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Science

NASA proposes keeping commercial income 64

Posted by Hemos from the cut-our-budget-we'll-keep-the-money dept.
SEWilco writes " NASA suggests keeping extra income from commercial projects. Present laws require that money from commercial projects, such as a satellite launch from the Shuttle, go to the U.S. government rather than allowing NASA to use the money. ". On a tangential note, the Italian government changed their laws regarding income from historical sites, allowing them to keep their profits, rather then just funnel it to the gov't, and it's worked great. I see no reason why NASA wouldn't benefit as well-especially considering their budget cuts.
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NASA proposes keeping commercial income More

NASA proposes keeping commercial income

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  • Re:Good (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    You're neglecting other factors. Gridlock means the reps can get more money for more roads. With trains, they can't do that. Each train can carry too much, too efficiently, too quickly.

    (Well, quickly, if they used better engines and better track.)

    It's in the interests of both car manufacturers and politicians to ensure that traffic jams and gridlock persist or worsen. Quality train and bus services would provide too much mobility, so reducing demand for expenditure on the road system.

    The same, I think, might apply to the space industry. Efficiency is "counter-productive", as it would reduce the benefits currently enjoyed by politicians and industry. The more inefficient something is, the greater the potential profit margins.

    As far as most politicians are concerned, though, the space industry has done everything it needs to - providing telephone and pager links around the globe. It no longer serves any purpose, as far as politics is concerned, as there's nobody to compete against, and no votes are at stake.

  • I like the idea, this not only needs to be applied to NASA but applied to other areas as well such as the National Parks system. Whenever the national parks get a larger amount of people visiting, that money gets funnelled into the gov't and they decrease their funding by approximately the same amount nullifying any profits they make. Can you imagine how clean and protected national parks and historical sites would be if they were all privitized? If such a thing was implemented in even larger pieces of land such as Brazil, you'd open up tons of jobs for Brazillians and at the same time give them pride in the rainforest and such and their duty to protect it. The same goes for all the national parks in the US, I believe the park rangers would take a good deal better care of things if they knew people's abuse was cutting into their profits. Yosemite in california is getting beaten to a pulp by people, REOPEN Hetch-Hetchy!!
  • The reason this is all coming about is that commercial rocket companies, such as The Rotory Rocket Company [rotaryrocket.com] successfully lobbied to have an amendment to the Federal Commercial Space Act, as mentioned in this Forbes article [forbes.com], which removed the restriction that only NASA could land space vehicles on US territory. So now NASA, big bloated behemoth that it is, is running scared. Not that it's doing anything to reduce the price of putting payloads in space to compete, but I would say it has an unfair advantage, given it's resources (your tax dollars at work!).

  • Absolutely NOT! (Score:3)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Monday August 02, 1999 @10:09AM (#1769919) Journal
    NASA is SUPPOSED to be doing R&D, and releasing it to the public, so PRIVATE companies can use it to design their OWN spaceships, just as they do for ariplane improvements.

    They have already put a major crimp on the private space program, by pressuring their suppliers with threats that if they provide stuff to the private COs, NASA will find new suppliers. (Just TRY to get a guidance system component, for instance, even if you are squeaky clean and have a couple senators in your back pocket.)

    Letting them self-fund would give them even more incentive to suppress the people they're SUPPOSED to be helping, by setting them up as a direct competitor, and making their funding dependent on out-competing any independent private company.

    Better would be to require them to STOP doing space shots themselves, but fund them to BUY their launches from private companies. That would turn things around, big time.
  • Every idea either has some value, or it doesn't. If it has value, it can be exploited for cash.

    So the question then is if all this research is ultimately worth cash on the barrelhead... who's raking it in?

    NASA does, in fact, bennefit from their own work. But its indirect.

    Goverment employed engineers (as opposed to engineers working under contract from, for example, Boeing or Lockheed/Martin) can keep commercial rights to their inventions. NASA will even help them patent it. Granted, NASA gets free use of the design. But if there is commercial exploitation to be made on it - the engineer can get a piece of it.

    So why does NASA "give away" innovation?

    It's a perk. NASA doesn't pay top dollar salaries. Sure, the retirement bennefits are great. But if you're a talented engineer, why devote your life to lower pay if you can strike out on your own and ride the success of your invention? With this perk, you can do both. Engineers profit from their work, and NASA gets to keep talented Engineers.

