Opinion: Is returning to the moon really such a crackpot idea?

Showing 14 comments

1. quackula at 11:59am 9th February 2012 Yes it is going to be way to expensive to go to the moon. It will not cost billions to go but probably trillions of dollars and for what a small moon base about the size of a school bus. No thanks we have bigger problems to solve right now.
   1. jesterking at 7:26am 14th February 2012 I'm no Newt Supporter (Ron Paul 2012!), but if you listen to what he says... He wants private industry to go to the moon, not NASA.
2. Dave Cota at 6:48pm 9th February 2012 The biggest mistake this country made was by keeping space in the hands of NASA. It has been the red headed step child of every congress, Nixon could not wait to kill the moon program and I truly believe if we would have loosened the chains we would have been there by now and mining and researching things we cannot even imagine. When Obama cut the strings on NASA it was the correct thing to do and I hope we see the results within my kids life time. I sad it will not be in mine. I grew up with the ideal that it was only natural.
3. Bristol Eastwood at 6:08pm 9th February 2012 Yeahhhhh....there's more important things back home to take care of first...like our increasingly obese unhealthy population fueled by govt corn and soy subsidies, outrageously overpriced healthcare system, failing transportation infrastructure, lack of high-speed rail lines from coast to coast.....
4. Chrissy Vermillion at 5:53pm 9th February 2012 this picture struck me as so funny! lol
5. James Hancock at 6:44am 9th February 2012 It is a complete waste of stolen money for the government to do so. When the government taxes, they are putting a gun to your head and forcing you to agree with what they want to do. They are litterally doing this. We don't like to talk about it in polite conversation, but that's what taxation is. If anyone but the government was to do this it would be theft and slavery over the long run.Government going to the moon as no value that you can possibly suggest is worth theft and slavery. It doesn't generate revenue because governments have no money of their own and they lose money on everything they touch. It doesn't generate net jobs because the government takes more money out of the private economy than they produce in jobs and other things in the public sector. Thus it is a net loss all the way around.Now if some private entity wants to raise the funds through voluntary means and has a business plan that supports going to the moon, GREAT! Do it. I'm all for it and will cheer them on. I might even donate to the cause.And no it doesn't matter if it's a crazy idea or not. What matters is that there is no economic reason to do so. And certainly not one that justifies theft by the government to make it happen.And the next time you start a story like this I suggest you start with "The government is going to put a gun to your head and take X dollars out of your pocket against your will for this project". Then continue on. I guarantee that it will change the way you think about everything the government does and all of these silly ideas to help the economy that won't help it, never have helped it and always ultimately harm the economy, and our lives.
   1. TechFreak at 10:04am 9th February 2012 I couldn't disagree with you more. If you were to view the government like a business, you would understand that there are different departments which all have their own roles. You cannot dedicate 100% of taxes (IE revenue) to any one single area. You still need marketing, infrastructure, product (GDP), new business etc. I would view the space program and research & development coupled with marketing.How do you expect the American population to be proud of their country when we simply conserve our money and do not reinvest it in new technologies, businesses and marketing/advancement? Yes, we need to get back in the black, stop the stupid spending and reinvest in our infrastructure (both roads, bridges, trains and economy), but to cut out the space program completely would be just plain stupid.I think a combination of NASA working with private commercial companies makes sense. It would allow them to be innovative while still keeping costs affordable.
