Companies Skeptical of Commercial Space Market 192
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Boeing and Lockheed Martin will happily sell rockets to carry astronauts into space, but are leery about taking a leading role in President Obama's vision for a revamped NASA that relies on commercial companies to provide taxi transportation to the ISS. 'I don't think there is a business case for us,' says Lockheed Martin's John Karas about space taxis. Both Boeing and Lockheed were stung during the last burst of optimism for the commercial space business about a decade ago. They invested several billion dollars — Lockheed to develop its Atlas V, Boeing for the Delta IV — in the hopes that the huge market for commercial satellites would supplement their traditional business of launching American military spy satellites. The market did not materialize, and what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper. The hoped-for commercial market for space taxis hinges on one small company, Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing inflatable space habitats that it hopes to market as research facilities to companies and foreign nations looking to establish a space program."
riiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a second. They're saying there's no market and then they're saying cheaper competitors are snapping up all the business? Fellas, I think the invisible hand of the market is flipping you off.
Re:riiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Is sort of what I got from it, too.
I suspect that "there isn't a business case" really means "we liked it better when we had a guaranteed customer who would pay us whatever we and our one main competitor decided was the going rate for a launch vehicle. Please don't make us actually innovate and compete."
Re:riiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, as a side benefit, in space recycling is mandatory. On Earth we may never put the resources to fully recycle, because there is no free market business case for it. It's always cheaper to litter your environment full of trash and forget about it than have to take care of it right now. Being in space would force us to immediately come up with full recycling techs, and improve them to the point where recycling almost make business sense down on Earth. Who's gonna put the resources into it down here?
The only way space can make business sense is how Formula 1 makes business sense - as a show. But space is boring. It has to be boring to be professional. Formula 1 is boring to a lot of people. But it does get quite a bit of audience, to the point where it's profitable. Unfortunately the cost of a space show dwarfs the cost of Formula 1 in comparison. It's just simply too expensive to make business sense. Like the military, if it had to be free market supported, how much would you personally donate each month from your salary to support our troops? Or what would you pay for? The labor day air show?
Re:riiiight (Score:4, Informative)
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Reliable ? You cannot seriously be referring to the Soviet space program [wikipedia.org].
Well, it was reliable in that they hardly ever failed to have huge accidents. Nor did they ever fail to deny this with propaganda. It helps if your launch site does not have any reporter within a 1000 km radius if you want to coverup fuckups.
I know this is very anti-postmodern but just because you don't see or don't know about something, doesn't mean it's not real. You'd think the fact that rain makes you wet at night would stop this s
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Re:riiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Soyuz - which is the current Soviet manned space booster - hasn't had a fatal accident now in decades. It's old but very reliable. My guess is the big US aerospace firms can't really compete with it, at least not without sinking many billions into development costs and potentially having their own string of catastrophic failures to learn from (the way the Soviets did). They're probably also worried about demand for manned boosters going forward, and possible competition from the Russians, Europeans and - eventually - Chinese. Even if the US aerospace firms were successful in developing a manned booster, it might be difficult for them to ever recoup their development costs due to competition alone. They may feel there are better ways to spend their money, probably on defense-related programs where the margins are much higher and the competition less intense.
I know this is very anti-postmodern, but just because you don't see or don't know about something, doesn't mean it's not real.
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The military asked Boeing and Lockheed to develop a new launch vehicle to replace the shuttle and TitanIV.
The told them that they could recover some of the cost by launching civilian sats. At the time there where export limitations on what you could launch from Russia.
Those restrictions have bee lifted and now they must compete with Russia and the ESA.
The debate as to who is more subsidized between Launch Alliance, Russia, and the ESA is one I sure don't want to get into but right now the US companies are n
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So, when an American aerospace company realizes they can't compete with imports, they refuse to enter that market segment.
When an American automotive company realizes they can't compete with imports, they double down, then get bailed out by the govt.
I'm confused why the different reactions. Just random chance that it falls out this way?
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GM should have been allowed to die.
The money would have been put to better use doing any number of things including funding new automakers or not spending it at all. Their ex-employees seem to be capable at building Hondas so clearly management was the issue.
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Re:riiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
want NASA to foot the bill (Score:5, Informative)
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WTF. We were blasting people into space on the Atlas 50 years ago. I know the Atlas V is a different vehicle, but hell, the Atlas was a modified ICBM. How much does it cost to redesign the payload platform on the DIVH or Atlas V?
