Thursday, February 10, 2011
This is really cool...
A project called California's Living New Deal, which acts as a sort of archive/resource/historic preservation society for New Deal projects in California. Does anyone know if any other states have this sort of program?
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This is really cool:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h_d6YVA1Kg&feature=player_embedded#at=498
That guy will be glad to know that the administration and Congress are very excited and fully on board with the advances of private space flight. Really cool, as you say.
ReplyDeleteI find this government/private sector opposition hilarious. You do realize all the private space guys are going to do what they do regardless of what NASA's budget looks like, right? Many appreciate Why is he even talking about "the spirit living in the private sector" vs. "the spirit living in the government"? What is this "whether Washington comes along for the ride or not"? I can appreciate this video, but the guy is a little goofy and melodramatic Gary.
Everybody that appreciates NASA is a huge fan of the private space industry. This is a ridiculously false dichotomy. You might be able to talk as if there is some crowding out and conflict and jostling for position between government and the market as a whole. That's not even true all the time, but it's somewhat reasonable to talk about in the aggregate. But when you're talking about an agency whose budget is half a percent of the total federal budget, you can't think like this. You could quadruple NASA's budget and you wouldn't be crowding out private spaceflight or doing them a disservice. They're complementarities, Gary! The economy is not a zero-sum game.
If people want to make an argument against NASA they should make an argument against NASA. They shouldn't trot out SpaceX as if its some acce in the whole. NASA fans are SpaceX fans - to a man.
ReplyDelete*ace
ReplyDeleteI believe the deal is that NASA is essentially a waste of money as it now exists; so giving it more money under its current set-up is pointless exercise.
ReplyDelete"That guy will be glad to know that the administration and Congress are very excited and fully on board with the advances of private space flight."
They are?
http://www.spacenews.com/policy/100423-obama-nasa-overhaul-congressional-resistance.html
There is a fair amount of resistance to this in the Congress - which is not surprising.
Gary - you are conflating opposition to reducing NASA with opposition to private spaceflight.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
The opposition regards the primary space vehicle NASA is supposed to use in the future; there are basically two opinions - those who want NASA to develop it in house and those who want to turn it over the private sector (in the latter instance there would be no single primary space vehicle - you'd have numerous choices).
ReplyDeleteOK, now you're conflating outsourcing a NASA project with private space initatives like SpaceX.
ReplyDeleteYes, certainly there are people who oppose the outsourcing and that's pure and simple rent-seeking. I've said on here before that NASA oughta do its job in the most efficient way. But that's still a NASA project. That's very different from private space initiatives.
Congressmen who support NASA will bicker over whether it's done in house or not. Not a one of them wants to stymie the private space industry.
Your argument is like saying Congressmen who want to give contracts to Boeing and Northrup-Gruman support Bob Murphy and the people that want to privatize national security.
To clarify - if NASA can do a project most efficiently in house, it should do it in house in my opinion. If it can do it most efficiently by outsourcing it to private companies it should do that. But I think there is warrant for a much bigger NASA budget regardless of which way a given project goes.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think the private sector should explore and colonize space. At the moment at least there's no conflict between the two.
But the private sector getting hired to do NASA work is not the sort of activity your initial video was talking about!!!
"But the private sector getting hired to do NASA work is not the sort of activity your initial video was talking about!!!"
ReplyDeleteActually, that is mentioned in the video.
Look, NASA in the long run is just not up to snuff; that shouldn't be that surprising - it is a bit like expecting a government run car company to do well.