      1. James Hancock at 10:23am 9th February 2012 Again: There isn't any part of the US government that generates a profit. (including the IRS who takes other people's money and doesn't make any itself) It doesn't matter what the government does, they make things worse because it costs more than it generates AND they have to steal that money from the people and businesses that would make much better use of the funds (like 50% better return on investment for private sector versus public).Being proud of your country because your country stole a ton of money from it's people and did something is a stupid idea. Should the slaves that built the Pyramids be proud of their government? Should the French who got taxed into starvation be proud of the Palace at Versi? Should the surf/slaves of the middle ages be proud of the massive cathedrals of gold or the impenetrable castles that were built on their backs while their families starved and were horribly malnourished in the name of their kings?NO.As for infrastructure, privatize it (roads, bridges, trains, everything) as well and make it user pay. User pay is the only just form of taxation (it isn't even really taxation!). No one is stolen from. You'll see a massive boom. Why? Because things will be built and maintained according to market forces that demand good roads, without government unions in the way doubling or tripling the cost of everything. Why? Because people will see the true cost of what's built, and we'll get gravel roads again where there is no call for paved. Right now the government in most states can't build gravel roads anymore so no new roads get built even if there is enough of a market for a cheap one. On and On and On. Our infrastructure is collapsing precisely BECAUSE the government is involved. A private bridge wouldn't collapse. If it did, the company would be out of business from the lawsuits. (as long as government didn't protect it from litigation like our government did with BP). They wouldn't allow the failure because one failure = their business.Meanwhile NASA undercuts private companies launch satellites just to stay in business. They use tax payer dollars so that they can launch those satellites at a loss. They KILL the space industry in this country as a result (A Delta V rocket costs them $200 million to launch, but they routinely charge less than $50 million to beat private industry that can turn a profit at $65 million).Government is a blood sucking leach that we should not be proud of at all (you should never be proud of anything that requires acquiescence at the barrel of a gun or jail time to accomplish. If you are, then you are truly an evil person). We should be proud of the individuals that do great things. Our pride in our country comes from those people accomplishing great things and the recognition that absolute freedom, property rights and the rule of law to protect against the INIITATION of force only is the true roll of government, not from government expropriation of funds and flushing it down the toilet with an armed military and police force to give them sanction to do so: Not even if the result is the Pyramids or a permanent base on the moon. Those are shameful acts of evil. We shouldn't wonder at them, we should rip them down and vow never to use government enslavement as a means to an ends ever again.
         1. TechFreak at 10:44am 9th February 2012 Wow, I can't really debate with you since you are so stuck on the government being bad, so not sure what to say.I would certainly not trust the private sector completely to do the right thing. Big corporations have been asking for tax breaks forever, promising more US jobs as a result, yet they still outsource overseas.
            1. James Hancock at 10:58am 9th February 2012 List to what you just said. Big corporations have been asking for tax breaks forever.They're also using government to maintain monopolies, get loans that no sane bank would ever give, bail outs, etc.Ask yourself why?The reason is BECAUSE THEY CAN. They themselves cannot put a gun to your head and force you to give them money. They can't even force you to do business with them. They must CONVINCE YOU.However, if they get in bed with government, they can get the government to FORCE you to do business with them. Force you to give them money to save them from themselves, force you to agree with them.It is only when government enables business to be evil that they even have the power to be evil. Otherwise bad businesses go out of business and good ones make money and prosper.If you have any question if this is true, look at the tech industry where, with the exception of green businesses which are sucking from the government's teet, there is little or no government intervention. Bad companies go bankrupt, good ones make piles of cash (see Kodak and Apple for perfect examples). Apple doesn't harm anyone (Foxconn does because the government of China enables them to do so). Apple doesn't force anyone to buy their products. They don't have a monopoly on anything.Then look at the cell phone companies, the cable companies, the power companies. They have monopolies BECAUSE of government.Then look at Microsoft. They had a monopoly as long as they were the best. As soon as they weren't it ended. It wasn't the government intervening that stopped MS, it was MS falling behind and new innovations that made them less relivent.So again, business can only be evil with government help. If they try without it, they go bankrupt.