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Re:want NASA to foot the bill (Score:4, Insightful)
This makes sense, though, from a business perspective. NASA isn't exactly a "reliable" customer, so if they want a new capability and won't guarantee future use of it, why shouldn't NASA be the one to pay for it?
Tell you what... Go to a car dealer, tell them you want a custom model built to your exact specifications from scratch and that you won't pay a dime until it's delivered. Tell me how far you get with that...
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Except when the guy in the next state is already doing it cheap, why not buy from him?
Why not save the taxpayers dollars and buy from the Russians or ESA?
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Re:want NASA to foot the bill (Score:4, Interesting)
They also said that if you want to build a heavy lift Atlas or Delta to manned spaceflight spec it would cost between $1B and $2B. And they want NASA to pay all the cost, up front.
So they actually *know* that it will cost more like $10B, and will be able to squeeze the rest out of NASA as "cost overruns" on the initial contract bid.
Who's calling Tony Soprano a gangster?
"How much dat cost?"
"How much ya got?"
This is one of the "fine arts" or "black magic" of bidding on government tenders . . . finding out how much they really have to spend. Not just what they claim in public testimony.
Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin understand and know how to make money in this business.
They are not sure yet how they will make money in the commercial market. But if they figure it out, they will be back in it . . . real soon!
Re:want NASA to foot the bill (Score:4, Insightful)
Since the proposed FY2011 NASA budget has about $6B allocated for helping fund the development of these new vehicles.... it sounds like they're going to get exactly what they're asking for. I'm not sure I see what the problem is.
They just have to compete for the money like everyone else (their experience should help there,) and they'll need to be more careful with their budget, since the whole idea is to eliminate the cost-plus contracts that allows them to lowball their estimate and ask for more money later.
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Since the proposed FY2011 NASA budget has about $6B allocated for helping fund the development of these new vehicles.... it sounds like they're going to get exactly what they're asking for. I'm not sure I see what the problem is.
I believe it may be tied to a new way of going about procurement that I heard NASA was planning, though I'm not sure if that's actually part of the new budget but if it was it would explain their concern. Basically, NASA would be only paying for results, like you provide a working
What, the giant government contractor... (Score:5, Insightful)
What, the giant government contractor doesn't want to compete? What a surprise. I guess without making things overly expensive, budget overruns and miles of red tape they just can't get enough money from the public trough.
I see this as a complete vindication of this plan. IMHO, Lockheed Martin and companies like them are some of the worst crooks our government (and by extension, all of us) does business with. There's no crook like the one that does it legally.
fish tanks (Score:3, Funny)
10 years + $20B and someone else gets elected (Score:5, Insightful)
Cash up front is the only way to get corporations to commit to this. The government is too likely to pull a "that costs to much" about turn and leave the company holding the debt.
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I don't see private companies betting big on long term government contracts. The commitment is just to large and the sleazy government turnarounds just to likely.
Imagine being a company and investing $20B and 10 years of real effort into something expecting a big payout of years of ferrying astronauts into space. Then someone else gets elected and NASA changes it plans. Kiss your $20B good bye.
See Northrop F20/F5G. It even had a politically correct name.
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Much of the F-20's development was carried out as part of a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) project called "FX", which intended to sell less-advanced fighter designs to U.S. allies to limit the possibility of front-line U.S. technology falling into Soviet hands. FX developed out of a general re-working of U.S. military export policy started under the Carter administration in 1977. Although Northrop had high hopes for the F-20 in the international market, changes in policy following Ronald Reagan's election left the F-20 competing for sales with front line fighters like the F-16. The development program was eventually abandoned in 1986 after three prototypes had been built and a fourth partially completed.[1]
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(congressional hearing!!)
Thomas V. Jones, Northrop's CEO, stated that there was little point in having companies develop aircraft on their own if they were utterly reliant on the government to sell them. He suggested that the entire FX concept be dropped, and Northrop be allowed to sell the F-20 on the market like any other vendor.[41]
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Then the government might as well do it all in house so that no profit has to be made and given to shareholders. No point in wasting tax money to make some investor rich.
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Then the government might as well do it all in house so that no profit has to be made and given to shareholders. No point in wasting tax money to make some investor rich.
