NASA Boss Says Mars Colonization Will Be Corporate Only 299
99luftballon writes "The head of NASA Ames Research Center has said that he expects any colonization of Mars, the Moon or asteroids to be done by private companies rather than by NASA. There's some interesting parallels with the East India Company, although that was hardly a triumph of capitalism. From the article: 'Dr. Simon Worden, director at NASA Ames Research Center, told The Register that the agency was firmly enmeshing itself with the private sector, citing cooperation on the Dragon capsule being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX team as a good example. NASA developed a heat shield material called PICA (Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), capable of withstanding 1850 degrees Celsius (3360 degrees Fahrenheit), and gave it to SpaceX, who manufactured it.' The article also mentions Google's head of space projects, who has 'Intergalactic Federation King Almighty and Commander of the Universe' on her business cards."
Kim Stanley Robinson (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Indentured Servants (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like the US and Australia? ... I am not an ozzie so I wonder about indentured servents. But this is how people came ot the new world and how slavery started in the south.
Just What We Need (Score:5, Insightful)
*bingbong* "It looks like you're low on oxygen. Please insert another oxygen canister to continue.......... Oh I'm sorry, that doesn't seem to be a MarsCo(r) Brand Oxygen Experience Unit(tm). Aftermarket canisters such as yours are not supported. Suffocation in 5...4... this death is brought to you by..."
Re:China (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:China (Score:5, Insightful)
Criminals are unlikely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless there is a MAJOR breakthrough with getting mass into orbit.
It is unlikely that a criminal will have any skills you'd need that would be worth the expense of lifting him into orbit and keeping him fed and watered and breathing.
Re:China (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't bet on that. They have their own problems to solve with the money. Colonization takes a lot of money. By the time this starts being a real issue they will have a shrinking or flat population and that has a whole wack of social problems.
And it's not like a statement like this from NASA means anything. By 2016/2017 there will definitely be a new policy for NASA, with new governments with new priorities, and they could completely change their minds in any number of directions. They could decide it will be the US colonizing mars, it could be the Europeans deciding this is how they'll get the greeks out of the Euro once and for all, who knows. At best this is a cue to the private companies that for the moment NASA isn't going to stand in the way. But times change.
Expect a quick change of mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Indentured Servants (Score:4, Insightful)
Fear of the unknown. Some people will argue that when it came time to colonize the Americas, we knew they had fresh water / food / etc., but reality speaks otherwise -> most of the people involved did not comprehend what they were getting into, and entire colonies died out.
With Mars, an argument could be made of the same. There will be people scared to death of life on another planet (let alone a trip through space), and there will be people who will die on Mars during colonization. Sometimes through the hostile environment, more likely through human artifice. But if you want a new beginning, or are just a rugged survivalist who wants to put their skills to the test, you will be a part of something great. Death can get a human being on Earth as easily as on Mars. And yes, space colonization does solve the human population problem, at least temporarily. I believe it to be of a much better design than some of the human population control schemes various parties are cooking up.
Re:Criminals are unlikely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because some people deserve only death for what they've done, and the justice system never makes any mistakes, right?
Worse yet, the kind of people you hate aren't the kind of people the prisons are full of - true monsters are very rare, and keeping them locked up isn't a major expense. Unlike locking up potheads, who are a large part of the current prison population.
Re:China (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not certain. If NASA is allowed to get private space going, then it is a certainty that by 2020, that NASA via private space will be on the moon. And likewise, within 5 years later, private space will go to Mars.
NASA doesn't need to "get private space going". What NASA needs to do is get out of the way and let the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight set the standards and do its job, and for NASA to assume more of a role like the NACA did back in the early part of the 20th Century towards aviation... but applied toward spaceflight too. If there is money to be made in space, the U.S. Federal government also needs to quit doing stuff like ITAR that deliberately undermines private space initiatives.
If the U.S. Federal government wanted to so something really impressive in terms of encouraging private spaceflight, Congress would pass legislation that would allow all companies and private individuals for the next 50 years to be able to avoid paying any federal taxes for any activities that primarily are conducted in space. Make it long enough for whatever laws get into place to be predictable and for some serious long-term planning to take place. It wouldn't be a huge loss for the U.S. government at the moment, because the amount of commercial activity in space is nearly zero, or at least so small that the loss of revenue wouldn't even be missed in terms of balancing the federal budget. That would also cut out that list of senators who are in effect damaging the American spaceflight efforts as their pork barrel projects really wouldn't matter and be seen as the irrelevant projects that they are.
Re:China (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes money, but more along the lines of technological achievements. We need a way to and from Mars, under a week's time, and that's only going to happen with some technological development.
Re:Criminals are unlikely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah! There are so many people in western prisons that should been execute already it's not even funny. Mass murderers, rapists, child abusers...etc.
Rapists is actually a good example of why you should not have the death penalty. When DNA testing came it turned out some people that had been decades in prison was innocent. Of course it'd be easier if they'd just been executed right? Nobody to complain about the miscarriage of justice. Not that long ago we had a deathbed confession 29 years after the murders another man was convicted for. Of course in some cases it's beyond any doubt, but then you'd have to add another standard of conviction in addition to beyond reasonable doubt which is a dangerous tail to pull.
If they're nothing but a passive expense, that is also because we choose them to be. For example, I don't see why any of these people can't be software developers or translate foreign documents or any of a number of other jobs without ever leaving their cells or being a threat to anyone. But sure, if you say you're now in prison for life and your only task for the next 50 years is to stare at that wall you will get a vegetable. It is possible to give them a life that's meaningful both to them and to us, without them ever being in a position to hurt anyone ever again.
Re:China (Score:3, Insightful)
While I will admit that China may be a major player in the future of spaceflight, their culture is one that does not encourage technological innovation, and their governmental system is also one that does not encourage innovation other than trying to figure out how to make stuff cheaper by cutting quality.