            2. James Hancock at 11:07am 9th February 2012 And BTW do you know why they outsource to overseas?Because our government has passed laws forcing businesses to accept unions. Forcing businesses to negotiate with Unions. In some states they have forced people to join unions. Government gets elected by the very people that they pay and then government gives them the ability to shut down business, including acts of violence with almost 0 repercussions.We now have grade 10 drop outs making as much after benefits as tenured professors with a PHd. Why? Because unions us government force to artificially raise income at the expense of others. This worked when there was no one else producing anything other than the US. They had a monopoly so everyone had to accept the higher costs.Now that's not true. Countries all over the world have no such laws and uneducated putters of bolts in holes get paid what they should. The government here however still has those onerous laws and use force to enforce it.The only way for those businesses to survive is to outsource to somewhere that doesn't force them to pay people what they aren't worth.If you're job is an assembly line job you should be at the very bottom of the middle class scraping by in this country. Your job doesn't require talent. Anyone can do it. It isn't an ability that is in demand and rare to find someone that can do it. But instead they make $50-60k a year and then have $50k+ in benefits. Ask yourself if this is fare or even logical?Businesses like everyone else vote with their feet. To save themselves they voted with their feet and moved away from the oppressive government that was harming them. The only ones to blame are the government goons that enforce, with the barrel of a gun such laws.
               1. Charles Polk at 9:15am 11th February 2012 They outsourced overseas because those trade agreements that were negotiated were negotiated without requiring participating countries to raise their standards instead of forcing us to lower ours. This is exactly what the left predicted: a race to the bottom. Essentially these agreements were negotiated to favor the interests of the financial and corporate classes while flipping the bird at the middle class and the poor. You say we have grade 10 dropouts making as much after benefits as tenured professors. I say, prove that statement. Show me some statistical evidence instead of knee jerk prejudice and maybe I might take you seriously. I would also say the the same countries you are talking about where they have no laws protecting the environment (China) or labor (Malaysia) are also powder kegs of resentment. The only way the financial elites can keep the lid on is by overwhelming use of police, military and censorship powers of the state. If that is what you want for this country, I suggest you move to one of these free market utopias you keep talking about and become a citizen there and then try criticizing government policy. No thanks, I'll keep my free country thank you very much. Your analysis totally ignores the fact that for the first 115 years of this countries existence, we pursued protectionist trade policies because we as believed it was better to be independent and produce our own goods here at home rather than having to rely on countries outside the country to do it for us. Dependence on other counties means a loss of choice here at home. It means that if we have to make a hard choice between what is in our own interest versus some vital good that we have to have, we can be held hostage. Middle East oil is a good example. How many trillions of dollars have we spent in order to make sure that our supply of oil from that benighted region is protected? How many kids lives have we sacrificed? What if we had made a decision in 1972 that we were going to be totally energy independent by 1987 no matter what it took? Is there any doubt that we could have accomplished it? Wouldn't we have been better off than having to tie our future to what some orientalist dictatorships did or didn't do? Wouldn't we have been able to avoid interfering in other countries internal policy and so avoided becoming the target of all the Islamic hatred that caused 911? Would we have had to pervert our moral standing in the world by torturing prisoners of war just like every empire before us has? These are important considerations. Finally, yes businesses do vote with their feet, and we through government made it possible for them to do so. We opened up China in the 70's, we defeated communism so capitalists wouldn't have to feat another economic system taking their property in a world struggle. We enforce and protect the trade routes through our defense spending but for the average working joe to ask for a little piece of that pie, to ask that the top one per cent not scrape off more of his wage in profit just so they can end up owning 90% of the world instead of 89% is somehow wrong? No, you're wrong, just completely utterly and irredeemably wrong.
         2. Charles Polk at 9:11pm 10th February 2012 Jim,. I would agree with you, but then we would both be wrong. The reason the no private bridges get built or roads is precisely because of market forces. If there were tons of profit, the interstate system would have been built long before the 1950's. The idea that private markets would exist with out government or that all the public infrastructure in this country would have been built with out the government is complete claptrap. If companies owned the highways they would immediately close the ones with the least profitable utility and places like Omaha, Des Moinse and Tulsa would be cut off. Mises and Hayek aren't completely wrong, just mostly. The reason in this case is because no one can rationally predict how certain investments will pay off in the future based on what we know now. Rational market forces seek to minimize risk and maximize profit for the investor, but no one could predict from the sale of the first Wright airplane to the government that we would end up with satellites or men on the moon. Government makes investments for things which are absolute public goods, but which cannot be justified directly by predictable profits or for which the profit appears to small to justify the investment. Rural electrification is an example. And yes, sometimes government investments fail, just like private investments sometimes fail, but that is primarily because the risk or initial capital investment is too high to entice the private market. Government doesn't hinder the market, it makes it more stable and sometimes saves it from its own excessive greed.
