Space Travel For the 1%: Virgin Galactic's $250,000 Tickets Haunt New Mexico Town 239
The Real Dr John writes: The Guardian has an article about Virgin Galactic's proposed launch site, Spaceport America, which broke ground in southern New Mexico's high desert in 2009 with almost a quarter of a billion dollars from taxpayers, $76m of which came from the two local counties. Truth or Consequences, population 6,000 and home to the Spaceport America Visitor Center, is one of the poorest places in the state. The increased taxes, adopted across impoverished Sierra County, contributed to about $5m as of 2014. Since 2009, state school budgets have been cut and an estimated $26m in necessary repairs to the town's water system has been put on hold. There's no more money to pay for it. The average annual income of residents is just $15,000 per year, one third of residents live below the poverty line, and just 20% over the age of 25 have obtained a bachelor's degree.
reminds one of past ports (Score:2)
Hardly surprising (Score:3)
A corporation took advantage of a poor town? (Score:3)
Stop the presses, we got a hot one here.
Virgin Galactic raised taxes? (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA doesn't explain or link as to how VG caused the citizens to vote a tax increase upon themselves. If that was the deal, I would have recommended against it. Especially the part about the schools and water system.
You know, I bet that wasn't the deal. I bet that closer to the truth, is that the town, county, and state fell all over themselves offering all kinds of crazy shit. Those people gambled, and they lost.
Sort of like Virgin Galactic lost their ship, momentum, place in the space race, shit tons of cash; and so on. I believe one of their people actually died. All those townspeople lost was their self respect, and maybe some money, that their elected officials spent. I don't think VG has made any sort of profit on this town.
So to make out like the evil corporation took advantage of the ignorant little podunk town is really stretching the truth here.
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how VG caused the citizens to vote a tax increase upon themselves
Typically it works like:
1) Promise shitloads of "job creation" to get the vote.
2) Hire the few dozen/hundred manual laborers you need at the lowest wage you can possibly pay in the area, for the period of construction.
3) Bring in your own staff for any skilled jobs.
4) Lay off all of the locals once construction is done.
It happens time and again everywhere -- the town will lay down massive incentives that they'll be paying off for decades in order to get a couple years of shit jobs for a small portion of the
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I don't have the slightest clue what race makes up the majority of that area, but I too would call them "stupid and greedy".
this is not a *space* flight (Score:5, Insightful)
the flight takes you up to about 110 km, which is barely enough to see curvature of the earth.
what virgin are doing is going to make for a spectacular flight but space flight it is not.
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the flight takes you up to about 110 km, which is barely enough to see curvature of the earth.
I can see the curvature of the earth in an airplane at 10km up. Easily. There are plenty of videos of balloons going up to the 100km level and you can see space as well as a huge part of earth from there.
It's not really "space", but you can see it from there.
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detectable? yes, but just barely. pictures of "curvature" from that hight are taken with "fisheye" lens and don't represent what a human eye would see.
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Well, According to http://www.thespacereview.com/... [thespacereview.com] to only need to make it to 80K to get your astronaut wings.
That's only because somebody decided an arbitrary limit defined who was an astronaut.
It's like somebody deciding that going to the state next door makes you a world traveller. You get the label because they said so, not because you actually are a world traveller.
The concept of what space IS anyway has been cheapened by considering low Earth orbit is outer space anyway. It's not. The ISS is as close to me as the next major city. It's not even far away.
80KM isn't space. Low Earth orbit should not be spac
Yes it is space (Score:3)
The concept of what space IS anyway has been cheapened by considering low Earth orbit is outer space anyway. It's not. The ISS is as close to me as the next major city. It's not even far away.
That's like arguing that a supertanker isn't in the Atlantic ocean because I can see it from shore. It's irrelevant to the discussion of whether it is in the ocean or not. Space is defined by the general absence of matter in close proximity. On Earth it is typically presumed to be the area outside our atmosphere. On other planets the boundary will be different though just as arbitrary. Some without atmospheres will have space start at the surface. Since there isn't an obvious boundary to an atmosphere
Re:this is not a *space* flight (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there is a feet/meters confusion here. ... the 50-mile (80-kilometer) altitude used by US government agencies, including the FAA, for awarding astronaut wings." So AC meant 80km when they said 80K. I suspect (please correct me with details if I'm wrong) that you (reasonably) interpreted 80K as 80,000 feet and are saying Alan Shepard flew to 160,000 feet without it counting (by who?) as a space flight.