Have you ever seen how the government works "in house" on projects? I've seen the DOE flush tens of millions down the drain that a private company would've spent *much* more efficiently. No, the government is best to let a commercial venture handle things, just not cost plus.
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Medicare has very low overheads, with the right folks other government offices could do as well.
I honestly would prefer a private business doing this, but with cost plus contracts the government might as well do it in house.
What's wrong with cost plus? (Score:2)
Re:What's wrong with cost plus? (Score:4, Informative)
The alternative is the producer puts in a quote and is stuck with it. If they fail to produce for that, then you get your money back.
I do not pay the costs of USPs truck breaking down when they deliver a package to me. They lose money on that delivery and make it up on the aggregate.
If you make a bid and it is too little, too fucking bad. Cost plus allows these companies to bid far lower than they know it will cost to produce these things and then jack the price up later.
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I'm sure that these companies would be happy to put in a firm bid. The problem is that doesn't make sense for this kind of project. For one thing, the project goals are not firm, and they will change during the course of the project. Another problem is the companies will take engineering uncertainties into account when they put in their bid to shield themselves from risk. That means the government will end up paying more.
Keep in mind the government is also stuck with a firm contract, that means they wil
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Then it sounds like job #1 needs to be growing a market with more competitors. Clearly there is a lack of competition to drive cost down.
I agree project goals should be firm, and that costs will go up somewhat. This prevents one company from lowballing to get contracts then using the cost plus arrangement to raise the final price. This way they can cheat other competitors.
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Yes medicare...The program that outsource everything except the very top functions to private companies. Private hospitals, private billing, private fraud investigation, private doctors, private pharmaceutical companies and basically private everything of any real consequence. You know, exactly what NASA is doing? So what was your point again?
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That they make it work without cost plus contracts?
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Only if it cannot buy services like the rest of us.
I am not required to pay the garbage collector a fee for designing a new truck, ups does not ask me to pay for design of packages. NASA should buy services, this would be a delivery service. Lockheed just wants to keep running their cost plus scams.
This should be like UPS. The service provider takes the package to the ISS for $X, their bid. If they cannot, give the money back and we can find someone else to do it.
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I never suggested profit was evil, merely that is is waste. Which is why commodity items have such little profit on them, they must compete on price and cannot have much waste.
Taxes are not confiscation, they are the price for society. If this price is too high seek another society that is cheaper to purchase. Somalia should be quite nice in that respect.
I never changed the subject I merely clarified my point.
Fixed fee contracts may indeed receive higher quotes, but they prevent the 1B rocket turning into a
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You can leave rather than pay taxes, you actively choose to pay them by staying.
Somalia is not capitalism gone bad, it is a libertarian paradise. No government interference, thriving sea based industry including a stock market for it, a wonderland only possible without taxation.
And again, I am using expansion to provide more clarity.
In the case of no bids for a fixed fee contract, then another method should be used. Including reducing the scope of projects.
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which intended to sell less-advanced fighter designs to U.S. allies to limit the possibility of front-line U.S. technology falling into Soviet hands
It wasn't necessarily less advanced, it was just slightly lower performance and not quite as export controlled.
It turns out to cost almost as much money to develop and manufacture a new 90% cutting edge fighter as a 100% cutting edge fighter.
Once folks were allowed to select from either, at about the same cost, the F-5 went bye bye.
The whole situation was just a reaction to the Iranian Shah's airforce, which had some pretty nice (for the time) aircraft.
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Why did they not just make an F-16-Light.
Give it crappier engines, make the mounting non-compatible, different computers, etc. Seems like that would have been way cheaper.
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Neither? [newsweek.com]
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Actaully, I think the best way to get companies to commit is not cash up front, but pre-buying the first X flights.. as in, were going to pay you $100 Million per launch. Here is money up front for our first 10 launches: $1Billion. our first flight starts in 4 years, and then every 6 months afterwards. Every missed flight, you owe us back the money, or a credit on the next launch (can only add a credit once, and you have to pay us interest on that credit)
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that's twice as much per launch than what they can pay the soviets.
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Um, no. Typically contracts of this nature are 'pay as you go' and the government is responsibl
Thanks America! (Score:3, Funny)
A big thank you to America (and yes, Russia too) for getting us started on this whole space thingamajig. I think Europe and Asia can take over now. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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ROFL (Score:2)
They might need some business classes......
