Another example of some rich guy squandering his infinite wealth on some hopeless decadent project intended only for his luxury.

On Monday morning a special group of media and VIPs will be on hand to witness the unveiling of Burt Rutan’s latest aviation marvel—White Knight Two. White Knight Two is a massive ship, more than twice as large as the original White Knight used to lift SpaceShipOne up to 50,000 feet for her X PRIZE willing spaceflights. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic commissioned Rutan to build the larger White Knight Two to carry a larger SpaceShipTwo that will launch customers on suborbital flights.

Can you imagine how much more well developed space exploration would be if we had only funneled the millions of this guy and all the other rich guys over the last 40 years into a space program? Had we let the bureaucrats manage space exploration space travel would of become so cheap and inexpensive most of the middle class would of been able to afford at least one trip around the earth. But nope. Instead the last 40 years there has been scant regulation on space exploration and as a consequence free markets have wreaked havoc on the development of space travel. Up until now, the only people that could go up into the stars have been the the ultra rich.

I call on legislators to more tightly regulate space travel and increase the taxes of the ultra rich and use those funds to develop a space program. Only by giving the state total control over developing space travel will prices become low enough that middle class folk will have the opportunity to see earth from orbit. We have already wasted forty years relying on the free market. It’s time to let the state have a chance.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.