  • In fact, if you watched CNN during the last launch, we designed the program that showed the roll, pitch, yaw, attitude, velocity, and attitude (It was a Java applet if you were interested).

    If that was the same program as they used on landing, I wouldn't be bragging. It said they were going 800 miles per hour pointed straight up at an altitude of a few thousand feet (can't remember exactly) as the wheels hit the ground.

  • NASA has been involved with some technologies. Too bad the NASA COSMIC software repository [uga.edu] has been in limbo for years.

    "The Administration shall provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." -National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958

    (Someplace called NTTC [nttc.edu] claims to have COSMIC, but their web site only has obscure titles without descriptions or archives)

  • Once upon a time there was a man with a dream. His dream was to build rockets that would revolutionize space travel. He was convinced that he could build rockets that would be safer than any ever made, and ten times cheaper, to boot. So, he started a company to build rockets. He scrabbled around for investors. He fought, tooth and nail, to make his dream a reality. To make spaceflight cheap enough, safe enough, that you and I could go. If I recall correctly (and I might not), he called his rocket the Phoenix, and his name was Gary Hudson. He was not the only such innovator of his day, but he'll serve as an example.

    He got as far as building prototypes before NASA announced the advent of the Space Transportation System, aka the space shuttle. It would make space flight so cheap and easy that all other launchers would be obsolete, they claimed. They told the giants of aerospace to stop building rockets that wouldn't be needed. The space shuttle would take care of all our launch needs.

    Garys investors pulled out. His contracts disappeared. He learned the folly of trying to compete with the U S Gov't. They have the money, they control the industry.

    As it turned out, the space shuttle was a huge failure. Instead of costing $100 per pound to orbit, it cost $10,000 per pound. Far from being the least expensive launcher, it was the most expensive ever. Once again, the STS proved that bureaucracy and efficiency do not mix. How often do you hear someone exclaim how clever and efficient a government agency is?

    And, tragically, not the safest either. After Challenger, the shuttle was grounded, for a long, long time. The US launch industry was crippled. The Aerospace giants hurried to restart production of their more traditional launchers. The innovative start-ups had long since gone away.

    Eventually, people started to think innovatively about cheap space flight again. Gary started a new company [rotaryrocket.com]. Others, such as Mitchell Burnside Clapp [rocketplane.com] and Walt Kistler [kistleraerospace.com] did likewise. Lots of new companies [space-frontier.org] started springing up, each determined to lower the cost of space launch; to make it cheaper, or safer, or both.

    What would the world be like today if NASA hadn't crushed the entrepreneurs of yesteryear? Would one of them have succeeded? Might we have commercial launches at reasonable prices?

    And now, NASA will do it again. Would you invest in a start-up company if you knew that it's competitor was subsidized by the government, or that it's closest competitor was a large government agency with a 10+ G$ budget?

    I am not, as you see, a big believer in monopolies. Especially government monopolies. I believe that competition breeds innovation, and that people who work hard and take risks deserved the fruits of their labor.

    I'm not knocking NASA. There are certain research areas that are so fundamental that they aren't commercializable in the near term. There are some areas too speculative for investor money. I don't think it's unreasonable for the government to spend my tax dollars persuing these areas, and NASA and the NSF serve these roles. Heck, even the once-and-current ARPA does the same.

    But it is not the government's place to compete with industry! Again, how often do you hear someone exclaim how clever and efficient a government agency is?

    Another story: A man named Rand Simberg also had a dream. If he couldn't bring spaceflight to the masses, well, he could simulate it for 30 seconds at a time. He bought a jet, outfitted it for zero-g flight, and started the only company in the US devoted to selling zero-g experiences. He called it Interglobal Space Lines, Inc.

    When Ron Howard was making the film Apollo 13, Rand knew that this could be a big break. Howard wanted the film to be as realistic as possible, and planned to shoot many of the sequences in actual weightless conditions. This would be a big boost for Interglobal, since they were the only company poised to offer this service.

    But before a deal was struck, NASA offered to let Howard use their KC-135 "Vomit Comet" gratis. Think about this a minute. Why? For what justification was my tax dollars (duly allocated for research by Congress) spent to subsidize Universal Pictures? Why was Simberg, who staked his whole life out trying to provide a unique service, shafted by his own government?