Man up, pussies! (Score:2)
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DirectTV seems to make money in space.
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Yup, there's some market for satellites, but satellite TV seems to be slowly giving way to cable and Internet (often the same physical network). Satellite phones? The number you need is huge because the orbit needs to be very low to keep latency manageable. The same problem exists with any bidirectional system. It's generally cheaper to use terrestrial signals or aerosats. Mapping? Not a huge market, and one largely covered by ex-Soviet spy satellites. Navigation? Not much call for commercial naviga
There Is Another... (Score:2)
Mars (Score:2, Insightful)
Still not sure what the business case for space is (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I can see there are a very few actual uses for space:
1. Satellite communications
2. Military
3. Tourism
4. SCIENCE! (let's count the number of planets around stars that we will never be able to get to because of relativity! like angels and pinheads except we can fit curves to it)
and of those four, military and SCIENCE! are basically big money pits which achieve nothing but international prestige (and ICBMs actively endanger all life on earth), tourism is a brief entertainment for the idle rich, and satellite data communications is the only thing which actually contributes to the health and wellbeing of Earth. So yay one out of four, I guess.
Haven't we basically 'done the space thing' by now? Moonbases didn't work out, we're practically speaking not going to colonise Mars let alone Jupiter because of the radiation problems, so... ... why DO we need manned lifters? There's nothing out there to send people to, and even if we send people to nowhere there still won't be anything for them to send back.
What's the big point of the Space Future, again? If we had warp drive or canals on Mars it would be different, but in our universe....?
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What's the big point of the Space Future, again? If we had warp drive or canals on Mars it would be different, but in our universe....?
Um. To ensure the continued survival of the human race by ensuring we have a fallback for when Mother Earth become unsuitable for life/eaten by the sun/hit be a meteorite/Mormon
Of course, if you aren't interested in the future of the human race, I'd love to understand the basis of your morality, while I murder your children.
mod DOWN! (Score:5, Informative)
From a quick google search on NASA inventions:
Ten NASA inventions you use every day [howstuffworks.com]
Top 15 NASA inventions [telegraph.co.uk]
Polimide Foam [nasa.gov]
NASA Inventions benefiting our daily lives [about.com]
Highlights from those links include kidney dialysis, CAT scans, various types of insulation, efficient water purification tech, cordless tools, modern designs of microchips, satellite tech (you know, it deleives a great deal of your communications....), scratch resistant lenses... And there's a *lot* more, a great deal of modern tech comes from NASA is one way or another.
Even if you have a problem with exploration and a search for knowledge and understanding of the universe, you have to admit the space program and its SCIENCE have yielded *massive* results on earth in technology. I'm also pretty sure there were luddites like you when the first ships were being built, the first submarines, the first plans, hell, the first time someone said "I'm going to wander 50 miles that way and see what's there".
Re:Still not sure what the business case for space (Score:4, Insightful)
"As far as I can see ..."
Well you apparently can't see well.
There is also:
- Power generation, solar beamed to earth via microwave
- Power generation using He-3 for fusion mined from the moon though this is pretty speculative
- Asteroid mining when the earth eventually runs out of minable mineral deposits which is eventually will unless we become a lot better at recycling.
- Zero G manufacturing [panix.com] (protein crystals is the best proved though there are other possibilities)
- Satellites are used for a lot more than communication including GPS, weather forecasting, climate monitoring, ozone layer monitoring, earth resource monitoring and location.
- Colonization especially if we manage to crash the earth one way or another, If we dont contain population growth this is a near certainty,
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This is just magical-religious sci fi space adventure cultism. It will never happen. You will never get more than a trivial number of people "off this rock," and even then only at tremendous and unjustifiable expense.
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What happened to SpaceX (Score:5, Interesting)
I read that article this morning and was baffled to hear SpaceX mentioned nowhere in it, considering they have a Progress/ATV-type unmanned cargo vessel on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral and plans to build a man-rated capsule in the next 2-3 years. Have they imploded recently or something?
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Yes, they do know something the startups don't - how difficult it actually is.
Brett
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The russkies are doing it pretty cheap. Buy from them if we have too. No point in paying to develop it and to buy it. In that case you may as well do it all in house and not have the shareholders get their rake.
