Space Travel for the Rich

The joy most people greeted the triumph of SpaceShipOne and the
prospect of a space tourism industry has not, it seems, been
universaly shared. Indeed, the political barriers to a space tourism
industry may be just as difficult as the technical ones.

This piece was written a day or so before the collapse of HR 3752.


http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10268.shtml

On 8 Oct 2004 09:13:10 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Mark Whittington) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

The joy most people greeted the triumph of SpaceShipOne and the
prospect of a space tourism industry has not, it seems, been
universaly shared. Indeed, the political barriers to a space tourism
industry may be just as difficult as the technical ones.

This piece was written a day or so before the collapse of HR 3752.


http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10268.shtml

"Just as difficult"?

The technical issues have always been the easy part.

The joy most people greeted the triumph of SpaceShipOne and the
prospect of a space tourism industry has not, it seems, been
universaly shared. Indeed, the political barriers to a space tourism
industry may be just as difficult as the technical ones.

This piece was written a day or so before the collapse of HR 3752.


http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10268.shtml

Its a common fantasy among leftish sorts to believe that the poor do not dream
of being rich themselves, but rather they dream of making the rich as poor as
themselves and maybe their own poverty won't bite as much.

But what if it does?

If everybody is poor, or only you are poor, you are still poor.

You have trouble feeding your family or finding a place to live. These troubles
don't disappear if you bring down others who are living better than yourself.

Now picture a politician who visits a poor neighborhood. The poor people there
want to know how the politician is going to help lift them out of poverty, but
instead they hear how he intends to stop rich people from joyriding into space.
And those terrible "Fox hunts" such snobbery! He'll put a stop to those, that's
darn sure, but to solve the problems of poverty, he has not a clue. All he can
do is make the lives of the rich harder and limit the opportunities of the rich
to become richer, and also of the poor from becoming richer. If you want
equality, its easier to make everyone poorer than to make everyone richer.
Leftists always concentrate on making people poorer so that there is less
income differential between the rich and poor. That is why that editorial comes
down so screaming hard on people who want to provide services for the rich.
Pioneering sevices such as private space travel are considered especially
vulnerable and so draw much of their fire.

I am not particulaly well off. I struggle to support my family and I work 12
hour days, 6 days a week, and these leftist sort of people who want to bring
down the rich to my level do very little for me.

Tom

Tkalbfus1 wrote:


Its a common fantasy among leftish sorts to believe that the poor do not dream
of being rich themselves,

Sorry but getting rich was never an objective for me. And I have
done exactly what I wanted: I am not rich.

but rather they dream of making the rich as poor as
themselves and maybe their own poverty won't bite as much.


I do not want the rich to become poor. I want a better world for sure,
but nothing like the parasitic display of the rich.

[snip]

I am not particulaly well off. I struggle to support my family and I work 12
hour days, 6 days a week,

Like me

Being poor doesn't mean that I do not care about space exploration,
astronomy, the sciences. Like you by the way. You do not have a penny
but you do find the time to discuss space.

Like me

Being poor doesn't mean that I do not care about space exploration,
astronomy, the sciences. Like you by the way. You do not have a penny
but you do find the time to discuss space.


I make the time. My current work is not what I wanted to do with my life, but
the needs to support my family are the primary consideration. Still, I do not
live to work, but I work to live. Part of living is doing what I want to do
when I'm not working. My free time is not substantial, but I use it to pursue
my intellectual interests which are entirely unrelated to my work. When I was
young, I was hoping that by this time, space travel would be commonplace, and
its not.

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. Those few rich people
make it possible to make money by launching people into space. Once they are in
that business, they will realize, that by finding ways to make space travel
cheaper, they will make more money. Competition will increase as more space
carriers get into the market due to the profits that are made there. Increased
competition will drive prices down, and new cheaper ways of getting into space
will have to be found. This cycle of increased efficiency and more competition
will drive down prices and put space travel within the financial reach of more
and more people until eventually it will be as common as air travel is today.
I do not care if the rich enjoy themselves by spending a few minutes travel in
space; they are doing us a favor by creating a market that will eventually lead
to cheaper space access prices for all.

If they are willing to plunk $200,000 for a 4 minute ride in space, that
doesn't bother me a bit. Without the super rich with money to burn, there would
be no market for private space travel, there would be no companies earning
their living from it and thus no incentive to make it cheaper and thus expand
their business. NASA can continue its missions of exploration and a manned
return to the Moon, and the money spent by these rich thrill ride seekers might
even help.
Government contractors, who provide the launch services for NASA and the
Defense Department have little incentive to make space travel cheaper. The
government is willing to spend a certain amount of money and the contractors
will receive that money. If the contractors find a way to make it cost less
money for each launch, they will receive less money from the government and the
government will use the savings for health care, or possible defense. The
contractors have no reason to make space travel cheap, the government can
afford their services as they are and no one else can. The gap between what the
US government can afford and what the very rich can is huge.