From the link in the AC post you're replying to, "
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I believe the original boundary for space flight was "At least one mile higher than Chuck Yeager can fly an airplane".
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the usual (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly the kind of bullshit that newspapers like The Guardian usually promote: massive government spending on so-called infrastructure. Heck, the local town residents were even willing to vote tax increases for this.
For a "spaceport", The Guardian recognizes the absurdity of it only out of their general hostility to science and engineering. But California high speed rail, sports stadiums, schools, urban renewal, and a lot of other "infrastructure projects" are just the same kind of boondoggle.
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1%? (Score:4, Informative)
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it only takes a dual engineering income
I'm shocked (and a little frightened) about how many people don't know this. And I really don't think /. has been for nerds for a while now.
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Isn't the top-1% in the US around $400K a year? If so, a $250,000 space trip is not that crazy.
$400K/year is the kind of salary that strat getting a high investment/expense ratio. Also the kind of salary that eventually buy $200,000 cars. So a once in a lifetime $250,000 expense is not necessarily out of the question.
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Branson is a bigger grifter then Fiorina ? (Score:2)
Fiorina shafts vendor to senate campaign [washingtonpost.com]
They had to be first, lest they miss the gold (Score:3)
Typical story. Some developer (as in land, not software) comes to a pudunk rural town and talks up a big plan to make something new and big and famous, and have money for new schools ("Hey that old 1950's school... wouldn't you like a nice new one? With me you can have it and more!") but he wants something from the locals, and well, it's fine if they don't want to be a part of it, he'll understand and talk to another town that is interested. And you, the developer says, the first ones to jump on this will make a fortune! Think about it!
And the locals hem and haw and debate about finally getting a shot at being something and they stretch real hard and throw in their pennies and agree to it.
Great, the developer says! We'll break ground immediately. And then something happens or it takes too long but oh well, to the developer it's merely one of many deals and he moves on. The town cannot move on. It chased a load of promises and dreams and pays dearly for it.
Branson doesn't have a great track record with successful projects. People hear about the airlines and things but not so much about the abject flops. But he's so good at promoting his brand, which is himself, nobody notices. He and Donald Trump are very similar. They both talk big and quietly bury their failures.
Can someone please explain me? (Score:2)
So what is it all about? Seriously. TFA is tl;dr
Ok, Virgin Galactic offers $250k space trips for the rich and poor people are poor. But the rest is a jumble of facts with little relationship between them. It looks like the goal is to create an emotional response by contrasting the luxury of space tourism vs the poor conditions some people live in. But what is the underlying story (or non-story)?
My guess is that some poor town invested in that spaceport in an attempt to build an economy around it (tourism, s
The taxes were supposed to be split among counties (Score:2)
Re:Proof that you don't want govt spending your mo (Score:4, Informative)
Shame too many people think the government is some sort of magic purse.
Unless you're a corporate "person" in which case it most certainly IS a magic purse.
Re:Proof that you don't want govt spending your mo (Score:4, Interesting)
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it./quote
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We should maybe aspire to something greater than a 3000 year old model?
I don't know, maybe? This is the website that caters to the "latest and greatest" crowd? The crowd that throws away computers older than 2 years and phones older than 6 months may as well be trash?
Odd how you cling to millennia-old ways of organizing society though, all the while being raped by the few people that benefit from it. And you hold their cocks and apologize for your rectum being too cold.
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Let's see... I have a 4 year old phone (it was free), a 3 year old notebook computer (it was expensive!) and a lot of other old devices. Nothing is ever thrown away - things are either sold, given away or disassembled for spare parts.
I have a number of 8, 16 and 32 bit (Acorn Archimedes) home computers. I have a 70's minicomputer (still working).
I know of people fitting your description however they would never go to slashdot. Maybe you made a mistake and thought you were posting on another site?
Re:Proof that you don't want govt spending your mo (Score:5, Insightful)
We should maybe aspire to something greater than a 3000 year old model?
Sadly, most people think the big government they keep voting for is there to help them, not to help those who buy the politicians they vote for. With enemies like the left, the 1% don't need friends.