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The russkies are doing it pretty cheap.
That's because they are getting hefty subsidies.
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Sounds like we should be letting them bleed themselves dry. If they want to give us a massive discount, no skin off our noses.
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To some extent this is true - SpaceX has spent about 2x what they thought they would to a given point in their development program, though they're still liquid and moving forwards at good pace. A number of startups have spent tens of millions of dollars and not flown.
However - Two startup companies and an independent team combined spent 1/10 of the cost of the DOD / NASA DC-X / DC-XA program to fly in the X-Prize Lunar Lander cup competition, which was a comparable technical challenge and vehicle performan
Re:How to tell (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd think that after having this consistently happen over and over and over again, maybe they'd revise the way they perform cost estimates? Y'know, so as not to be surprised by these things. It's like making the same mistake time after time and never learning. When an individual repeatedly does this, don't they call it a learning disability?
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Only if the person expects the same results. If he/she doesn't, they call it insanity.
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If you were thoughtful, instead of a talking-point parrotting teabagger, you'd be happy that the government is getting out of the space business and telling the business businesses to figure it out.
Because we're tired of coming up with all this cool space shit just so they can adapt it to their launch systems and still lose money launching our satellites under cost-plus contracts.
Or maybe the point is that business no longer knows how to stay in business, and new businesses need to come along and take it fr
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:4, Interesting)
Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak? It's interesting to see during my lifetime that people are showing their dissatisfaction with an ever-growing federal government. It's gratifying to see they are doing this in a "bottom-up" fashion instead of a "top-down" organization, as so many of those are just front groups for various monied interests. It's particularly nice that the majority of its members are more concerned about reform and have little or no concern about party affiliation, since I've always viewed the two-party duopoly as the biggest single part of the problem. Well, that and the massive rate of incumbency.
I can understand disagreeing with their politics. I can understand being opposed to their methods and goals. What I can't understand is the look-down-your-nose disdain that you and many others have shown. If they were an entrenched "establishment" type of political party like the Democrats and Republicans, would that impress you? Would you then feel a desire to back up your demeaning tone with substantive disagreement? Much of this, when I see it, looks like "I have decided I don't like them, and I'll get around to coming up with reasons for it later" rather than having a good reason before deciding not to like them. It looks that way and I'm wondering if it really is that way. I don't know the answer to that, but I would like to.
The way I see it, the federal government is far out of control. We have ACTA and other bad laws that we the people have absolutely no control over, in which we have no voice at all. Every new federal agency becomes a permanent fixture, never to be disbanded. Every entitlement and social program will never be repealed no matter how bankrupt. No law is too intrusive, nor any justification too flimsy. This is not remotely what our government was intended to be, not even close. If a new movement wants to oppose this, why wouldn't I welcome the sight? Should I quibble over my personal feelings towards them in the face of this?
Ever watch old kung-fu movies? I find it fascinating the way mortal enemies still have a genuine respect for one another. Each sees that his opponent is skillful and formidable and honors this. There is none of this catty, petty personal hatred, disdain and "degrade or insult at every opportunity" mentality. Some armed conflicts in real life have been this way; I believe WWI was the last. There used to be the notion that if you lose your honor by engaging in those low-road practices, then the conflict has cost you quite a bit more than even the casualties sustained. What's happened to us?
I should add I am not a member of the Tea Party movement. I have not been to their events or participated in their campaigns. It's just that one thing is consistent whether it's politics or philosophy or even IT: anytime someone acts like a raw nerve has been struck and wants to denigrate what he disagrees with for no apparent reason, that raw nerve deserved to be struck. Watching this only lends credibility to the side that does not do it.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
It's the size (Score:2, Interesting)
The larger governments get, the more inefficient and corrupt they get. It just happens. I just looked, Finland population = 5.4 million. US=300 million. Finland has a 200 member parliament, the US has 435 Reps and 100 senators (2 per state). the average citizen in the US is FAR from power, just do the math. See a problem yet with working coherently? The US government is huge already, millions of employees, and they are already so far in debt that even if we went to a 100% tax rate it would take years to bre
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The European Union has a population larger than the United States and yet it manages just fine.