            1. James Hancock at 5:42am 11th February 2012 You need a history lesson.The reason the roads weren't built prior to the government getting involved is because the government highly regulated (and still does) all transportation in the US making it impossible for private roads to be built.Further the government also subsidized (until Reagan) all train travel including passenger and freight since the 1880s (see "Interstate Commerce Commission" on Wikipedia for a short explanation, although it is by no means complete).As a result, just like the government is picking winners and losers in green energy that would have happened in the private sector if it was actually profitable and made any sort of sense the government picked winners and losers in transportation (i.e. it never makes sense to go from a more dense energy source such as coal, NG, Hydro, Nuclear to a low density energy source such as sun and wind).In the case of rail lines the government actually forced smaller rail lines (and those that weren't in with the government) to sell to larger ones. They then put in price controls to enforce "fairness" so that rarely used runs weren't as expensive (they were expensive because there wasn't nearly the demand!) and highly competitive lines (like transcontinental runs) couldn't be sold below what the crony friends of Washington wanted to charge.This was sold to the people as a way to protect them. They claimed that the rarely used lines would be cheaper and there would be more "predictability" in the highly competitive space. The reality is the opposite. The rarely used lines went out of business, and the government forced a quadopoly on inter-state freight (that still exists today despite other company's wanting to buy in and being blocked by the FTC - See Canada CN Rail attempted purchase of CTX about 15 years ago). By the time the government finally got a clue in the 80s all interstate passenger rail services in the country had gone bankrupt leaving only Amtrak, run by the government. The government had passed legislation preventing anyone from competing with Amtrak, and forcing freight services to give Amtrak priority on their rails and preventing them from saying no to Amtrak using those rails resulting in massive slowdowns in freight services that continue to this day.Incidently Atlas Shrugged is based upon this true story so if you think that Atlas Shrugged is simple hyperbole and could never happen, think again. It already has. Repeatedly.The same thing happened with postal services, although that one was in the bag from day one because it's in the constitution, it was just a matter of time before they banned anyone from carrying letters. (which still stands to this day, which is why we have no competition to the USPS despite his horrible track record.).Private roads, in most states it's outright illegal to build and essentially has been since the advent of the car because the governments were afraid of this new mode of transportation and wanted to control it (see having to walk in-front of your car with flags to warn others that you were coming with your car which was the norm throughout this country for decades). Later it became about unions wanting a monopoly enforced through the government and it still stands.Thus it is impossible for private companies to compete building new roads because it is simply illegal.A few other examples: Electricity, cable, phone, cell phones, Health Care, the AMA, Insurance, and space flight to name a few. All are government controlled 100%. All are areas where consumers hate the companies that they have to deal with because the government enforces it. And every single argument you can make for why the government has to be involved I can disprove if you care to continue the debate.However recently, Indiana has seen the light and leased out their roads to private companies how maintain them. The result is a savings that is upwards of 60% so far in maintenance cost, while the quality of the roads has actually gone up. (Yes they're all toll as roads should be!). Further the government is making tons of money because they get fees for the cost of the lease.Ontario Canada did something similar in the 1990s with the 407 that loops around what at the time was the outskirts of Toronto. They knew that they had to build a new highway because the 401 was disparately congested (busiest highway in North America). They were also essentially bankrupt (The City of Toronto, the province of Ontario and Canada itself at the time). As a result they contracted a private company to build the highway and maintain it. They would make their money off of tolls. It became one of the first highways in the world with electronic tolling. Yes you can go through at 60+ miles an hour without stopping even if you don't have a transponder and there are virtually no people that are involved in the collection unlike the socialist systems in most states that require unionized workers to do what a computer can do much better.The result of that experiment in Canada is telling: It is the most efficiently run highway in North America. They built it with 2 extra lanes possible on each side including bridges so that they didn't have to build any new ones for a good long while. It is the safest highway per driver in North