The average person cannot be fat, stupid, oblivious, trusting of advertising (and paid studies and other obviously biased sources), saturated in meaningless tabloid bullshit, and view non-job-related thought as tedium to be avoided or offloaded ... and then expect to have a truly representative government. It's never happened before and it's not happening today.
You may be surprised at how effective 3000 year old tactics still are. Bread-and-circus has many forms and it's at least that old. Oh yeah, speaking of the Roman empire? One of the major souces of corruption involved their equivalent of defense contracts. They had their own version of the military-industrial complex.
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Bread-and-circus has many forms and it's at least that old.
Seems like this town is too poor to have either bread or a circus. Perhaps they can eat cake.
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The average person cannot be fat, stupid, oblivious, trusting of advertising (and paid studies and other obviously biased sources), saturated in meaningless tabloid bullshit, and view non-job-related thought as tedium to be avoided or offloaded
That's not the average person. The average person is permanently angry, and blames everyone else for all the problems they see. If only everyone else was just like them, eyes open, took the red pill etc. everything would be so much better.
Many of them watch Fox News, but there are equivalents for all predispositions. They all give you the same thing though - hatred of all the other sheeple ruining your life, and the feeling that you are powerless against the hoards of mindless idiots who watch the other cha
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False. I present you with the State of New Jersey: Chris Christie, Governor.
The rich are going to get theirs (Score:2)
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lol, modern mega corps own strong central governments everywhere... except China, etc where their strong central government owns their mega corps
why? because the part-time rulers, aka 'the people', thought having politicians in for 4 years and paying them a pittance could work (i.e. you give them vast power, nothing to lose, and no incentive... then wonder why they don't serve you)
So, in a modern corporate board room:
[Motivational Speaker] Usually, you guys own the central government. But, in Communist China, central government owns YOU!
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Re:Proof that you don't want govt spending your mo (Score:4, Interesting)
We should maybe aspire to something greater than a 3000 year old model?
Sadly, most people think the big government they keep voting for is there to help them, not to help those who buy the politicians they vote for. With enemies like the left, the 1% don't need friends.
It's not Left or Right. It's money or no money. The Left/Right paradigm is used to distract from class warfare being waged by the .1%.
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Woah, dude. Go look up liturgies (leitourgiai), including trierarchies and the choregoi. In ancient Athens the rich were socially compelled to spend their own fortunes on defending the state, performing rituals, and entertaining the poor. Imagine Soros and the Koch brothers and all the wealthy of either party building and equipping their own aircraft carriers at their own expense as a public benefit. Imagine the same people sponsoring ad-free television channels to keep people entertained as a public be
Re:Proof that you don't want govt spending your mo (Score:5, Funny)
" In ancient Athens the rich were socially compelled to spend their own fortunes on defending the state, performing rituals, and entertaining the poor. Imagine Soros and the Koch brothers and all the wealthy of either party building and equipping their own aircraft carriers at their own expense as a public benefit."
But the Koch brothers _do_ spend millions on entertaining the poor with funny actors, it's called the Republican Primaries.
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" In ancient Athens the rich were socially compelled to spend their own fortunes on defending the state, performing rituals, and entertaining the poor. Imagine Soros and the Koch brothers and all the wealthy of either party building and equipping their own aircraft carriers at their own expense as a public benefit."
But the Koch brothers _do_ spend millions on entertaining the poor with funny actors, it's called the Republican Primaries.
Relatively recently, something like this was done in the USA. During the War Between the States (and prior conflicts), much of the artillery used by the military was privately owned. Of course, these were things like cannons and grapeshot, not things like aircraft carriers.
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Re:Blaming KKKorporations (Score:5, Insightful)
The beneficiaries of government is everyone... the problem is when it benefits some far more than it benefits others.
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Cute.
And true. Or are you challenging the assertion that corporations are in complete control and gorging themselves at the public trough?
Nice try switching the conversation to "corporations", but the truth is, most Americans [forbes.com] now receive government benefits of some kind.
Sorry, the article you cite is 90% ideology coupled with 10% speculation. In the future you may want to avoid citing opinion pieces written by ideologues when attempting to support your positions. But nice try switching the conversation to government employees "confiscating the monies".
Re:Proof that you don't want govt spending your mo (Score:5, Insightful)
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Spending money is one thing. Giving money to corporations in return for vague promises of jobs is entirely another.