    I'll tell you: because bureacracies like NASA are unthinking, inefficient and, well, bureaucratic! Far from fostering innovation, commercializing NASA will only serve to stifle it! Let NASA focus on research, on science, not on the operation of launch services.

    I wonder if man will walk on the moon in my lifetime.

  • I'm not so sure this is a good idea. There are two agencies that have tried this type of thing
    before: USPS (US postal service) and Amtrak (US passenger train service).

    I think that after this happened, innovation died. USPS worried so much about competition, they
    basically spent it trying to kill UPS and FedEx instead of innovating and eventually got out
    innovated by UPS and FedEx. Amtrak basically used the extra money to subsidize their ticket
    prices and as a result killed other passenger rail startups.

    If there is truly a self supporting way to explore space, I'm sure that some enterprising people
    will find a way to do it. If there is such a business plan, I'm pretty sure it would happen
    with or without the US government's interference.

    Big companies do basic research all the time IBM, Dow, Boeing, even (gasp) Microsoft.
    I see no reason why space exploration would stop it there was a profit-neutral way to do it.
    I suspect, however, that the lack of such a company means that nobody has figured it out yet.
    In the worst case, space exploration could be funded just like the olympics, with sponsors.
    I'm sure no sponsoring company would want their products to fail in a space launch, and it
    would pretty much be just part of their advertizing/promotional budget.

    This mean that feeding back some of the money to NASA would just be a money subsidy to
    NASA to help it sabotage other upstart space company (like USPS and Amtrak did to their
    competitors). This doesn't sound like a good idea for allocating dollars to me...
  • NASA needs to get funding from somewhere. If it recieves anymore budget cuts , it'll shrink and die a terrible death. NASA, in wanting to take commercial profits, is showing a weakness. If NASA is to survive, it needs to break away from the government and shift its goals to half commercialism-half scientific research. Prove to companies that they can make money in space and the space program will thrive. Or better yet, a new private space agency should be formed. You're right, NASA itself is unthinking, inefficient, bureaucratic. It can't get anything done (even with the technologies that are developed after a while [ex: ion engine]). To top it off, the 1 billion dollar budget cut that is going through Congress now will really hamper NASA. I wonder if Microsoft will change its name to "The Company" and be the first to mine asteroids. :P
  • Indeed... The question we need to ask ourselves is, do we as a nation, want space research and exploration, or another Post Office.

    Making the Post Office self-supporting, as we did several years ago, doesn't seem to have helped it very much. In fact, one of the big reasons for the last .01 postal increase was, and I quote the Post Office, "to provide better bulk rate mail". Seeing as the junk mail industry represents a large part of their customer base, this makes sense from a business perspective.

    I don't want to see NASA pander to commercial needs in this way... There would be little, if any room left for innovations like the Pathfinder, which would no doubt be steamrolled by business practices such as practicality, and maintaining the bottom line.

    If, like me, you are concerned about recent talk of NASA budget cuts, I suggest writing a letter to your congressman. Contact info is at www.house.gov, some of them even accept email.
  • I don't think that your scenario would come to pass quite like you describe. However, I do think that a scaled-down version of your scenario could happen. Congress might be tempted to practice something we've done in social programs in the past: reduce their funding by the same amount they make. That way, we get all of the disadvantages but not all of the advantages.

    Private space-related stocks would plummet and the companies would have trouble raising capital and getting business. Cost-effective solutions would still be ignored by NASA. And, tax dollars would still fund, on a partial basis, the whole fiasco.
  • I seem to recall that NASA used to launch commercial satellites from the shuttle, before that whole nasty Challenger-blowing-up thing back in '86. I don't think they've launched a commercial satellite since, they've been concentrating largely on scientific payloads...anyone have any more data on why this is?

    And, on a more pragmatic note, would anyone actually pay to launch a commercial satellite on the shuttle? What with the competition between Boeing, Lockheed, the ESA, the Russian Space Agency, and the Chinese to boost satellites these days, it would seem a *lot* cheaper to use one of their launch systems rather than paying NASA directly to launch two SRBs, a fuel tank, an orbiter, five to ten crew, and all the equipment necessary to keep them alive along with your satellite...you know it'll get up there in one piece, but is it worth the tradeoff?

