Gore Pushes for Private Investment in Space 181
dptalia writes "Al Gore said in a recent speech that more private enterprises need to invest in space. Gore pointed to the successful growth of the internet as proof that private investment is faster than government. Not surprisingly, Gore also lambasted President Bush's space policy."
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Now if only he patented the Internet when he invented it, he could build spaceships himself now.
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Is there no one left with any reading comprehension?
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Nah. Private investment is remarkably unwilling to lose billions of dollars on things like space exploration. They will let the taxpayers spend their money until some commercial reason to go to space has been found. When it comes to high dollar investments with vague or unlikely returns, the private sector finds something else more important to spend its money on like perks for CEOs. The private sector would never have built the interstate highway system, supersonic air travel, or funded the first steps
Space is ALREADY privatized! (Score:2, Informative)
Almost all of the design and so forth are done not by NASA, but by NASA's private contractors. NASA acts as a funnel, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes into the high-tech research departments of thousan
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The real point is not to change vendors from Lockheed to Xcor. The point is to 1) change pricing models from "cost plus a percentage" to fixed pricing, and 2) encourage competition, especially smaller companies where innovation is more likely to happen.
The current pricing model for aerospace makes aerospace companies billio
Perhaps that's why there is so little activity (Score:2)
What exactly does a profit-driven private company get out of sending a probe/whatever to Jupiter/wherever to determine whether the air is purple/whatever?
For all the flaws in military/governement expenditure, it is not limited by profitability.
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One word: (Score:2)
If a private company can get up there and make the Sun actually turn a profit --by converting solar energy into microwave energy, which in turn becomes electricity once it gets down here-- Space would be hella profitable. (if oil/gas/etc extraction costs go too much higher from it's all-time records, that wouldn't be too hard to justify).
Sure, the initial outlay would be ungodly expensive, but the profits from feeding the grid with 24/7 solar power on a massive scale, plus the "we got all the ro
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
Private investors have been ponying up for space investments since the 60's - it's a myth of recent creation that such investment has only occurred with the X-prize and subsequently.
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Good logic based on two faulty assumptions:
With current technology, there are a (pitiful) few applications where space can be profitably exploited. Communications, imaging, one or two others. There is not and has not been any problem attracti
Liberal vs. Conservative (Score:1, Flamebait)
What's the world coming to? It's sad that the supposed "conservative" guy is encouraging so much government spending. Not that I trust Mr. Gore to shrink the federal government... but Mr. Bush has dissapointed me with his
Re:Liberal vs. Conservative (Score:5, Informative)
Why not? He already did more to shrink the federal government as Clintons VP than any of these lip-service Republicans since they've been in power:
source: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/whoweare/appen
Not that the mainstream "liberal" media covered this. sigh.
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Ooops. Truth bites again.
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Well, as a fiscal conservative, I happend to like having a budget surplus, smaller government, negative national debt accumulation and a reduced deficit in addition enjoying record economic growth and the the largest real and relative redistribution of wealth in recorded U.S. history. Far from perfect, but the 90s had things headed in the right direction, economically speaking.
That it all happened under the watch of a democrat should tell you all you need to know about the utility of pol
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Barry Goldwater said the same thing of himself.
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Right, this administration is best described as "fascist, expansionist, populist" and I believe in that order, but you might juggle the first two terms because the fascism is really there to support the expansionism.
I mean we've really seen it all from this administration... tell
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Don't forget, tthe 90s also had a lot of things headed in the wrong direction. I mean, yeah, when the nasdaq was floating in the 4000's, of course everyone was quick to praise whatever government was in place and whatever policies were in place at the time.
But that's just the shell of it. The 90s were full of bad and risky investments, (domestic and international) that saw massive returns because everyone was buying up stock and the prices were going
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Your definition of "complied" must be different from mine. Deficits soared during GHW Bush's term, reaching a historically unprecedented $290 billion in his last year. A record that stood until 2003, when it reached a whopping $377 billion.
Reference: Historical Budget Data [cbo.gov]
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In the old, old days of the republican party they were honest to god conservatives but they were also honest to god republicans. They were proponents of a minimal federal government and of states' rights, and they favored keeping the government's hands out of business. Today, neither Democrats nor Republicans are actually conservatives or liberals, they are both populists. Both want t
Re:Liberal vs. Conservative (Score:4, Insightful)
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Totally! I've no idea how to go about applying for a Letter of Marque. Lazy bastards.
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yes, because it's only the right that plays the race game. I mean, Ray "chocolate city" Nagin is an archetypal republican. I'm a school teacher, and racial identity politics is one of the seven sacrments of the church or the left. Or is multi-culturalism the brianchild of the right? How does John Kerry's "million disenfranchised blacks" without any evidence supporting it and even evidence to the contrary promote unity?