America. It is also one of the busiest. And people use it like crazy even though there are "free' alternatives.Transportation can absolutely be profitable in this country. But to do so, the government would have to remove all of the regulation that outright bans private companies from doing it or competing with similar government services and would have to divest themselves of Amtrak et. al. They would also have to stop artificially advantaging themselves by using eminent domain to steal land for whatever they wanted instead of having to pay for it and then only if the person wanted to sell, like private companies would have to.If the risk is too high in a capital investment that is code for "It's a bad idea in the first place". If you have any questions see Solyndra and the long line of other defunct government cronyism that fails. In fact I defy you to find any "high risk" investments that the government made when the private sector wouldn't (not couldn't because of government regulation) that actually succeeded.You won't find ONE.And no, they wouldn't close the least profitable. Least profitable still means that they would make a profit. They thus wouldn't close it. They would raise the rates on those that were losing money and those that used it would have to pay true value instead of leaching off other Americans to pay for their conveniences. OR as would more likely be the case, those people would band together and create a co-operative that maintained the road themselves which happened for more than a century in this country before the progressive movement of the 1860s on. In both cases it would still be voluntary pay for use instead of gun to the head taxation.You seriously need to read some Austrian Economics. Your state run education system has brainwashed you to reality. I'm sure you were told that Knights were noble in shining armor and there to protect the people too. They weren't. They were there to extract taxes, and rape the women and keep control of the populous. It wasn't until the invention of the crossbow (see Wikipedia on the viral true story that circulated for many years when the internet was first created) that the people finally started to free themselves from tyranny caused by the Knights because they could finally protect themselves from the government thugs come to tax them and exercise their right of "first night" (i.e. your wedding night was when the king or baron raped your wife by law and if you tried to stop it you and your wife were generally killed).I'm sure you were taught that Abe Lincoln was the greatest of Presidents and freed the slaves. He didn't free the slaves except for in the south because the south was winning and he wanted to create a fifth column. He actually passed laws forcing free states to return slaves to the slave states. He actively to the day he died worked to deport all slaves to colonies that he was working with the British to setup in Africa and Central America AND he violated every single section of the constitution while in office and had anyone that said anything against him put in jail. Great President? I think not. Similar is true about FDR the other "Great President". But you're not taught that in school, you're taught the propaganda "trust government" version.Ask yourself given the propaganda in our school system that teaches that our government is the one to solve problems and make things right, even though history, not taught through the government's propoganda machine clearly demonstrates that the opposite is true, weather you can trust a word that was taught to you.The answer if you bother to step outside the echo chamber is ABSOLUTELY NOT. It's time you educated yourself and realized the corruption of government, and that the state run education system is how they ensure a compliant populous that while they hate congress (< 12% approval rating) can't quite bring themselves to vote for people like Ron Paul who would eliminate this farce because of their brainwashing for at least 13 years of their lives at the most brain-washable period in a person's life.And all of this as an aside from the only reason why all of this is evil that matters:The ends does not justify the means. Enslaving a population through forced taxation to accomplish a goal, no matter how well intentioned is evil because slavery in any form no matter the justification is evil. Period. Anything created from that evil is evil. Period. There is no gray area just like there is on gray area as to if murder is evil.If you care to fully understand the truth, a good starting point is "The Philosophy of Liberty" on YouTube.Then start reading Hayak, Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Ludwig Von Mises and others for the truth. I'd start by reading "Capitalist Manifesto" or "The Making of Modern Economics" for a primer and then go into more details with the others. It will open your eyes to the "Lie that Government Tells You" (by Judge Nepoletanto).In short it is the same false premise that lead to the Pyramids being created with slave labor that enables people to accept the premise that government should colonize the moon. Both are evil, and both for the same reason. It's time we used Newt's stupid proposal to reopen the discussion on government involvement and government forced taxation.