  • "Commercial" NASA = Death of Commercial Space (Score:3)

    by J05H ( 5625 ) on Monday August 02, 1999 @09:35AM (#1769930)
    NASA does good, even great, as a research and exploration agency. NASA does horribly at operations, though. This is why they have turned over the day-to-day ops of Shuttle to USA (United Space Alliance- Boeing and Lockmart).
    At every turn, NASA's Administrator, Dan Goldin, slams commercial space startups, like Rotary [rotaryrocket.com] and Kistler [kistleraerospace.com]. He, and by extension, NASA, have a serious beef with companys other than the Big Two having any piece of the launch market, or the exploration market.
    NASA, in it's current, supposedly non-commercial guise, has killed many companys and efforts (Conestoga, almost Kistler, and Jim Davidson's "tourist to Mir" sweepstakes). If NASA became a competitor in an open market, it would wield an incredible and destructive influence, since it would still have huge contacts in other govt. agencies and the Big Two, it could effectively strangle any company that didn't fit 'the agenda'.
    This might sound slighlty paranoid, until you reflect on how much damage NASA has done to commercial space efforts, even it's own commercialization efforts with Shuttle and Station, without being an actual competitor.

    Be very afraid for the future of space exploration and utilization if NASA tries to go commercial.

    J05H
  • Latest subcommittee markup for NASA's budget can be found at:
    http://spacescience.nasa.g ov/announce/housefull2000.html [nasa.gov]

    Unfortunately, some of my potential work is on the list. Ugh.

    Science isn't profitable in and of itself. It's the application of those sciences that creates the useful products [nasa.gov] we depend [nasa.gov] on today.


    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • Yes, I would be concerned with NASA becoming overly commercialized.

    However, this seems more as an attempt to become partially commercialized. According to the article, they can only carry commercial loads as secondary, and even if they do so, they don't make money from it; it goes to the government. My first desire would be for NASA to keep any money it earns from commercial ventures. I think anything else would be just silly (but this is government). After thinking about it, I also think NASA should be allowed to carry commerical only loads. My hypothesis is that the combination of these two changes would help to subsidize real scientific payloads and increase the frequency of shuttle flights (a good thing in my mind).

    My concern for overcommercialism is more for the future. I will not dismiss most non-government attempts at space travel, but I don't think they're ready for prime time yet. When they do get to that point, though, one would hope that NASA has the sense to try to direct businesses to the new commercial ventures (maybe "pray for a miracle" is the correct phrase).

  • But Congress only has oversight on funds it authorizes. Any profits would be used as Nasa saw fit, not in the program where funding was cut from (necessarily). Congress would have to be very careful or pork projects would suffer. Keep in mind that a profit is defined as an amount greater than the cost so they couldn't cut the funding to a self-sufficient program since it was not funded externally...
  • What if the Senate all ready factored in the projected revenue from the launches into their budgets and they have made their various cuts based on that bottom line. NASA taking all the money from the comerical projects means Uncle Sam may not see some of the funds it was counting on. It looks like a zero-sum game. Just a thought.
  • You seem to forget that NASA has other methods of getting payloads into space. Not every satellite it launches rides up in the shuttle.

    NASA's experience with unmanned rockets could put be used to compete with privite companies such as Orbital.

    Also NASA does research on earth, things such as high speed transport, active boundary layer control, and advanced propulsion are all done at NASA. The profits from spinoffs of these projects could be considerable.
  • But this isn't a total commercialization that we're talking about here. This is a matter of allowing them to make use of the returns from the services they are providing. Don't tell me that you believe that Nasa doesn't already have the monopoly of the launch services used in the US. Look at what they tried to do to SeaLaunch when Boeing went to Russia for vehicles. Nope, just look at the problems Rotary is having trying to get FAA approval for untethered flight. There's already the problems you mention.
  • Given NASA's tendancy to have a higher percentage of successfull manned launches than unmanned you're paying for the fact that it *will* make it into space.
  • Almost analogous to the Phone companies: as soon as they were broken up, we saw a drop in research that had little-to-no short-term gain. In order for company in this situation to perform ANY research, the benefit must be obvious. Many gains made in the 50's in data compression and error correction weren't (very) applicable at the time. But Ma Bell funded it because they COULD. That kind of thing just isn't done any more. Research for research's sake. And you won't see private space companies doing that. We need NASA to do it. I think it would be best if NASA were to concentrate on research, and outsourcing, as you have suggested, launches from private companies. Much the way the military works. The only problem is that tax dollars would be going to R&D which, although it would benefit "mankind", would be filling the pockets of these private companies. In short, they'd be making a profit from Joe Taxpayer. Perhaps the private companies should pay NASA back by providing them with a certain number or percentage of launch-resources.
  • If NASA does go into commercial operations mode, then they should lose the gov't subsidies. Maybe we can create yet another agency to oversee all space ventures - get rid of some of the problems, and add a few to boot.
  • I'm all for space flight and exploration - I think they're neat, and I'd like to live on the moon if at all possible.