Ye
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Then you should also be pissed at Bush Sr., Reagan, Ford, Nixon, all the way back to Lincoln, who was as big-government as they come. You don't think that Nixon's thought police was in pursuit of a small government, do you? Or Reagan's stockpiling of nukes and making shady deals behind our backs? No, it's been perfectly clear to me what the Republican party does and does not stand for.
Now, it's fair
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Um - hello? How exactly is spending tax money "private investment"?
Democrats now the party of free enterprise? (Score:1, Flamebait)
I just never thought it would be Al Gore. Good for him.
well..... (Score:2, Redundant)
But then again, at this point in time, we can't even solve our problems on earth... and running from earth is pretty expensive last time I checked. It makes me wonder... if all the cash that the current administration has invested in the war was put towards space, where we would be right now? Its very cool that we are getting all this info about Mars, but in r
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US interests are a poison pill that would smother a 'GASA' in its crib. Not to say other countries' politics are much better.
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Cleaning up several more TW's, perhaps? You make the mistake that there is only one focus for spending at a time.
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Real Al Gore quote kiddies... (Score:2, Informative)
Al Gore
I was typing with my hands cross.. (Score:2)
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Umm... (Score:3, Funny)
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It's the tubes, man, the tubes [youtube.com].
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"We need to defend our planet against pollution. As well as dark wizards."
"That's why I'm offering a bag moon saphires to the first scientist who can solve this problem once and for all." (In reference to global warming...)
"I must go now. To help collect cans on Jupiter. Peace out, y'all!"
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Re:Real Al Gore quote kiddies... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am detecting a pattern here though... Al Gore seems to find a good idea in progress, champion it, and (at least awkwardly) take some type of credit for it... in this case he is a bit behind the X-prize foundation [xprize.org] and NASA with its COTS Program [wikipedia.org] and Centennial Challenges [nasa.gov]. (I'll leave out his recent championing of Global Warming since he has a pretty well established environmental record)
Out of context is out of context... (Score:2)
Its stupid that we still need to have this conversation.
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Then why is it in this story he give private industry credit for the internet?
Private industry may well have enhanced, added to, and populated much of the internet, but they never, ever would have created it in a million years. The government laid all the foundations and Gore should know this.
Personally I agree that private industry needs to get into the space business, but I don't think the profits are there yet to make that happen. We'll have to see what happens w
Re:Real Al Gore quote kiddies... (Score:4, Insightful)
Funding the early net? That is an oversimplification of the facts and history of his involvement. The process of privatizing and building a national information infrastructure requires all kinds of government involvement (understandably). It especially requires someone to champion the idea to other members of government.
All of the people involved with the evolution of the internet were important. Not just the Kahn and Cerf and the techies. It took a lot of people in a lot of different areas in order to evolve the way it did. It took Dennis Jennings and Steve Wolff at NSFNET (who helped NSFNET to make the decision on using TCP/IP and the infrastructure of DARPANET). It took a huge list of great contributors for it to come about as it did. In the realm of government (a crucial component to the NSFNET's policies and goals), it was Al Gore who was it's greatest contributor.
The "internet" of the 1980's was mostly a collection of regional, small "nets". Many of them were purpose built and were incompatible with one another. NSFNET decided to use TCP/IP in 1985 (many thanks to Dennis Jennings for championing its use!). In 1986 Steve Wolff took over NSF and immediately saw the need for a wide area networking infrastructure. They took on DARPANET's internet infrastructure to encourage interoperability and scalability. The NSF then encouraged its regional (initially academic) networks of the NSFNET to seek commercial, non-academic customers, expand their facilities to serve them, and exploit the resulting economies of scale to lower costs. However, use of their backbone was limited only to use "in support of Research and Education". This is why you saw so very many "*NET"'s (PSI, UUNET etc). In 1988, they initiated a bunch of conferences in which they worked out this plan to privatize and commercialize the internet.
The NRC produced a report commissioned by NSF titled "Towards a National Research Network" and presented it to Gore in 1988. This report had a profound effect on Gore, who took great interest in the subject and, became a champion of the cause.
In 1991, he promoted legislation that would provide $600M dollars for high performance computing and for the creation of the National Research and Education Network. The NREN brought together industry, academia and government in a joint effort to accelerate the development and deployment of gigabit/sec networking. Also brought about by the bill was the NII (National Information Infrastructure), i.e. the "information superhighway". As a side note, the bill also wound up funding the development of MOSAIC.
In 1992, we all got sick of the term "information superhighway" during the 1992 election season (perhaps foreshadowing another oft-repeated phrase used by Gore during the 2000 election season, "lock-box"
In 1993, Clinton and Gore submitted a report entitled "Technology for America's Economic Growth". Gore championed and expanded these ideas in speeches that he made at UCLA and to the Telecommunications Union in 1994. In addition, he "became the first U.S. vice president to hold a live interactive news conference on an international computer network".