Amen. If it's really a matter of some kind of consideration, like "do this for us and we'll make this concession to you", that's precisely the sort of situation for which the concept of written contracts exists.
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The idea is that if you get one company other will follow. It can work but frankly manned spaceflight is one of those not for profit endeavors that is best left to the government.
Rocket powered ballistic joy rides are just super rollercoaster for the rich.
A Conservative Response (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Nothing mean-spirited about letting people starve, go without medical care, or having knowledge of sexuality, not to mention the actuality of birth control, withheld from them. Not a thing. Nothing mean-spirited about trying to force your religion on the entire body politic, either. Nope. Nothing mean spirited about wasting all your time in congress on a futile task while there is actual work to be done. Nothing mean spirited about trying to shut down the government, either. Nothing mean spirited about lying, then bombing the living shit out of a country that doesn't pose a threat to us (well, they had oil, so I guess it was a work of charity for your fellow conservatives, deeply invested in oil, yes?) Nothing mean spirited about denying people social security, medicare, food stamps, and so on -- that is purely a saintly act from beginning to end. Nothing mean spirited about handing "free speech" to corporations, while herding the dissenters into "free speech zones", amirite?
Psychopath? Psychopath??? Oh hell no. Conservatives are the living incarnation of angels, each and every one.
Thank the Lord of Hosts that we have conservatives to save us from ourselves.
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Can't see past step 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue is that people can't see past step one. They want to end all suffering even when that suffering is a direct response to a persons choices. Let's take hungry children. In the old days when someone got pregnant without being married they were considered irresponsible. Society gave them two choices. Either they would get married or give the child up for adoption to a married couple. We know a child will be much more successful in life if they are raised by a mother and father. This worked out because
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We know a child will be much more successful in life if they are raised by a mother and father.
No we don't "know" that because it isn't actually true. Most studies of this sort of thing badly confuse correlation with causation and fail to control for other factors. Having a mother and a father can help but the relationship between success (which you conveniently didn't define) and living in a traditional Norman Rockwell family is a weak one. What matters is having parents and guardians and family that are involved. Whether they are married or not is irrelevant.
Maybe on an individual level, in the sense that you have really bad parents, as opposed to the one single parent who is both saintly and super capable.
However, for the most part, I can't even see how you are making that argument. There is no benefit whatsoever to a single parent scenario, although there may be fewer disadvantages in specific cases if you delete an abusive parent from the mix.
There are some instances where it is unavoidable to have a single parent and I don't ever criticize the decision to
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Extreme conservatives are just as bad as extreme liberals, yes. Though members of either extreme are incapable of seeing their own evil.
The two-party system has a consequence of muffling the voices of moderates. This is by design; it keeps people screaming at each other about particulars while they continue to give power (on BOTH sides of the political spectrum) to sociopaths who use it only to benefit themselves.
Times are dark, but life goes on.
That system also muffles the voices of people who don't buy the underlying premise of that system. "Liberal" and "Conservative" are the Yin and Yang of an unstated assumption: that people ought to be led, controlled, and governed and the only question is precisely what our priorities should be when we go about it. Philosophies like (small-'l' libertarianism) which believed that people should not be led, controlled, or governed except to the degree necessary to have human rights, rule of law, and sensible
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How is "hope and change" working out for you ?
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For you ? NO
Hope that wasn't too high a reading level for you.
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Fish are very well aware they are swimming in water, just as you or I are aware that we need air.
Of course, I know what the point are trying to make is, but I disagree.
People complain about "first world problems" all the time, but despite the idea that we are in some absolute sense better off than some guy in equatorial Africa, it doesn't matter. If you feel persecuted by certain actions, the feeling of persecution is real. It doesn't help to tell me that you have it worse than I do and leave it at that.
P
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As you said, it should have been obvious to everyone a long time ago, but it wasn't and isn't because not everybody thinks like you or I do. Conservatives are at least able to understand and recognize what motivates liberal positions, even if they don't agree with them, but many liberals seem to be quite incapable of properly understanding or ascribing conservative motives for policy preferences, particularly as they relate to authority/respect or purity/sanctity. The result is often ridiculous conspiracy theories, false dichotomies, or silly accusations of "mean spiritedness" against conservatives as liberals struggle and ultimately fail to understand why somebody could possibly disagree with them without being an idiot or a psychopath.