China's drive to cut costs is at our request, and when they do what we ask, we taunt them for it. That's not a fault with the Chinese. The Chinese government is more capitalistic than the US government.
Re:Criminals are unlikely. (Score:5, Insightful)
The criminals that pass in and out so quickly would barely fit the definition of criminal. Do you realize all the trivial things that have sentences up to 2 1/2 years? I'm guessing you don't. If anything our sentences tend to be too long. And states with the 3 strikes rule just encourage fights to the death at the third crime and lifers with trivial crimes under their belt.
The fact is that many judges are hanging judges who like max sentencing and consider themselves to be the wrath of god. Many jurors and judges consider anyone accused to be guilty. Where there is smoke there is fire. The judges are friends with the cops and never doubt the truth of their testimony for an instant. Jurors often feel the seem. Police testimony is granted far more weight than civilian testimony. People who are intelligent and can think critically and logically and be truly objective tend to avoid jury duty. It is for reasons like this that we have such a high percentage of innocent people behind bars.
Do you have any statistics to back up your 'being arrested 20 times' idea? You seem to think our justice system is too lenient. It's true that we don't simply shoot or dismember petty thieves, but most other countries don't either. With a few rare exceptions we have the harshest justice system on the planet, which is reflected by the largest prison population on the planet both as a percentage and as a total number. Even exceeding China.
The fact is that 'real' criminals are not all that dissuaded by prison. It doesn't motivate them to change their behavior. For many reasons. Partly because they lack intelligence. Partly because they simply cannot stand the idea of being a wage slave. The lures of whatever crime they are attracted to is just too great. Putting them in prison just stops them from engaging in their preferred behavior for as long as they are there.
It is people like you who believe sentencing is still too short that are the reason why such a high percentage of our population is living in subhuman conditions behind bars. And you want to make the sentencing longer. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of Republicans and other enthusiastic punishers supported the death penalty for even minor crimes. That is not a civilized or just society.
It's not profitable, so they won't (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations only care about projects that have a good chance of profits in 5-10 years, which is why private spacecraft are only in LEO. Space exploration is something that might be very important 100 years later, but today it's mostly an expensive scientific project. Which is why corporations aren't interested in it, and why it has to be pioneered by governments. What this statement really means is that NASA has no intentions in a manned Mars mission.
Re:China (Score:5, Insightful)
We won't see a space elevator in our lifetime. We certainly won't see sky hooks- not on earth.
I expect to see man on Mars in my lifetime- and I believe it will be a permenant station. I don't think we will go UNTIL we can sustain a base there- a trip and back doesn't make sense.
I don't expect we will see mass migration to Mars or elsewhere in our lifetime... or my children's lifetime. My comment about "if only there were a planet" was more tongue-in-cheek.
Eventually, yes. There will be many men who live outside of earth's confines... it won't be for a long time- and most likely not with any technology for which we currently have full understanding.
Re:China (Score:5, Insightful)
You seriously, really expect private industry to actually put money into research and development that doesn't have a 3 month return in the double digits without some prompting or assistance? You expect this stuff to cost less even when taking CEO's gold-plated bathroom fixtures and private jets and stuff into account? What about all those corporate bonuses that have to be paid, and stock options that need to be exercised and all that?
Private industry can be counted on to do one thing: take research paid for by someone else, "invent" things to do with it, and make themselves LOOK cheaper because they never put the money into R&D in the first place--or if they did, they got someone else to pay them for it while somehow maintaining ownership rights over the work, or getting laws passed that the government has to just give them what we the people paid for. It didn't used to be like that, but these days a company that does a lot of startup work and groundbreaking research without an immediate product is toast.
You obviously know next to nothing about capitalism, corporate charters, or what it takes to actually put together a business. All I pointed out was a potential way to encourage existing businesses to perform tasks in space and to encourage a vibrant and thriving commercial spaceflight industry that could potentially make the ability to go into space affordable because it would be in the self-interest of those engaged in the activity to do so.
BTW, "gold plated bathroom fixtures" might be of interest to shareholders, especially if that goes against the terms of the corporate charter to "maximize profits and increase shareholder equity". CEOs can be sued for misappropriation of corporate funds, and gold-plating executive bathrooms is one easy thing to point out excesses that need to be brought into check. If you want that to stop, make corporations to be required to answer to their shareholders and empower the ordinary investor to demand a proper accounting of how corporate funds are spent. That also would end up dealing with these "excess" bonuses you are talking about... unless those bonuses really are ended up increasing shareholder dividends or equity. CEO salaries and bonuses are something that won't ever be unlimited, and perhaps at the moment is even excessive to the point of being detrimental to the success of the company itself.
One of the reasons why many companies have a three month investment window is in part due to the regulatory environment that exists in America at the moment with SEC regulations that encourage such practices. It is also something the major "institutional investors" demand... which is IMHO something short sighted and should be curtailed in some way. It is something that can be changed BTW, but it would take some hard work in terms of changing regulations and removing some of the corruption in Congress to get it to happen. There are also other ways to organize corporations that could avoid some of the problems mentioned above as well... I just won't get into them in detail. Look up "employee owned corporations" while you are at it though, along with "cooperatives". It doesn't have to be strictly Wall Street type corporations funded by just a few mega wealthy investors.
In the right legal environment, I do expect that a for profit corporation can and would make long term investments in research and development to significantly expand the scope of humanity, including making the R&D necessary for a serious expansion into the rest of the Solar System. I am suggesting that it is the current legal environment which is holding back American companies from doing nearly as much in terms of significantly going into space and is one of the reasons why America is stuck in LEO with no native capacity to send astronauts into space in the first place.