    But I am not in favor of a few favored companies getting a lion's share of tax dollars to do their space exploration on my / our / the Public's back, while other companies get panned by the governmental / industrial complex.

    Contrary to what some people have implied, NASA has always had a commericial element, because those rockets have to be built by *somebody*; question is, now that there are actual businesses (that is, those trying to do space launches for the profit involved, and not rooting through the public trough 'for the children') either doing launches or working on space travel options, why should we protect NASA funding at all?

    Several people have expressed distaste that they might be encouraged by being able to keep some of their income (rather than it going back the gubmint) to do less 'pure research' and more 'commercial stuff.' Remember that the money they get is not charity; it's money that people earn and have taken from them -- I say it *ought* to be being used practically, because if it isn't there are plenty of ways it could be. Like by me, on a new Airstream. Or, if it must be spent by the government, on chipping away at the incredible deficit.

    A starving man shouldn't buy diamonds no matter how cheap, or whatever.

    timothy

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  • Good (Score:1)

    by Kyobu ( 12511 )
    It's Nasa's equipment; they deserve to keep the profits. Another matter is how much of their resources they should be allowed to spend on nonscientific goals. I think that should be limited.

    Congress has a history of being shortsighted. They hardly give Nasa any money, because the scientific and practical returns are not immediate. Same with Amtrak: it's fairly clear that a ubiquitous rail system would alleviate traffic and pollution problems, but it costs too much money in the short term.
  • It is not United Space Agency, but United Space Alliance (Acronym is correct :) )

    USA is the Prime contractor in the Human Space Flight Program. We run the day to day operations of the Shuttle Fleet and International Space Station.

    From Launch to touchdown to launch, USA runs, maintains, and upgrades all the orbiters for use in the HSF program. USA Houston designs, plans, and executes many of the missions that NASA wants to fly, and USA Florida maintains the orbiters. Most of the crew you see in the white jump suits prepping the Astronauts for launch are USA people. In fact, if you watched CNN during the last launch, we designed the program that showed the roll, pitch, yaw, attitude, velocity, and attitude (It was a Java applet if you were interested).

    Before USA was formed (Parents of USA are Boeing and Lockheed Martin), There were numerous contracts, companies, and people working on getting the HSF to work. NASA decided to consolidate all the contracts and let one entity control them to save money. USA was born.

    (I work for USA if you cannot tell)

    RB
  • NASA also should probably triple the price it charges the US Military to launch satellites, and THEN keep the profits, since some of the money that's getting sucked out of NASA is being diverted to Military pork.

    The US military mostly launches its satellites without NASA's help. Once in a long while they used to launch on the shuttle, but they have mostly moved those payloads to Titan IV and other rockets, bought from the suppliers (at higher than commercial rates, however).


    Sorry to burst your bubble.


    Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
  • Hmm, picture the Challenger going up...but with a Micro$oft logo on the side. Brought a smile to my face.
  • USA [unitedspacealliance.com]

    (I had the link correct in the preview...)

    RB
  • You have to take the three measurements to get an accurate reading. I was watching the landing and it looked correct. Plus, it looks like the data stream from the shuttle shuts down or lagged during the landing. If you watched the launch, O'Brien mentioned the 6 second delay between the actual applet and what was happening on camera.

    The data is not real time by no means.

  • > The only problem is that tax dollars would be going to R&D which, although it would benefit "mankind", would be filling the pockets of these private companies. In short, they'd be making a profit from Joe Taxpayer. Perhaps the private companies should pay NASA back by providing them with a certain number or percentage of launch-resources.

    But Joe Taxpayer would get it back, with interest, big time. The companies "making a profit" would be competing to sell Joe Inc. their new satellite, or sell a hundred thousand Joe Joneses their new satellite-based service.

    Note that compeeting - which translates to lowering prices or offering better services.