A new market for the very rich had to be created so they can afford to go into
space. Maybe some poorer people are jealous of this conspicuous consumption,
but there are people waiting in the wings who are not as rich as the very rich,
but who would go into space if the price were brought down to something they
could afford.
There is a continuum of wealth that stretches from the very rich to the very
poor, this means that everytime the price of space access is lowered, the
number of people who are willing to buy these tickets increases, and the
companies that sell them make more profits. There are no gaps between the very
rich, merely rich, the upper middle class, and the middle class. There are no
gaps, every level of wealth is represented, and every decrease in ticket price
produces more customers as a result of this.

There is however a huge gap between the US government and the very rich. There
are no trillionares for instance. Any marginal reduction in space costs at this
level would simply reduce profits as the number of customers would still be
only one.

If the very rich were to make use of launch services they could afford, the US
government would also find those launch services to be available, and suddenly
a return to manned Moon and Mars missions becomes alot cheaper. The American
people can then decide on whether they want a bigger space program as a result
of this, or they can spend the savings on healthcare. That is the benefit to
society of private space travel.

Tom

(Tkalbfus1) wrote in message ...

Being poor doesn't mean that I do not care about space exploration,
astronomy, the sciences. Like you by the way. You do not have a penny
but you do find the time to discuss space.

I make the time. My current work is not what I wanted to do with my life, but
the needs to support my family are the primary consideration. Still, I do not
live to work, but I work to live. Part of living is doing what I want to do
when I'm not working. My free time is not substantial, but I use it to pursue
my intellectual interests which are entirely unrelated to my work. When I was
young, I was hoping that by this time, space travel would be commonplace, and
its not.

A new market for the very rich had to be created so they can afford to go into
space. Maybe some poorer people are jealous of this conspicuous consumption,
but there are people waiting in the wings who are not as rich as the very rich, but who would go into space if the price were brought down to something they could afford.
There is a continuum of wealth that stretches from the very rich to the very
poor, this means that everytime the price of space access is lowered, the
number of people who are willing to buy these tickets increases, and the
companies that sell them make more profits. There are no gaps between the very
rich, merely rich, the upper middle class, and the middle class. There are no
gaps, every level of wealth is represented, and every decrease in ticket price
produces more customers as a result of this.

Tom

Just when I was going to give up on sci.space because of the trolls
and pie-throwing contests, along comes.....this. 10 years ago I
considered myself well-off working for a NASA contractor. I had a nice
house in the country with my own hangar and taxiway connected to a
private airport. I had an airplane and 3 cars. Now that's all gone...I
chose to leave that world, and now most of my net worth is in a
startup company trying to bring spaceflight to people like you and me.
Sometimes I wonder why I am working 70 hour weeks for less than
minimum wage.

Thanks for reminding me.
Dan DeLong

P.S. I expect the ticket price for 120 km suborbital hops to be under
$50K in 6 years.

(Dan DeLong) wrote in message . com...
(Tkalbfus1) wrote in message ...

....snip....good post.

Tom

Just when I was going to give up on sci.space because of the trolls
and pie-throwing contests, along comes.....this. 10 years ago I
considered myself well-off working for a NASA contractor. I had a nice
house in the country with my own hangar and taxiway connected to a
private airport. I had an airplane and 3 cars. Now that's all gone...I
chose to leave that world, and now most of my net worth is in a
startup company trying to bring spaceflight to people like you and me.
Sometimes I wonder why I am working 70 hour weeks for less than
minimum wage.

Thanks for reminding me.
Dan DeLong

P.S. I expect the ticket price for 120 km suborbital hops to be under
$50K in 6 years.

P.S.S. Also a good post, Dan. I expect the ticket price
for 130 km, half-day, 60-degree orbital hops to be about
$125,000 in 6 years. The price to a 450-km facility should
be about $200,000.

BTW, I hear you on the lack of compensation for most of the
work that entrepreneurs do quite happily.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com

From article , by (Dan DeLong):

Sometimes I wonder why I am working 70 hour weeks for less than
minimum wage.

Thanks for reminding me.

And thank *you* for fighting the good fight. I hope to be one of your
customers one day soon.

sjv

"Len" wrote in message
om...
(Dan DeLong) wrote in message
. com...
(Tkalbfus1) wrote in message
...

...snip....good post.

Tom

Just when I was going to give up on sci.space because of the trolls
and pie-throwing contests, along comes.....this. 10 years ago I
considered myself well-off working for a NASA contractor. I had a nice
house in the country with my own hangar and taxiway connected to a
private airport. I had an airplane and 3 cars. Now that's all gone...I
chose to leave that world, and now most of my net worth is in a
startup company trying to bring spaceflight to people like you and me.
Sometimes I wonder why I am working 70 hour weeks for less than
minimum wage.

Thanks for reminding me.
Dan DeLong

P.S. I expect the ticket price for 120 km suborbital hops to be under
$50K in 6 years.

P.S.S. Also a good post, Dan. I expect the ticket price
for 130 km, half-day, 60-degree orbital hops to be about
$125,000 in 6 years. The price to a 450-km facility should
be about $200,000.

BTW, I hear you on the lack of compensation for most of the
work that entrepreneurs do quite happily.

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.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com

"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.

Pete.