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Saturday, September 26 - 4:31amSanction this postReply
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I agree with you completely, Luke. I've always wondered if studies such as this were performed on every firm, agency, and independent worker in the country, wouldn't the grand sum of all their economic benefits exceed the gross domestic product for the year studied. Reports of economic damages such as from a flood or hurricane also seem likely to float free like that. And when it comes to national defense, what are all the economic damages that were avoided by all the tigers Defense kept away in a given year? Then too, there's the elementary issue from Bastiat: What would be the economic benefits if the money given to NASA through taxes were simply spent or saved by the people the money was taken from? Were that benefit sum subtracted from the NASA benefit-sum, would the result even be a dollar in favor of NASA? True, I treasure scientific and technological work of NASA (though not a manned mission to Mars---that is just advertising for winning affection through widespread easily accessed romantic dreams, in my assessment), but I don't think that gives me a moral right to legally pick my neighbor's pocket to support it.

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(Edited by Stephen Boydstun on 9/26, 4:36am)



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Saturday, September 26 - 4:53amSanction this postReply
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I agree too, Luke.

 

Last year I wrote 3 blog posts about a book I read that hyperinflates the role of government.

 

The Entrepreneurial State #1

The Entrepreneurial State #2

The Entrepreneurial State #3

 


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Saturday, September 26 - 6:45pmSanction this postReply
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NASA's Economic Impact Study Misses Much Of NASA's Economic Impact

 

"In many cases these maps point out woeful inequalities by default such as Montana (less than 1 FTE who earned $10,000), Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, etc.. Nothing is ever said in this report with regard to why some parts of America do not share in all of this NASA economic goodness. But wait: they do. These states have large agricultural and natural resource sectors of their economy that benefit from remote sensing. GPS and satellite communications enable many economic activities that would otherwise be impossible. And every person who lives there derives some benefit from all of these 'spinoffs' that NASA is forever waving its arms about. Yet I see no mention in this report as to how these technologies with clear NASA heritage and continued involvement impact these states. It just looks like they get nothing. Why would anyone in those states ever care about NASA's benefits since NASA shows there to be virtually none?"



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Sunday, September 27 - 5:33pmSanction this postReply
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I subscribed to NASA Tech Briefs for several years, probably a decade in all from the mid-70s through mid-90s. I sometimes was pleasantly surprised by clever ideas, but I do not recall any truly game-changing invention. Mostly, they produced a lot of incremental improvements to technology they inherited (bought). 

 

The Amateur Radio Relay League's OSCAR I  was lauched on December 12, 1961. 

 

The satellite was built, quite literally, in the basements and garages of the Project OSCAR team. It was the first satellite to be ejected as a secondary payload from a primary launch vehicle and then enter a separate orbit. This was accomplished using a very high technology and thermally balanced ejection system: a $1.15 spring from Sears. The total out-of-pocket cost (not including material donations) of OSCAR I: only $68.

http://www.arrl.org/news/oscar-i-and-amateur-radio-satellites-celebrating-50-years

 

AT&T's Telstar was launched seven momths later, on July 10, 1962.

 

Robert Goddard's initial explorations with liquid fueled rockets were funded by the Smithsonian (5 yerars $5000) and then Guggenheim Foundation ($100,000 over four years), large sums in those days, but modest by all measures. In terms of gold the first $5000 would be like half a million now. The Guggenheim grant (after devaluation of the dollar to $32 per ounce) would be like $6.25 million - over four years. It wold be sizable, but not unreasonable. Long ago (1971?), Murray Rothbard had an essay called "The Government Airplane." He contrasted Samuel P. Langley with the Wright Brothers. It is a story now retold in many libertarian webspaces. 

 

To me the overarching narrative is Bastiat's broken window, alluded to by Stephen above. We see the glass being replaced. We do not see the losses. Perhaps a helpful analogy is to the settlement of North America and the founding of the United States. In strict libertarian terms, the early adventures by Columbus, Hudson, and others who sold their enterprises to the crown were all losses. But, eventually, it led to profitable enterprises never imagined. The Spanish sought gold. The French sought furs. The English just wanted to life their own lives.

 

BTW - I think that Mars is doable, just not by humans as we define ourselves now. We are still only able to support 1,000 to 4,000 in the Antarctic and they are not self-sufficient. Give it time.



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