Posted on 06/23/2011 11:12:52 AM PDT by NonZeroSum
The TEA Party in Space Platform is grounded in American exceptionalism and the TEA Party core values of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.
Our goal is nothing less than the expansion of American civilization into the solar system. Fifty years ago, the United States was in a Space Race with the Soviet Union. Our nation applied the strategy we had developed in World War II – a “crash” federal research and development program that spared no expense to accomplish the short-term goal of landing an American on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. America can no longer afford the big government “crash” model. We must return to traditional American free-market principles to expand permanently into space. It was American individuals and businesses who pioneered the wilderness, built a continent-spanning nation, and created the most prosperous economy in the history of humanity.
(Excerpt) Read more at teainspace.com ...
NASA should be pure space research, exploration and prospecting.
The Lewis and Clark model works fine. Catalogue what is found and let free enterprise do with it what they will.
Ditch the international space treaty and let claims be laid in space.
WE CAN'T AFFORD THE GOVERNMENT WE HAVE NOW AND YOU WANT MORE SPENDING?????
I'm just saying.......
Who said anything about more spending?
NASA was once upon a time, a "CAN-DO" government-industry-academia team. Now, it is a "Can't-Do" Bureaucracy.
I am certain that American companies won't object to the Stars and Stripes marking their vehicles.
Many want Draconian cuts to the Federal budget. I don't. I want Ghengis Kahn pillage and destroy cuts to any thing in the Federal budget that we can do without for the time being until the budget has been stabilized by removing every subsidy, every NGO teat, every nongovernmental payment and at least half of the Departments in the Executive Branch. I want the left and the right defunded. I want the gov’t out of the business of owning anything. My tax dollars should pay for rent, utilities and salaries of a reduced Federal workforce, and my Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid dollars should only go to those who paid into those systems (but the benefits should be means tested and unavailable to illegal immigrants and half the dead beat so called disabled) and not one penny more.
If you can launch, under those terms, have at it.
As things stand today there’s simply no money to be made in space because space has the same status as antarctica. All private business can do today is launch satellites or play freight hauler/taxi to government facilities.
Truly privatize space and make NASA prove their worth by prospecting among the asteroids.
No one is proposing more spending, except the space porkers.
Exactly. I want the money spent on space exploration the same way I want transportation money spent on transportation.
A manned mission to Mars is an effort that no one country can afford, and there's no reasonable belief that such would be feasible through an international consortium given that such mission is orders of magnitude more difficult - by extension more cost prohibitive - there is no rational basis to think a wholly global effort would be successful.
The stark reality is that the contemporary scarcity of ecomic resources in the richest economy on the globe will not be amelirated in any real sense, except in some pie-in-the-sky idealistic utopia. There are some truly daunting social issues that need resolving, e.g., hunger, energy and water to mention a few (ignoring military hostilities that could quite plausibly become global). There is a real debate on how soon social security will go bust (not IF). How much is the FedGov spending on social programs as it its? Does anybody believe that its realistic that will decrease in order to fund a manned Mars mission?
Just look at the economic chaos of the EU, the difficulty NATO has in fighting Libya, and the proportionate contributions by the international community to the ISS.
Sorry. We aint ever going to Mars.
We can easily afford it, but it will be done privately, not by NASA.
A manned mission to Mars is an effort that no one country can afford, and there's no reasonable belief that such would be feasible through an international consortium given that such mission is orders of magnitude more difficult than the Apollo program - by extension more cost prohibitive - there is no rational basis to think a wholly global effort would be successful.Sorry, the first mission will cost more than the entire Apollo program in its entirety. Aint no way any private enterprise is sinkin' those funds into a venture with zero return.
Sorry, but that is simply untrue. If it is true, it won't happen, but there's no reason that it has to cost as much. There were many reasons that Apollo cost as much as it did (one of which was that we were in a damned hurry and cost was no object), but when we get launch costs down from commercial providers over the next decade, it will become much more affordable to do many things in space.
Aint no way any private enterprise is sinkin' those funds into a venture with zero return.
The only return required will be the thrill of doing it. There will be private expeditions around the moon within this decade, and there will be private expeditions to Mars in the next, barring a total societal collapse.
Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task just can’t be counted on in today's socio/politco/economic environment (and I don't see that getting any better). The ISS' track record is a prime example of why an international consortium won't accomplish the task either. As far as private enterprise, I'm extremely skeptical about the willingness to expend the capital for no return, except for the thrill of it.
O.k., so advertisers in the US alone spent 156 $billion in 2008 to achieve an intangible affect; product promotion. Certainly a $trillion over 20 years could be spent to achieve something more meaningful. Heck, the spin-off's alone could pay for the mission, eh?
Seriously. Only a $trillion though, huh? Who the hell actually cares about that any more; at least we can go to Mars.
No one is going to spend a trillion dollars to go to Mars. No one is going to spend a hundred billion to go to Mars. Someone may be willing to spend a billion, and there are ways to do it, as long as NASA doesn’t do it.
If someone had a reasonable basis for believing that she or he could earn more than a trillion dollars by going to Mars (and back), and could convince enough other people that she/he was correct, then there would be quite a few people willing to spend a trillion dollars to go to Mars.
BUMP
We should keep the dream alive
Any private venture to Mars should give the venture a huge swath of land there as a claim for them to exploit. Given changes in technology the cost to get there could drop enough to make it worth it.
Bump
Thanks for the ping.
Hope springs eternal...
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