That's the wrong question. The real question is, what would the politicians do
with it? It is the politicians who will make the decisions, not engineers like
Rand, as long as space is a political program.
Space activists always imagine that if NASA merely canceled the current Bette
noire (Shuttle, SLS, whatever), it could then use the money for what the
activists want. In reality, NASA will use the money for what NASA (and its
political masters) want.
Ten years ago, activists imagined that canceling the Shuttle meant NASA would
fund their agenda. They could not believe that NASA would simply do Apollo
again, even though George W. Bush specifically cited Apollo as a model when he
rolled out his Vision.
A few years later, activists like SFF were encouraging NASA to cancel Ares I
and put the money directly into Ares V -- which is what people are complaining
about now.
The moral?
"Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it."
"If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind."
"First, do no harm."
"Put not your faith in princes."
On Dec 30, 2015, at 12:43 PM, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sad and sadly true....
But rather than beat a dead horse; what would you do w/ $3.8 billion per year
of space program funding that--like SLS--meets all the relevant criteria?
Bill
On Wednesday, December 30, 2015, Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Can we talk about how SLS doesn't stimulate the economy, it destroys wealth?
:-)
On 2015-12-30 09:51, Jonathan Goff wrote:
Hey guys,
As much as I'm a fan of economics conversations, this isn't the
Economics Reform Pizza Society mailing list... At least Bill's and
Henry's conversation about time value of money and time horizons was
somewhat rocket related.
Jon
On Dec 30, 2015 10:47 AM, "Edward Wright" <edward.v.wright@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
If you believe wars create wealth, you should attack their next-door
neighbor. Burn his house, kill his dog, and invite him to do the
same to you -- it will make both of you rich.
If it works for a nation's economy, it should work for your personal
economy, too. If it doesn't work at that the level, how can it
possibly work on a national scale?
Unfortunately, such ideas are common among civilians who have never
seen actually war. Military veterans typically know better.
Sent from my iPad
On Dec 30, 2015, at 10:53 AM, Rand Simberg<simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
stimulate the
Wars do not "stimulate the economy." They destroy wealth.
On 2015-12-29 15:23, Monroe L. King Jr. wrote:
All the war we have been in since WWII are economic wars
There is no winner and it's intended to be that way.
It's about moving money around yes.
They learned that from the Korean war and have used it to
theireconomy ever since.
Money that goes into war filters out into the country.
It looks bad on the deficet of course but that works double in
somewhere, and afavor if they can keep the public believing it's necessary
War stimulates our country's economy it's pretty simple.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [AR] Re: OT economy booster
From: "John Dom" <johndom@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, December 29, 2015 2:53 pm
To: <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Tue, 29 Dec 2015, John Dom wrote:
On Behalf Of Henry Spencer 291215:War is an economy booster. War makes money, jobs ect...Usually only if you win the war...
Often not even then. The money still has to come from
things fallgovernment can only extract so much from its citizens before
WW2 finishedapart. WW1 devastated Britain's economy, and the beginnings of
Februaryit off -- Britain was quite literally *bankrupt* at the end of
postponed the1941. The Lend-Lease Agreement and some other outside help
for yearsproblem for the rest of the war, but times were hard in Britain
needed severalafterward -- food rationing continued until 1954 -- and it
decades to fully recover.
Next came Suez and J.F. Dulles’s coup de grâce to Eden.