Sure, in the same way that a small child might think the parent is "being mean" by not letting them eat candy or ice cream for dinner. This does make a lot of sense, if you accept the liberal/conservative spectrum model. Of course a spectrum is represented by a line because it is literally one-dimensional thinking.
What doesn't make sense is to accept this liberal/conservative left/right false dichotomy as though it were determined by reality. It's not. It's determined by suggestion and some very skil
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They are CELLPHONE CARRIERS. They can't talk to each other?
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They are CELLPHONE CARRIERS. They can't talk to each other?
They are businesses competing in the same market, a market that has extremely high barriers to entry. In this market they have little incentive to undercut each other or otherwise actually compete. That was the point. I wasn't commenting one way or the other about their ability to send and receive communications. Perhaps you could obtain some remedial reading comprehension tutoring?
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But then again that should have been obvious to everyone long ago. Shame too many people think the government is some sort of magic purse.
There was a TED talk [youtube.com] not long ago, given by Jonathan Haidt, highlighting his research into the liberal vs the conservative mind. The findings was quite interesting and go some way towards explaining the motivations behind liberal and conservative social policy preferences. Basically, he identifies five cross-cultral foundations of morality:
A balance of all five was found to be a necessary condition for what many people would consider to be a good society. Now here is where it gets interesting. People who characterize themselves as conservative tend to base their moral compass on a combination of all five values. Some valued more than others but all of them at least considered. However, people who characterize themselves as liberal tend to value the first three characteristics quite highly, but authority/respect and purity/sanctity little or not at all. This comports well with liberal policy preferences and social movements in recent memory which have sought to deliver results quickly, but without much interest in conserving existing social structures or regard to existing authorities. Anyone else remember "Question Authority"?
Is there a citation for "People who characterize themselves as conservative tend to base their moral compass on a combination of all five values. Some valued more than others but all of them at least considered. However, people who characterize themselves as liberal tend to value the first three characteristics quite highly, but authority/respect and purity/sanctity little or not at all"? Sorry, I can't watch the TED talk at work. But I'm wondering where this information comes from.
In my experience those
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According to the Massachusetts State Police they are a private mercenary army that isn't responsible to the people of MA..so maybe.
Considering that they derive their police powers from being part of the state, wouldn't that stance make them a criminal organization?
Re: Proof that you don't want govt spending your m (Score:4, Informative)
Musk's government money is a drop in the bucket compared to what gas, energy, military industrial, etc companies receive. In Musk's case, taxpayers are getting a good deal. The half billion loan Tesla received is already paid back with interest, and it accelerated production of the model s and created many jobs. If you look up the details of other government money his companies received, you will see it's quite reasonable.
Re:this is what the 2nd amendment is for (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone in charge of what? And what money?
It's okay to be a nutjob, but as anyone can see by reading his manifesto the Unabomber has raised the bar for this kind of talk. Gone are the days of vague threats of violence and social justice. You need content, not just posturing. Where's your content?
Questions, questions (Score:2)
His posturing is his content. It's a zen thing. You have to meta your meta into the metaverse to get it. You should probably give up now, or someone will figure out how fast you're going at the same time they know where you are, and poof, you'll disintegrate into random quantum particles.
Re:this is what the 2nd amendment is for (Score:4, Insightful)
If you kill the people in charge there is no money. No, really. There will be no money. There will be assets but the money will just be paper at that point. It's an important concept.
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Most people are too stupid to know there's a functional difference so it really won't matter at all.
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That is probably true, unfortunately. I realized that there was at least one person who didn't understand the difference so I figured I'd mention it.
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I beg to differ on this being an unfortunate thing. This effectively means that business and life can continue as per usual for the most part, at least long enough for the new leaders to have some appreciable amount of time to rebuild basic global economic links.
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Yes, it is important to keep in mind. Kill *HALF* of the people in charge and the other half will become more reasonable.
Re:this is what the 2nd amendment is for (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm opposed to violence, as a general rule, I suspect you might be right. The government should be afraid of the populace. If it is the other way around then you're doing it wrong. Currently, it is the other way around. While I am not, by any means, advocating a revolution (I think we should exhaust all other options and there should be a rising organically - even if people are too stupid) as a means to an end at this point in time, I do feel it is important to send those in power a reminder that we are ruled by consent.
