
:
:Umm... behind all the handwaving deployed on behalf of everything from
:sports stadiums to mortgage interest deductibility, foregoing tax
:revenues *is* precisely the same as spending public money.
:
:Not if it's a foregone tax revenue from an activity that wouldn't have
therwise happened. Not saying that's the case here, but "foregoing
:tax revenues" is a slippery topic (similar to the argument about
:supply-side economics). It costs the public nothing to "forego tax
:revenues" if in the absence of such a policy, there would have been no
:revenues to tax.
:

Of course it does. The same reasoning applies to subsidies. If you
subsidize them up front and tax them on the back side, you can make
pretty much precisely the same argument.

Once again, look up 'fungible'. A dollar not collected is precisely
the same as a dollar collected and then given away.


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

On Jun 21, 10:32 pm, kT wrote:
NASA - National Atmospheric and Space Administration

I like the sound of that. That's going to be your new NASA in 2009.

I agree that NASA could use a name change.

However, I think changing back to NACA would
be approproptiate: the National Advisory Committee
for Aerospace. The main message: get back to
the roots that gave you the job in the first place.
Do research and don't compete with commercial
and military organizations that are up to job. By
all means, do some bold exploration that would not
be done by others, but rely on commercial support
for basic logistics. Stop shortchanging aviation and
basic research and science. Get back to the Hugh
Dryden light touch--the last thing that NASA needed
was to give Hugh Dryden a boss.


That gives direct overlap with NOAA, where is counts the most, and puts
the agencies at the forefront of atmospheric research and remediation,
where they belong. This is the way it's going to be. Get used to it.

I agree that the atmosphere is very important, but
it is not primarily NASA's job. All agencies and
all individuals should strive "not to do harm." As
for climate control and change, I don't know who
should be allowed to pick the winners and losers.
Perhaps space shields, mirrors, and/or scatterers
that compensate for harm may be technically,
economically, and socially appropriate; but again,
this is probably not primarily a NASA job--although
NASA could well be involved.

Len

George W. Bush's vision of visiting space expensively and exploring
space as stupidly as possible, will soon be relegated to the scrap heap
of history, where everything he does belongs. Screw you Michael Griffin.

--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Not if it's a foregone tax revenue from an activity that wouldn't have
otherwise happened. Not saying that's the case here, but "foregoing
tax revenues" is a slippery topic (similar to the argument about
supply-side economics). It costs the public nothing to "forego tax
revenues" if in the absence of such a policy, there would have been no
revenues to tax.

Agreed that it's slippery. One could argue from a pure
small-government, leave-the-market-alone PoV that *any* policy with
the intent to foster investment in area X (which means that capital
isn't available for Y or Z) is a thumb in the scales, as surely as a
direct subsidy or a targeted sin tax.

I don't mean to deny the shades of gray; I mean that my preference is,
as much as possible, to reduce the number of labels used for
"government fosters X" and put all means of doing so on an equal
footing. The politics and law of allocating public spending are
complex enough, and give rise to more than enough subterfuge and
misdirection, without pretending that the numbers on the balance sheet
come in orange, patchouli, and Methodist as well as red and black.