🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <LFLekx.0212@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET>,
Len Lekx <LFLekx@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET> wrote:
>In article <3p0cht$sil@kocrsv08.delcoelect.com> c2xrib@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (rex i beard) writes:

>    There is a difference.  What NASA provides - in the knowledge it
>obtains, and
>devices developed - can be transferred to other sectors, which can then use the
>information to provide saleable articles to the marketplace... thus bringing
>money _into_ the loop.

Granted. But does it produce more than it consumes? We do not know. We *do*
know that private industry did not create NASA. And we know that private
industry is driven by the profit motive. Profit is a signal that means
you are producing more than you are consuming. Private enterprise
doesn't think that there is a profit in what NASA does. Hence the market
has decided that it consumes more than it produces.

>    The warm fuzzy you get from giving money to others is not transferrable,
>and returns nothing.

But it doesn't really consume anything does it? The $100 I give to another
person can still be used by the other person. (But this other person may
decide not to *produce* anything because they no longer need to.)

With NASA resources *are* consumed. All the hours people work and all
the materials used are resources that are consumed.

<spending 600 billion on NASA would mean a larger NASA work force and a
smaller private sector workforce.>

>> But that new person has to come from somewhere else. This is *not* good for
>
>    But it is - since that person is MAKING money, not TAKING it.

But are they producing something more valuable than what they *use*
to be producing? Remember, they can't do both.

>> And an economy *is* the "things" people do and make. Money is just
>> a good form of accounting. When people do and make things that no
>> one else values they are not contributing to the economy.
>
>    Which is why Welfare is such a bad idea... you're paying people to _not_
>contribute to the economy.  NASA is at least trying.

Both very true.

>
>> Sure there might be jobs and there might be work, but there wouldn't
>> be any *CARS*. People would be working but they wouldn't be producing
>> the goods and services that other folks *want*.
>
>    This is a silly argument - of course there would be cars.  Heck, you might

How! Without the 100 people on my floor of this building GM couldn't
build cars. If all these people worked for NASA they wouldn't work
for Delco.

>even get an IMPROVED car... one that burns hydrogen instead of gas, or one that
>uses electricity efficiently, or is far more crash-resistant, FAR earlier
>than if we simply waited for the auto-makers to develop them.

But you HAVE to wait for auto-makers to build them. That's what "auto-maker"
means - people who build autos.

If they all work for NASA nobody is LEFT to be an automaker! They are
all spaceship-makers.

>> You're talking about taking the best doctors, lawyers, teachers,
>> medical researchers and auto designers and making them work in
>> space industries. If we do that we will have *less* of everything *else*.
>
>    We're not talking about MAKING *anyone* transfer into the space
>industry.  No
>doubt, some will feel as you do, and remain in the positions they're in.

If you pay them enough money most would go work for NASA. 600 billion pumped
into high tech would really raise the wages of engineers.

>Others
>would go to space, and make discoveries nobody would even dream possible.  Yet

But they wouldn't stay in their current jobs and make equally amazing
inventions (just not space related).

>> But there wouldn't be anybody *LEFT* to apply the knowledge to make
>> the existing products better OR to *build* them.
>
>    You MUST be kidding!  Out of a global population of five billion,
>we wouldn't have people to do earthbound activities?  Get real.

So the U.S can increase spending and taxes by $585 billion dollars and
funnel it to research while the rest of the world builds better
cars with the knowledge gained from NASA research? Because there won't
be any American engineers left to build the better cars here. And
a good number of the manufacturing workers won't be available to build
those cars here even if Americans could design them.

The number of humans in the country (and the world) is *FINITE*. If you
take just *ONE* of them out then there will be fewer things produced in
the world.

>> NASA:
>> 1)First you can not prove that it has "payed back" more than was invested.
>
>    Better weather information, cheap long distance communications, TV from the
>other side of the world?  If NASA had not provided the means, none of these
>ends would have been realized.

Just as you don't know the future you don't know what would have happened
without NASA. You can only point to things that NASA contributed to.
I was asking you to put a value on the contributions and then tally
up how much NASA costs. The problem is no value was ever placed on
those contributions. And the mechanism for assigning value, the free market,
was not used.

>> 3)What NASA "invests" in is determined by politics.
>
>    Granted.  It's difficult to respond to a market when your bosses are
>concerned with image.


>> 3) But I *can* tell you that what I invest in is determined by what kind
>>    of return I can get.
>
>    So you invest in things that have a high risk, so you can get a
>high return?
>This is the ENTIRE basis of the space program... it's a very risky venture, but
>there ARE potentials for extremely high returns.  (Look at ComSat.  ^_-)

Yes there are. But is the "risk/return" ratio better than the ratio
for some other investment? No it is not. At least not according to the
market. The market is not rushing to invest money on the things NASA is
"investing" in.

>    The problem is that NASA is a government agency.  If it were left to make
>money on its' own, it would be more responsive to the people who turn to it for
>services.

That is all I want. But that requires the government to dis-associate
itself from NASA. Then it would most like split off into several ventures.
Some seeking profit in launches and communications, Some seeking profit
in research, Some in entertainment, and Some as non profits seeking
the dreams and desires of its contributors.

-rex-
-- 

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