    With a NASA launch monopoly you have to pay NASA their inflated rates, and beg for a slot. With a half-dozen launch services, they'll be competing to sell the slots.

    And NASA, and thus Joe Taxpayer, would get a ride on that deal, too. If Sam's Satellites wants to gouge NASA, then NASA can always buy their next half dozen space station payloads from Bob's Ballistics.
  • Would it not be better to privatize NASA as a non-profit research organization and remove gov't involvement? Proper financial structure in this type of organization would be very important in order to ensure continued operations.

    While many jump and say "There is no way NASA could make it on its own. It needs government involvement and therefore federal tax dollars!!!" I point to the fact that with NASA's funding being so closely tied to the whims of politicians it is already in danger of dying. Besides about the most inefficient way to fund anything is through taxes. I would suggest that NASA become a private non-profit organization and that the portion of the federal budget earmarked for NASA be returned to the tax payers. If people/corporations/etc really value the work being done by NASA they will make tax-deductible contributions to them with the extra money from the tax cut.
    Stuart Eichert
    U. of PENN student/FreeBSD hacker

  • If NASA gets commercial status, will they get slammed by federal pollution laws and
    activists? I remeber something about a report
    that rockets launching to space was horrid
    on the ozone shield.
    The goverment/military launches of course
    would not be affected for some reason.
  • Cool idea but that's assuming that NASA does have money left over after all is said and done.
  • I see alot of good coming out of NASA being somewhat self supportive.

    But on the other hand I cannot help but think they could become self supportive and later become a monopoly in space.
    I don't know if that is possible but I don't think NASA is government owned is it?
  • I think this would be an excellent idea. Nasa always seems to be trying various technologies that then get commercialized into spin-offs so I think that since they are basically eing the R&D lab of the commercial market, they should get some of the profit sharing. I also think that this would provide a little disincentive towards the ongoing pork barrel economics happening in this round (and every round) of budgets. I really dislike the cuts that have happened this season. Some of the obvious pork that has been added into budget cut to pieces in the same session are just outragous. I'd much prefer Nasa run something like DC-X and be able to use the results to commercialize the technology into something that could become an industry segment long term.
  • Yes, they are a federally funded segment of the government with strong ties to the military launch capability.

  • Here's the problem. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Although I'm all for giving NASA more money, if they get to keep money from their business ventures, it will encourage them to do more corporate work and less research for research's sake. The more sway we allow corporations to have in the government, the more the government will cater to corporations rather than individuals.

    dave.
  • Imagine what the Senate's reaction would be!

    "Goody! We can scrap =ALL= their funding now, without bothering to check if they're self-supporting yet, and spend it all on pay rises for ourselves and our voters."

    I don't believe NASA would voluntarily become a commercial space-carrier. However, they could easily be forced into that role, by Government cuts and cynical industries.

  • NASA has been one of the driving forces of the new technology age. Imagine if Microsoft or Intel had been developed with goverment grants, and then told that the profits were not theirs to keep. To say the least, Bill Gates would not be the man he is today.
    To the point, NASA has a coalition of technology companies, which are administered by United Space Agency (AKA USA), which been the core drivers and competitors. If we really want to reach the Moon again, let alone Mars, we need to built a self-sustaining enterprise, that does not have to rely political whim for their annual budgets.
    Back to Microsoft, "Oh, I am sorry Mr. Gates we don't think GUI OS's like Windows or Windows NT are both necessary, why don't you pick one for this grant period, and we reconsider the other in 3 - 5 years."
  • There are a lot of reasons why this is both a good and bad thing.

    NASA is quite deserving of funding in my opinion - it is one of the few government supported research institutions left, and its funding has been decreasing year after year, so any extra money it can gather will be beneficial.