Also in 1994, an NRC report, entitled "Realizing The Information Future: The Internet and Beyond" was released. This report, commissioned by NSF, was the document in which a blueprint for the evolution of the information superhighway was articulated and which has had a lasting affect on the way to think about its evolution. It anticipated the critical issues of intellectual property rights, ethics, pricing, education, architecture and regulation for the Internet.
In 1995, NSF's privatization policy culminated with the defunding of the NS
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And interestingly, AT&T is coming back together during Bush Jr's watch;
SBC companies serve consumers in 13 states: California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Connecticut. About one-third of the U.S. population lives in these 13 states. (http://sbc.merger-news.com/company/cb_sbc.html [merger-news.com])
We're the new AT&T, one of t
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Um, maybe our problem with Gore is that we don't typically "reward" politicans whe
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We remember Macarthur AND Roosevelt.
We remember Neil Armstrong AND Kennedy.
We remember Dr. King AND Johnson.
See a pattern?
We can remeber Cerf AND Gore.
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We remember Macarthur AND Roosevelt.
We remember Neil Armstrong AND Kennedy.
We remember Dr. King AND Johnson.
See a pattern?
We can remeber Cerf AND Gore.
Um, We know Leonardo as a brillant ancient inventor/painter. Who was Medicis again?
MacArthur was a general or admiral during WWII that left his men behind. We don't remember him kindly. Roosevelt tends to bring back vague memories of the New Deal.
Neil Armstrong got sent to the moon, Kennedy was the second President shoot a
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Here's a hint. It involves defeating the Axis powers in a global conflict.
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I've seen a few presentations Gore has done on the environment, global warming, and other issues.
The man is educated, well-spoken, personable, and seems to have a much better grasp on such issues than the current administration. I have no doubt that the US and the world would be very, very different right now if he'd been allowed the presidency he won.
Me too! (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that this post will be just as effective as Gore in promoting investment.
Vote off the planet! (Score:2)
How about sending G. W. Bush to space for instance.
Vote him off the planet!
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There you have it, people will line up around the earth to fund the stuff now.
He went on to add (Score:5, Funny)
ManBearPig... in spaaaace!!! (Score:2)
I Mod Mr. Gore -1 Offtopic (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is Gore was speaking at an X-Prize function and the article is at space.com so they had to either spin some message about space out his drivel or write an article tearing him a new one for misuse of the speaking slot. Being good Democrats they opted for #1.
Yes space is good, private industry should, and is, working on the problems. Gore and government are no longer needed, and in fact only slow things down.
Space Case? (Score:2)
Ok, I'm all for private money vs. public funding for projects.
The question I'm still wondering about is whether or not funding more projects that burn fuel and pollute our atmosphere are really worthwhile? I'm sure this would help all kinds of corporations, but will this really do anything to solve any of the problems we currently have? We still face problems of undereducation, unemployment, civil unrest, disease, starvation, and international strife. Can't we put money into private enterprise that might s
Re:Space Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Throwing more money at it won't fix the problem. We've spent hundreds of billions in new funds on top of what we were going to spend in the last 15 years and test scores are virtually unchanged. It is a social problem caused mostly by parents who don't care.
unemployment
What are we supposed to do, write everyone who gets fired a check for a million bucks? I know a LOT of people who've gotten fired and layed off and they wait until their benefits are about to run out before they start a serious crunch of a new job. Besides, we're at 4-5% unemployment, not 20%, there are MUCH bigger economic problems to worry about than that.
civil unrest
Yeah... everyone is rioting in the streets right now. There is always going to be a certain level of civil unhappiness, you can't eliminate it all without eliminating humanity.
disease
Cure every disease out there and watch another even nastier one creep up.
starvation
Generally not a major issue in the US. If you want the US to solve the starvation problems in the world, just let me know when you want to start overthrowing every 3rd world despot out there with our military. The problem isn't lack of food, it's lack of distribution.
international strife
See civil unrest... only there are very few bonds tying us together as an international community. There can never be perfect international harmony because somewhere out there, there will be at least one person who isn't happy and wants to lead a rebellion to overthrow it.
You have a low uid so I'm assuming you're not 15. I'm sorry that you still live in this happy little utopia where you get visted by Santa and the Tooth Fairy but the real world doesn't work the way you want it to and it never will. There will never be perfect harmony and happiness because each human is an individual with their own desires and viewpoint. With more than six billion people on the Earth, you're never going to get all of them to agreee on any single issue, much less the big picture.
