Space Tourism
Over an Intstapundit, Reynolds talks about the growing private industry of space tourism. He writes:
One thing for Buzz — he’s been working to promote space tourism, space development, and space settlement tirelessly for years. I couldn’t handle his travel schedule, and he’s thirty years older than me. (And when we ran in the Race For Space over a decade ago, he was faster than me.) He spoke eloquently about how unfair it was that he and only a few others had managed to experience space and the Moon, and how important it is that others get to share that experience.
I certainly think he’s right. I believe that the space tourism efforts we see now will help jump start things, and generate a learning curve, and efficiencies, that the NASA programs have never achieved — and, in fact, have sometimes even undermined. And I think it’s a big benefit to have Buzz Aldrin in there pushing for this kind of thing. Ten years ago, space tourism had a high “giggle factor.” Now it’s taken seriously, and things are just starting.
A while back Darwin wrote that in war, innovation does not occur because of the barefaced competition apparent when an enemy is intent on destroying a country, but rather because the nation is more willing to devote massive resources to those programs that generate the innovation. Does that mean Darwin would argue that a burgeoning private space industry will have no affect on the development of space technologies if when different companies are competing with each other? If it was possible, would he favor taking all the money that the private sector is using to develop this industry and give it back to NASA?
Let’s say in 20 years that the individuals that pour their lives and resources succeeded in developing a profitable space industry. To accomplish this entrepreneurs needed to employ a corporate model of organization to maximize efficiency so as to make space tourism as affordable as possible to as many consumers as possible. Upset at the treatment of employees at the entry level would Darwin demand reorganization of the system to ensure all employees are treated fairly. What if this would increase the cost of the space tourism such that many consumers would no longer be able to afford it?
May 29th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Wow, you mistate my position in so many different ways that it’s difficult to respond. I guess I’ll go step by step:
“Darwin wrote that in war, innovation does not occur because of the barefaced competition apparent when an enemy is intent on destroying a country, but rather because the nation is more willing to devote massive resources to those programs that generate the innovation.”
I never said that competition doesn’t improve innovation - I’ve always been for the free market model, depite whatever you may say. But you were arguing that the life-or-death competition of war leads to even more innovation than you get in a normal competitive free market, and I was proposing an alternative expalnation, that more resourdes being poured into research and development in the already very competitive free market model led to more innovation.
This makes your question about where to put funds moot- sure, I think using a free market could lead to as much or probably more innovation than a government program.
“To accomplish this entrepreneurs needed to employ a corporate model of organization to maximize efficiency”
You are again assuming that a socialist business model would be inherently less efficient than a corporate model. I disagree, so your question is again moot.