Jun 072011
U.S. funding for future promises lags by trillions
Some people often complain that I blather on about politics when I should just stick with obscure bits of aerospace. Well… how The Hell is the United States supposed to have any kind of aerospace industry, let alone colonize the universe, when we have politically driven financial disasters like this???
Unless the US FedGuv gets spending under control – cut spending by 50%, for starters – the US is very soon going to be relegated to the “has-been” section of history.
10 Responses to “Hey brother, can you spare $534,000??”
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You are 100% right. This is madness.
LOL
I wonder what Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Greason, John Carmak, Dave Masten, etc. say about news like this when they talk to Aeneas Mackenzie, Laurie Jo Hansen and Mariesa van Huyten around Niven’s fireplace, with Pournelle handing out drinks and the ghost of Daniel O. Graham shuffling the papers of the Citizen’s Advisory Council.
Cutting spending by 50% would be too big a cut all at once, but I’d like to see a structural solution where every program automatically gets 95% of it’s previous year’s allocation unless it can come up with a business case as to why it needs more and how the spending would increase tax revenues by as much or more than the additional expense.
> Cutting spending by 50% would be too big a cut all at once
I dunno. How big has the government grown one year to the next? If it can grow that much… it can shrink that much.
Just remember cutting everything by 50% means cutting back aerospace, too. As most of the aerospace industry is heavily dependent on government contracts.
I say start eliminating government employees who have no business working in government or who can’t justify the necessity of their jobs.
> Just remember cutting everything by 50% means cutting back aerospace, too
I’ve posted before that I’d happily push the button that would set off the thermite charges and melt down every last NASA facility if at the same time the US FedGuv would shrink to sustainable levels. Why? Two reasons:
1: Where has NASA sent humans since Apollo? Nowhere, that’s where. No good reason to assume they’ll do any better in the future, the way things are today.
2: Long-term, the future of humainty ain’t in government bureaucrats colonizing the universe; it’s in entepreneurs and civilian pioneers. Get the fedguv under control, and the economy would freakin’ *boom.* And with that would go private efforts. Even with the economy in the tank, there are several promising efforts. Hack back on regulations, ITAR and taxes, and the bagrillionaires won’t be the only ones able to vacation on the moon.
We really no longer need NASA. All someone has to do is show how money can be made by mining the asteroid belt or other resources in space. We just need that one eccentric billionaire who wants to mine an asteroid.
I predict when we start mining asteroids it will become cheaper than mining here on the surface of the earth.
The sooner we can get government out of aerospace, the better. Leave it up to the capitalists and then you’ll see amazing things happen. NASA had their day, but now space is the domain of the competitive and adventurers.
> NASA had their day
Their day could easily come again, if someone had the political will to make it happen. Turn NASA into the modern equivalent of the NACA: the go-to organization for basic research in aviation and space technology. Let the capitalists run their programs… and buy research from the experts. For instance, I doubt any entepreneur is going to devote hundreds of millions or billions into a risky venture that depends on unproven tech like fusion engines. Let NASA develop that, then license it to Boeing or SpaceX or whoever.