    However, a bad side to this is that NASA may become more commercial in its aims. Projects that make more money might gain priority instead of pure research projects that cost money. The research done on the space shuttle may become more market and commercially driven instead of scientifically driven.
  • It's not to make Nasa become self-sufficient, it's to funnel profits from things it's already doing back into the agency. Things like the earth imaging it does. Why should an outside firm get the commercial revenue from that? Sure it would probably skew some of the projects and reprioritize a few but profit isn't always an evil...
  • Read the article.
    I did, and I apologise for my injudicious phrasing; but my main point remains, which is that the shuttle is a waste of money, and allowing it to compete with (for example) the ESA won't prove to be a moneyspinner. If NASA subsidise such launches, they're losing money which is contrary to the point of the exercise. If they compete without subsidising, it'll take a hell of a lot more Ariane 5 blow-ups before anyone looks at the shuttle as a viable alternative.
  • Next time I'll read the article :) It looks like NASA is concidering a significant increase in its commercial efforts. In this case congress had no method by wich it could have aproximated the amount of revenue NASA was to bringing in. Thus, they couldnt possibly have allowed for it in their budget planning. So I stand corrected, by myself. Geez.
  • Talk of NASA keeping any money they make from satellite launches is pretty moot at the moment; the shuttle is such an inefficient piece of shite that there's no way NASA can charge the full cost of the launch, and subsidise every flight.

    Forcing NASA to become profitable will effectively kill off the space shuttle. No bad thing. It'll probably also kill the space station. I'd hate to see that go, but it is horribly expensive and a waste of money (speaking as a firm advocate of manned space flight).

  • The end of the Space Age (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just want to take this opportunity to thank NASA for everything they have done for America and the human race in space. In fact, I hear from air and space mag that if everything goes right, by 2005 we will have a reuseable launch vehicle that will do almost as much as the shuttle could in 1981! At this rate, we will be able to reach the moon in 2025 and maybe mars by 2150. My great, great, great grandkids might just have the chance to fly in a hypersonic aircraft (although space flight will still be too expensive then, since NASA is still being supported by the government and since no private industry initiative can compete with Washington handouts.)

    yes, thank you, nasa. Your remarkable dedication to mediocrity and bureacracy will be remembered. Hopefully my great-grandkids will be able to fly on hongyou spacelines, or maybe we will just sell them potatos like the good serfs we are...

  • I think that NASA needs to launch Air Force One (fully loaded with the usual passengers), into the moon as a second try at getting a dust plume.

    NASA also should probably triple the price it charges the US Military to launch satellites, and THEN keep the profits, since some of the money that's getting sucked out of NASA is being diverted to Military pork.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Read the article.
    They aren't talking about cutting all NASA funding and making them cover their own costs. When John Doe Telecommunications wants to use cargo space in the shuttle, NASA wants to be able to keep the money that it gets for putting FooStar 4 in orbit. Right now, if I read the article correctly, NASA itself doesn't benefit from launching commercial payloads. However, it takes a large chunk of their budget.
  • It's an excellent idea, but it has been proposed for the wrong reason. NASA is facing one of the darkest periods since it was chartered. The republicans want to cut out NASA's budget to help balance theirs - incredibly shortsighted, but that's what they're up to.

    Why do I say they're shortsighted? NASA has basically pioneered the entire aerospace industry - fast jets, reliable and well-engineered engines, heat shielding. No, Tang doesn't count. The materials they use in the shuttle are now used for firefighters to help combat the high temperatures they deal with. There's scarcely a high-tech industry in the country that hasn't been given a boost by NASA's research.

    Cutting their budget will have a subtle, but important, impact on the united states' ability to compete in the global economy. Which is ironically the same thing Congress is trying to encourage!

    Wake up Congress! You're destroying a national heritage and possibly a competitive advantage just to save a few bucks!

    --
  • The great technologies that you mention are from 30 years ago. NASA now imports much more technology than it exports (and simply misses even more technology).

    NASA is a good example of what happens to a politically driven monopoly. They start for the right reasons and have well meaning people, but they end up spending most of their effort squashing the competition and fighting for more money.

    NASA "owns" space and has little to show to justify $13B a year. NASA is actively trying to kill Mir (the competition for space station) which runs on a miniscule amount of money.

    A new method of organizing and funding "big science/technology" is needed. A politically drive bureaucracy doesn't have the right feedback forces to stay focused and innovative.

    By the way, I used to work for NASA. I don't want to knock the people, they are there because they want to make a difference. But the endless rules and constantly changing priorities create a highly unproductive environment.

    -Dan
  • But that would move the $10bn into descretionary funding to be used on =any= Nasa items, spent in =any= congressional district, not necessarily on things that Congress wants it spent on. Projects with hometown pork barrel ties are still going to have to be funded by the appropriate congress critters in order for them to have a say in how the money is spent. The budget funding is all earmarked when given.

  • No, Tang doesn't count.

    Whatever happened to Tang? I haven't seen it for the last year or two here in North Carolina...

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