Which more or less is in agreement with what the Tea Partiers are saying... you don't need such a large Federal government. The EU model does seem to work, with obvious problems (Greece, ahem), but it works on balance. But the EU model is to have VERY strong state governments with an extremely loose central government. So loose that some would argue that it isn't even a real government.
So don't be too hard on the Tea Partiers... ask yourself how you'd like your healthcare to be run from Brussels. The party
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The Tea Party Movement is nearly 100% about a return to the States that which the Federal government has hijacked unconstitutionally over the past 80 years.
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Even though there is no public option the issue with this "universal" health-care plan, the government will force insurance companies to take up 30 some-odd-million people they can't really afford to take up, most likely putting a lot of
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
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Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:5, Insightful)
They're modern hippies... purely an opposition party with no realistic plan of their own, hoping to fix everything simply by tearing down solutions that have been developed (with good reason) over hundreds of years. It's a style of wishful thinking where flawed solutions to problems (such as social programs) are conveniently seen as the source of the problems themselves, giving the false impression of easy solutions.
The end of the Tea Party is when/if they actually get somebody elected and have to start making hard, divisive decisions.
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever watch old kung-fu movies? I find it fascinating the way mortal enemies still have a genuine respect for one another. Each sees that his opponent is skillful and formidable and honors this.
I find it really, really hard to respect the movement when I see town hall meetings stuffed full of elderly people on Medicare screaming about how they'd rather die than have the government provide their healthcare. When the representatives who are actually on their side of the issue end up having to try to correct the audience's misbegotten notions, and fail. Does that count as a good reason not to like them, that their arguments are so bad that even their allies that have a clue end up basically arguing against them?
I'm not saying it's right. Certainly they deserve basic human dignity and I don't wish any ill on anyone. But respect is just hard for me to come by, I'm sorry. The kung-fu fighters respect each other because they see true skill. Deep and enduring respect for a mule's hard-headedness just doesn't fit that mold to me.
Some armed conflicts in real life have been this way; I believe WWI was the last. There used to be the notion that if you lose your honor by engaging in those low-road practices, then the conflict has cost you quite a bit more than even the casualties sustained.
Yeah, that's because they discovered that razor wire, artillery, and machine guns were more effective at stopping the enemy than disrespect. Assuming of course you don't think it's disrespectful to bomb the enemy's trenches with mustard gas. The only time "honor" like you're describing was important in warfare was when a Lord's honor was literally more important than the lives of the conscripts they sacrificed, but then again so was the Lord's trousers.
Oh and on a more comparable level, the propaganda from back then was ridiculously insulting [wordpress.com] to the enemy. This idea of mutual respect is one I think mostly exists in nostalgia-land.
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with that. It is just Lockheed belly-aching that they do not want to give up their sweet cost plus deals. The solution to this is to buy this service from Spac-X or another competitor.
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If they ever make a car I could afford.(personal rule: can't afford car unless you can pay for it in cash) I will get one.
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Thanks for doing that.
I understand why they are doing it, and think it is the right thing to do. I just am not willing to go into debt for any car and this is a car I could not afford with out debt.
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:5, Informative)
From experience in the Navy, I can verify the fiscal thing. Each quarter, we would "purchase" things out of our own storerooms, so that the books balanced within a couple of dollars. Across the board, we did this. The galley (or kitchen, for you landlubbers), office supplies, paint, you name it. The money had to be spent, or lost. At the end of the fiscal year, same thing. Spend right down to the very last dollar, never turn money in, or the next year your budget would shrink.
Damn shame that things work that way. It's an incentive to waste.
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There is an easy solution to the problem of government budgets. Amongst male administrators of any sort, public or private, budget size is a surrogate for penis length, while staff size is a surrogate for penis girth. Obviously most male administrators suffer from feelings of inadequacy and constantly wish to increase the size and girth of their penis-surrogate. At this point, the solution should be obvious to all: hire only men with monster horse-cocks. They understand full well how painful it is for us t
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Space-X does not view this launch as critical. This is just another step, on the way to COTS space launch.
You realize that all rocket development has had these issues right?
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You've posted nearly the exact same comment on every space-related /. story for the last several months. Do you have anything at all to contribute to the debate, or are you here solely to throw insults around?
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Here on slashdot I am in a small minority that t
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Maybe he is defending his job?
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for all intensive purposes
"Intents and Purposes" you ignoramus.