This is one of those book reviews that barely mentions the actual books in question because the reviewer wished he had written his own version!
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Meanwhile back at the Amazon warehouse, pickers pee in bottles.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/undercover-author-discovered-amazon-warehouse...
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"Think of all the hate there is in Red China!
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama!
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
But when your return, it's the same old place,
The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace,
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."
Barry McGuire
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One nice thing is that both companies have developed rocket motors so that America is not reliant upon Russian Rocket motors to get to space. ULA has been launching "American rockets" with Russian motors.
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Focus on getting the markets and the products lined up with no distraction is what makes SpaceX and Blue Origin so productive. The cost to fly SpaceX's new Falcon Heavy rocket was $500 million in all private money, for a rocket with reusable first stages that are 75% of its cost. Government's budget for the SLS, a throwaway rocket, for the first time in 2021, will be $24 Billion. That is a ratio of nearly 50/1, ...against SLS, for the same one time capability, even though the Falcon Heavy can get back 75% of its cost with each flight at the cost of some payload.
This means that Falcon Heavy can launch to Low Earth Orbit for a $90 Million price, plus a bit for spacecraft integration, while an SLS launch will total around $2.5 billion for each flight. The launch cost ratio is thus 25+/1 against the government-funded vehicle. Make Falcon Heavy be carrying enough that it pretty much equals the SLS payload, and be throwaway because of that, then it will cost all of $150 million, ...*only* a launch cost ratio of 16+/1.
As soon as the next generation of already planned SpaceX launchers fly, those costs will drop again, over an order of magnitude.
This is the real benefit of having people investing their own money in spaceships. Their names matter not nearly so much as their focus of attention. They are not interested in providing jobs, but in expanding human opportunities. Meanwhile, Congress wants to trade jobs for their power. Which would you want to buy a launch from???
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Reality: Elon Musk is getting major $$$ from taxpayers.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
Reality: tax deductions are fueling this business.
Reality: USA taxpayer debt is $21,000,000,000,000+, 47,000,000 Americans were on food stamps.
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I wish you would tell how he receives all this supposed money or how he gets this supposed money from tax payers. He does get money for taking supplies up to the space station and for launching satellites NASA the same as a road contractor does when he builds roads for government but I notice you never mention the cost plus contracts that ULA and others got for building rockets in the past a virtual license to print money and you never complained about that then.
I recently spent the better part of a day in the Mojave desert. Rough country. A bit like being on Mars, except there is no atmosphere on Mars, no plants, no flowing rivers and no SUV waiting to take you back to the interstate highway.
Musk is pushing his space venture with the idea that humans will travel to and live on Mars. I am sure there are some people who will try it, eagerly. The question, so far not asked and certainly not answered, is this: why? Why would anyone want to go live in a place so utterly hostile to life itself as Mars?
We have such an amazing, fantastic planet that provides wonders and delights that no one could see entirely if they explored every day of a long life. We have abundant air to breathe, the warmth of the summer sun, plants that grow by themselves to provide food, water in great quantities and, most of all, human companionship. Everything we know and value is right here. Everything we understand begins and ends on earth.
Is Musk's vision actually based on a pessimistic view of our prospects here? Does he suppose that we will so despoil this planet that we will one day be forced to escape the wreckage?
All private efforts to "explore space" have to come down to one factor: how do you make money? It has been suggested that the first human to direct the mining of astroids will become the richest person in human history. All the profits are in finding aways to monetize scientific and engineering advances. If that fails, the ventures fail.
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There are so many ways to make money in space: mining asteroids, a convenience store on the Moon providing provisions for Mars explorers, space tourism, making movies and television shows, advertising on the outside of habitats and rockets, and much much more.
Our Earth is indeed beautiful but so are the other Solar System planets and moons, and the many exoplanets and exomoons in other star systems, and asteroids, nebula, etc. Why not explore and possibly live on other planets and moons (or orbiting them), too? We don't have to be an Earth-centric species!
Unfortunately, our Earth won't be inhabitable forever. Stephen Hawking only gave it about 100 more years which is pretty dire but the longest it can last is about 4.5 billion years due to the Sun running out of fuel. If the human race is to survive, we must make our way beyond Earth... and beyond the Solar System!
There are many articles discussing Stephen Hawking's doomsday prediction. Here is one you might enjoy reading: http://bigthink.com/dangerous-ideas/5-stephen-hawkings-warning-abandon-e...
