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Consequentialism, Part II
1 hour ago
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
"The primary objective of NASA now is to begin the settlement of the solar system"
What an encouraging thing to hear! I wonder how many of his colleagues would put it quite that way. What I also love about this quick discussion is that he does not play the libertarian game of treating public and private efforts as in any inherent opposition. This is NASA's mission. This is a private mission. This is a human mission.
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Did he yell "So say we all!" afterwards?
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretentious to believe to know that these space missions are the best utilization of scarce resources.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretentious and obviously inefficient.
ReplyDeleteI recommend any NASA true believer to pick up and read "Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space." Even NASA significantly outsources nowadays.
The future of space exploration is from the private industry.
"Know" is a word that oughta always be qualified. But I think it's equally pretentious (perhaps more pretentious, given what we know about efficiency criteria for a market economy?) to "know" that just letting commercial space flight do what it will is the best use of resources.
ReplyDeleteStrangeloop -
I could not agree more that the future of space exploration is private industry, but demonstrating that is certainly not the same as demonstrating there is no role for the public sector. These two are not mutually exclusive. As I've told Gary in the past, I would wager there is not a single NASA fan who isn't substantially excited about what the private sector is doing and planning to do in space. Support for private space exploration probably has more support among pro-NASA people than it does among people that are neutral towards or hostile to NASA.