Things like this (there's an interesting documentary about Space City being built that shows the impending doom for the area albeit betwixt the lines) and an earlier story about TPP being completed are just today's examples of reasons why we might want to consider being truly outraged. I'm all for private space access. I'm not a fan of you paying for my ride, however. Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure I can already pay for a ride to space if I want. It's expensive but I can pay for it and have the means to pay for it. There's no reason for you to be burdened for my amusement. With today's story about the TPP, I'm forced to think and realize that I've not yet seen a single, nary a one, bit of evidence that there's a single good thing about it for the average citizen. Not one single thing...
I am tired so I'm sure the above reads like it was written by a drunken monkey (I also have an attractive female, nearly forty years my junior, who's tiring me out but no - probably not like you may be thinking) but I hope it's still able to be parsed. It's high time they learn that we, the citizens, have the power. What's funny (sad, actually) is that there are so many people in favor of disarming the populace. I'm too tired to get into it so let it suffice to say that I simply can not comprehend the thinking process that leads otherwise rational people to reach conclusions such as those.
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I also prefer a non-violent solution. My fear is that the current 'leaders' will not understand until they are personally in danger. I would like to see a measured violence though. Next demonstration, it would be nice to see when the cops break out the tear gas if they get gassed even harder themselves. Even better if they end up tasered and zip tied to lamp posts.
Re:this is what the 2nd amendment is for (Score:4, Insightful)
What's funny (sad, actually) is that there are so many people in favor of disarming the populace. I'm too tired to get into it so let it suffice to say that I simply can not comprehend the thinking process that leads otherwise rational people to reach conclusions such as those.
It's not a thinking process. It's fear. It doesn't help that when a citizen with a legal gun stops a crime, the media says something like "the suspect was subdued until police arrived" (and only that), but when a nutjob goes apeshit and shoots random people they put every gory detail on the front page for days or weeks. If the average person is a moron it's because they don't consider the tremendous incentive the media has to manipulate what they will and won't show, the great power (unelected, unchecked) represented by the ability to do this.
The exact opposite of a thinking process reinforced by numbers of the like-minded parroting each other is where this idea comes from. They seem not to notice that mass shootings overwhelmingly tend to happen in "gun free zones".
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I understand your sentiment, but there's a difference between the government fearing its populace and the government remembering that they rule by consent.
I heard an interesting theory once: that a monarchy or similar only works as long as the ruler does not fear the populace. The idea is that if the king feels secure, he'll actually govern the country (for better or for worse), but if he feels insecure he'll spend all his time shoring up his rule through whatever means necessary. It's possible he's a lousy
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That is an interesting theory. Maybe there should be a healthy respect on both sides? I don't see that happening but we're talking hypotheticals here.
Re:Why New Mexico (Score:5, Funny)
Why build it in New Mexico?
There's a local expertise with spaceflight that goes back to 1947.
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You made me spit coffee. You should be ashamed. Or anally probed by aliens. I can't decide.
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Good weather for rockets most of the year, and huge swaths of land where very few people live, making down-range fatalities unlikely even in the event of catastrophic failure.
But the real question is: who thought a space port would be any less of a waste of public money than a sports stadium?
Re:Why New Mexico (Score:5, Insightful)
A spaceport in rural anywhere only makes sense when there are flights, and for it to be paid for by the taxes collected in an area the area needs to derive an actual benefit.
As for a town of 6000 with only 21% bachelors degrees, that is absolutely no surprise at all. A town of 6000 people probably doesn't have very many jobs that need bachelors degrees. There will be a doctor or maybe a few, there will be some nurses. There may be a dentist. There will be at least one pharmacist. If there are schools the teachers will have degrees. There will probably be a few business owners that originated in the area, left and got their education, and came back, possibly employing some in the town. If anything, 1/5 of a small town having bachelors degrees is probably rather high.
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Not only that, people move. If you do well enough to get into college and leave town (because a town of 6000 rarely has a college) you can usually make more than that part time in the college town than you could working at home. Lack of opportunity in the home town, once you finish your education, calls for immediate relocation in almost all circumstances. Its a chicken and egg - without a critical mass of jobs in the town to attract college grads, none will stay there, so the town has a low education ra
Re:Why New Mexico (Score:5, Informative)
Why not Dubai?
1) Lack of infrastructure to support the venture.
2) Volatile region; what happens when you have to ditch in the Gulf of Oman, Yemen, or Iran?