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Throwing more money at it won't fix the problem. We've spent hundreds of billions in new funds on top of what we were going to spend in the last 15 years and test scores are virtually unchanged. It is a social problem caused mostly by parents who don't care because they are too busy working two-and-a-half jobs paying for rent, heat and food.
See? Fixed that for you. Besides that though, (and a small quibble about your unemployment statistic being based upon a reality-denying formula the government invent
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I disagree with the grandparent post, but is this sort of strawman really necessary?
Nothing much was ever accomplished by anybody who sits around justifying the status quo- hell, if it even meant your own personal bottom line was in danger I bet you could think of why in the sum of things it's probably just an intractable problem, no bother trying to fix it.
I think what the grandparent
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I've got some ideas on how to try to educate those types of people but none of them involve throwing more money at the situation. You could pay the best teachers a million bucks a year and have them work one on one but they'll never get an education because they won't have any desire to be there to begin with.
I've got plenty of ideas too, but most of them
Re:Space Case? (Score:4, Insightful)
No. But the difference between the problem of getting men to Mars and the "problems" you mention -- and you could just as well have added the "problems" of the inevitability of death, taxes, and bad luck -- is that the former can actually be solved.
I think space exploration is a worthwhile endeavor, but AFTER we make life a little better for the next generation.
Some of us feel that space exploration is how we make life better for the next generation. We leave them a more exciting future, a new frontier to conquer, new adventures to motive them, and new technology to serve them. We tend to feel that throwing vast amounts of time and money down various rat-holes, by trying to "solve" insoluble problems that have been with us unchanged since the birth of Christ is much like the ancient Egyptians building enormous pyramids to please nonexistent gods -- a foolish and futile waste of our childrens' inheritance.
How much of his own money will he invest? (Score:2)
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It's great to attach your name to grand causes, whilst only taking token actions in helping it.
Al Gore questions (Score:1, Funny)
1) What is your opinion on net neutrality?
2) When you created the interwebs, did you think it would be used for boobies?
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3. Did you think that people would download/"pirate" mp3's of Ode to Tipper Gore by Skid Row?
What was Gore's suggestion? (Score:1)
A meme back from the future (Score:3, Funny)
There would be more investement in everything (Score:3, Insightful)
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Has to be said (Score:4, Funny)
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Space belongs to the Americans (Score:2)
If somebody invest in space, they better be on the same side as the ones that "protect the lives of American people" against terrorists, otherwise they will have a very bad investment.
Me? I would be damn sure that my Moonbase / automatic rock miner / zero G chemical plant / space station could protect / hide itself from anything.
An inconvenient truth.... (Score:4, Funny)
Accelerating a large chunk of metal to its escape velocity releases a massive volume of greenhouse gas.
HAL
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Gas would be $3/gal under Gore due to his taxed on the oil companies, while cutting taxes for his liberal Hollywood buddies. He would cut student loans and military hazard pay (students and soldiers emit CO2). He would starve science, education, and research investment of this country.
There would be massive unemployment because all the jobs would be outsourced to non-Kyoto countrie
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Well, at least he would've done one thing right!
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I love how this is marked insightful. There's precisely one class of people with a good reason to drive SUVs, and that's people who need to transport a lot of people off-road. Everyone else driving them is a schmuck, and I stand by that statement, period. If you're off-roading with four or less people, then your best vehicle is a Jeep. If you're on the road transporting a lot of people, then your best bet is a van or minivan. If you're driving by yourself, you're best off in a small but safe car (read: Not
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Endless wars over whether Bush sux or not sux are getting kinda tiring.
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Gore needs to pick sides (Score:3, Insightful)
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Nice! This is an excellently crafted little comment. I disagree with all your asser
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Remember that every industry not in the private sector is a double cost... first, you no longer get the taxes fro
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Um... What is the Earth's way, and how do you know it? And what's "gross?"
"capitalizing on space" means trying to do something useful with it, as opposed to taking some photos and going home. I see the first option as a good thing.
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It's typical of wing-nuts to throw out stupid little rants like this and have the yahoos on their side guffawing. If
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Now, these people also testified be
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True, it is stupid to make fun of the way Bush talks, and I don't. Besides, his manner of speach is simply an affectation to make people think he is an ordinary Joe, which is something his father failed to do and which most likely was enough to cost him a second term. My objections to Bush are based more on things like running up a massive deficit to give defence co
I'm guessing that neither you nor Rush (Score:2)
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Would be nice to find one instance of Limbaugh or even "Bush and Cheney" ever saying this.
They didn't have to (Score:2)
Everyone knew that Osama was connected to 9/11, so when Bush connected Osama to Saddam, he was able to just let the public believe what he wanted them to believe. Do I need to find the statements where Bush made those connections, or do you remember them yourself?
Furthermore, it was fairly strongly implied in his March 18th, 2003 letter to Congress [whitehouse.gov]:
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