Here is Dr. Hawking's quote: "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load."
Thanks for reading!
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Neither of these "entrepreneurs" of space has developed a Galileo spacecraft to explore Jupiter, a Cassini to explore the rings of Saturn - diving through them multiple times, uncovering amazing secrets of its moons and so much more, developing the unique landing systems for Spirit, Opportunity and the "sky crane" to land the Curiosity rover on Mars. Nope- -no money in that. This is what NASA does again and again. Just a bloated bureaucracy - as you say - doing the nation proud.
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"doing the nation proud." - as does SpaceX ... at considerably less cost & greater safety. Compared to the Space Shuttle, Falcon Heavy lifts more than twice the payload at one-twenty-fifth the cost! The Space Launch System is nothing more than an already obsolete money sink.
Are there any one way gift tickets for sale yet? I have a list to consider.
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Nothing, bar nothing, underscores the gulf between the 1% and the rest of the population more than this childish indulgence. The planet would benefit far more from intellectual activity and technological innovations that continue to free us from the internal combustion engine. At least one of these competitors is going in the right direction there...
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Indeed that is what space exploration does - fuel intellectual activity and technological innovations. Many innovations connected to space travel can free us from the internal combustion engine, but the fossil fuel industry is fighting that like crazy. Also, there is not so much of a gulf between the 1% and the rest of the population when it comes to interest in space. I do outreach to thousands of people every year (approx. 5000) and no one says, "I'm not interested in space." Rather, it is a universal appeal - the awe and wonder of the Universe. As to technological innovations, please check out Space Spinoffs at https://spinoff.nasa.gov/ . Indeed, the best thing we can do to "make America great" is spend just a few more pennies on the dollar in space. Thanks for reading!
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If extracting resources from Mother Gaia is bad, what is the permanent fix?
Not on Earth.
Innovators with private money have provided the path to new frontiers since Orville & Wilbur.
Elon Musk may well be the savior of planet Earth. And with a lot of help from NASA, but having evolved into just another government bureaucracy (like all the rest), NASA is more politics than innovation - too many rules.
It's a genuine tragedy that the US has essentially abandoned manned space exploration, allowing the flag to be picked up and carried by zillionaires like Bezos and loudmouthed fraudsters like "Sir" Richard Branson. Rich folks spending thousands of dollars to spend 15 minutes in sub-orbital space just doesn't instill the same American pride in me that happened when we were sending brave men to walk on the moon and then returning them to safely to earth a few decades ago.
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I love the work NASA does and am a staunch fan. However, I do believe we need a combination of governments (ESA, JAXA, Roscosmos, etc) AND private individuals AND non-profits AND commercial companies AND entrepreneurs AND universities to make it happen. Just as individuals, governments, families, adventure seekers, etc. explored and settled Earth. It wasn't just governments that explored Earth!
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Hey Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, you first. Maybe the 1% barons can establish their own new space colony on Mars and leave the rest us alone back here on Earth. You might be surprised by the number of us willing to even contribute via Kickstarter to make that happen.
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Good idea. Add Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of our tech billionaire overlords. If there is room, add every member of Congress from both parties.
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JeffB perhaps you would be happy but a substantial number of us who are not part of the 1% want access to space too. There is a quote from Robert Heinlein that sums up the difference between people like us and people like you "The meek shall the earth, the rest of us are going to the stars"
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Now if only my young nephew could be convinced that we never went to the moon!
Er, I meant 'ever' instead of 'never'.
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It is our manifest destiny to explore the heavens
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Manifest Destiny which ultimately destroyed the Native Americans
.. "explore" .. with tax-deductible cash?
Markets work. And this kind of risk/reward, with the USA taxpayer debt at $21,000,000,000,000+, worst ever as Asia rises .. just appears insane, IMHO.
The space program's ROI is HUGE! It is not a waste of money at all and does not contribute to our national debt! Please consider giving this article a read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregautry/2017/07/09/americas-investment-in...
One quote: I assure you that every dollar that our nation has spent in space, both civilian and military, has been paid back and these investments generate multi-fold returns to our economy every year. That’s a bold statement, but a single space program easily demonstrates this: the Global Position System (GPS) satellite constellation."
Another interesting read is here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-lyons/misconceptions-nasa_b_356120... Ms. Lyons takes on the misconception about cost and a couple of others, to boot.
Thank you for reading!
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