3) You can buy off local gov't, but you can't buy off the ruler of Dubai.
4) Technology embargo issues.
Why New Mexico?
1) Its in the US. Los Alamos is located in the state.
2) Its relatively close to the equator while in the US. Florida is closer, but its going to be underwater within the century; also hurricanes.
3) Desert. Tons of cheap, open, unpopulated space.
Its disgraceful that money is being pissed away on a lightly used, space center gamble, but would the money be "available" for the local budget otherwise?
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In Dubai, ruler buys off you.
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2) Its relatively close to the equator while in the US.
These are suborbital flights, so there is nothing to be gained from your latitude, you just go straight up and then straight back down.
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I love your optimism, but I doubt even Dubai would be stupid enough to provide the funds to build it....
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Dubai has squandered whatever funds they had a long time ago. It's just like Greece, except its neighbors have no problem injecting billions on an hourly basis to keep the thing from collapsing.
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"Why build it in New Mexico? Why not build it in Dubai? "
Obvious, no Crystal Meth in Dubai.
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Welcome to America, can I take your order please?
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Kind of like High Speed Rail in California.
Re:Can't make this shit up (Score:5, Informative)
If it worked as intended it would have been a good deal.
$65m in "stolen" money as you call it (taxes).
$250k tickets * say 10,000 = $2,500,000,000 into the net economy. Let's say that 15% of that is operations that's still $375m back into the economy in the form of wages. You aren't going to find a 576% investment opportunity very often.
Furthermore those people would probably want to eat somewhere while in town and maybe even visit a shop or two which would further boost the local economy.
It was a sound plan, and I'm sure virgin would very much like to be making a ton of money as well but the part that failed was the fact that they didn't have more protections for the county in the event that say.. a rocket exploded and the business plan was put on hold for 10 years.
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it would have been a sound plan IF and only IF they had a working spaceship.
it's puzzling why they would spend hundreds of millions on a spaceport before having the final ship. like, the biggest costs would be the facilities to support the ship anyways so what's the point in building those facilities before you know what ship you have to support? hotels and such they could build in months.
the whole thing is stupid though. they should just have bought some u2's and do flights with them. practically the same
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Wages, to whom? Largely to people who move to the area. Yes, they will spend some of their money in the town, so there will be a trickle down effect to the current residents. But that's what we are talking about: a trickle.
Do you really think that t
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Does it hurt when you pull such large numbers out of your ass?
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If it's a such a great opportunity there would be no need for tax money.
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Furthermore those people would probably want to eat somewhere while in town and maybe even visit a shop or two which would further boost the local economy.
That's a great theory, but the spaceport is a one hour drive from the town of Truth or Consequences. And "those people" are the extremely wealthy who have flown into the spaceport on their private jets. "Those people" aren't going to be driving for an hour to reach a town that has literally nothing to offer them.
Virtually ALL the (theoretical) revenue generated by the spaceport would never touch the
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If it worked as intended it would have been a good deal.
I'm sure that's true.
It was a sound plan, and I'm sure virgin would very much like to be making a ton of money as well but the part that failed was the fact that they didn't have more protections for the county in the event that say.. a rocket exploded and the business plan was put on hold for 10 years.
I'm not sure I'd go as far as to call it a "sound plan". I'm sure it's exactly like how in the USA teams get local municipalities to pay for new sports stadiums. They paint a rosy picture about how much money the stadium can make and while it is possible, what they downplay or don't say at all is that every game will have to sell out for that to happen. Every game doesn't sell out and the local municipality ends up paying greater costs than expected because the team shifted the f
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Well I was intrigued by the $15,000 annual average salary figure for the year, because yes, that's a shit salary in the US, but we all know these things are relative.
From what I could find in terms of statistics in Mexico on this, $15,000 is almost double the average annual income for Mexico as a whole, so they surely aren't be that poor relative to the rest of their country.
Are they poor compared to countries with some of the highest personal average incomes in the world? Yeah, sure. But if this spaceport
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Oops! I missed the New and simply read it as Mexico.
In that case yes, it obviously paints exactly the opposite picture.
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When this thing started, the governor was democrat, the senators were democrat, the secretary of state was democrat, the attorney general was democrat, and the president was democrat.
So yeah, let's blame the republicans.
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Verizon math [youtube.com]