Newt promises a permanent moonbase by the end of his second term

[mhaze]

I found this amusing as well

Yes, any moon base is fictional at the current time. But one can use parts costs to estimate a range of probable costs for the job. A prize for a moon base is certainly possible, and then it would have contenders or not depending on their cost and risk estimates. Worth noting here is that the "NASA cost estimate" is not even a factor in the decision making.

 

[johnny karate]

the 440B? I didn't exactly "defend it". It was quoted that was the estimated price such as by NASA for the job. You wondered why anyone would do it for $10B. I mentioned that commonly people have spent more than the prize money, for the prize. Does that mean they would likely have spent 440B? Hmmm.....given the cost disparities between the quoted private sector and the government estimates, no, it doesn't mean it is likely they would have spent 440B.

Exactly. No private entity would spend $440 billion for a moon base. Newt's proposal was incredibly stupid. We are in agreement on that point.

 

[mhaze]

Exactly. No private entity would spend $440 billion for a moon base. Newt's proposal was incredibly stupid. We are in agreement on that point.

Yes, we are. Let's carry that further to "no private entity would believe it would cost 440b...."

But I have no certainty that Newt said anything that was "incredibly stupid" about the 450b number. Here's the key transcript.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/transcript-and-video-newt-talking-about.html

To clarify something we noted earlier, you asserted that if we made a prize for 10b and a contractor did it for 3B, the government and taxpayers would have been ripped off. I don't see it that way. I think the contractor makes a clean, honestly gained 7B for his genius, drive, and capability.

Where we agree would be on the NEXT prize or payment to that guy. Say that one wanted thereafter to send scientists to that moon base on government payroll. You'd hope the price would be "cost plus" - not a bid amount that allowed 400% profit, but something like cost+10%. I think that's reasonable with the customer acknowledging and accepting the risk factors, which are biggies - remember, 5% die. On a round trip moon mission? I'm okay with a guesstimate such as 20% fatalities

As for missions to Mars, there are many untested issues there and great risks, as well as no obvious profits.

By the way, we must be doing something right on this conversation because on various keyword google searches, it comes up at the top...

 

[johnny karate]

Yes, we are. Let's carry that further to "no private entity would believe it would cost 440b...."

I'm not sure why you put that last part in quotes. That's not what I said. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were subtly trying to change the conversation in a rather dishonest fashion.

But I have no certainty that Newt said anything that was "incredibly stupid" about the 450b number. Here's the key transcript.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/transcript-and-video-newt-talking-about.html

I've read the what he said. What's stupid about that $450 billion number is that he expects someone to spend that much to win a $10 billion prize. And we both agree no one would ever do that.

To clarify something we noted earlier, you asserted that if we made a prize for 10b and a contractor did it for 3B, the government and taxpayers would have been ripped off. I don't see it that way. I think the contractor makes a clean, honestly gained 7B for his genius, drive, and capability.

It's interesting that in this particular case you focus on the "honestly gained" $7 billion being made at the taxpayers' expense, while ignoring the rational alternative of suggesting that instead of wastefully overpaying some private contractor, maybe NASA themselves can figure how to do it for $3 billion. (I understand they have some pretty smart guys working there.)

I have to wonder if were talking about some "green energy" project just how cavalier you would be about throwing $7 billion away, and how many times you would use the term "boondoggle" in describing that project.

 

[mhaze]

...I've read the what he said. What's stupid about that $450 billion number is that he expects someone to spend that much to win a $10 billion prize. And we both agree no one would ever do that.

It's interesting that in this particular case you focus on the "honestly gained" $7 billion being made at the taxpayers' expense, while ignoring the rational alternative of suggesting that instead of wastefully overpaying some private contractor, maybe NASA themselves can figure how to do it for $3 billion. (I understand they have some pretty smart guys working there.)

Ah....
This conversation is occurring AFTER the cancellation of the Constellation rocket system being "developed" by NASA. 8 years, and 9B, and the program is cancelled. They never built a rocket. They never flew it. THAT was the launch system NASA intended to get us back to the moon and to mars with manned missions.

Now it is over, and now NASA has no man-rated launch system in development, or planned. Our guys go to the Station on Russian rockets. If we want to do something on American hardware, it is going to be private business.

That's the way it is.

On your numbers of 10B and 450B. I'm not hung up on them. The 450B number seems way to high to me, the 10B is a SWAG at what price might gain interest. But a private business would simply not be spending what NASA estimated the cost would be - that was the cost for NASA to do it (and that's before cost overruns).

Oh, and I gotta admit, it'd definitely be good for a laugh if "Nasa said X would cost 450B, and so a prize was made up for 10B, and some guy won it after spending 3B, and he made out like a bandit with 7B profit". That'd be really hilarious. Yes, it would make you wonder about a number of things...

At the same time, consider the point of view not of politics, not of pride and ego, but of simple production of results:

Date: 2017
Mission: Launch group of Falcon Heavy to LEO, assemble 3 BA330 w/booster, reach lunar trajectory, descend and land near one of several N. pole craters with water deposits
Status: Accomplished.

 

[mhaze]

....Newt's proposal was incredibly stupid.....

In the ever lasting vigilant search to find moments or sparks of sanity amoung the liberal left, I've hit on one possible candidate. First you have to reverse common definitions. "Illogical" is "logic", and "ridiculous" is "profound". Then ignore actual facts.

Now that you have the right frame of reference, examine the following premise and it's affect on Johnny's statement.

Premise: All Republicans or Right Wingers are Stupid.

Conclusion (In Johnny's statement above): Newt's proposal was incredibly stupipd.

Obviously TRUEY....



How far have we came since the 1960s, when John Kennedy produced the astonishing vision of a man on the moon within a decade, and Johnson delivered?

(both Democrats, although we really need to give the credit to American industry and spirit, not to politicians)

Those were events that even the Arch Villian from the Left's point of view, Ayn Rand, praised when she was invited to the Apollo 11 launch:

That we had seen a demonstration of man at his best, no one could doubt—this was the cause of the event’s attraction and of the stunned numbed state in which it left us. And no one could doubt that we had seen an achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being—an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality.

Frustration is the leitmotif in the lives of most men, particularly today—the frustration of inarticulate desires, with no knowledge of the means to achieve them. In the sight and hearing of a crumbling world, Apollo 11 enacted the story of an audacious purpose, its execution, its triumph, and the means that achieved it—the story and the demonstration of man’s highest potential.​

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_apollo11

How far the progressive left has declined since then. But then again, perhaps not. Apollo 11 was a "big government program" and there was lots of cash to move around to political cronies. With a prize, and with private industry, there's no obvious way to make the payoffs and subvert the money to the ends of the politicians.

Awww....

 

[johnny karate]

mhaze, your last two posts set new standards in meandering, tedious nothingness. Even if I were interested in addressing the points you possibly made, I'd rather not subject myself to the mind-numbing task of sifting through your incoherent stream-of consciousness to figure out what those points might be.

The basic argument I have made in this thread is simple and direct: The notion that the government can establish a moon base by offering a prize to whoever does it first is unworkable and/or foolish based on the numbers presented. It either calls for the highly unrealistic hope that someone will spend $440 billion of their own money to do it, or that the government should waste $7 billion to have it done for them.

It would be great if you could actually address that argument and not continually wander off into muddled, pseudo-intellectual drivel.

 

[MaGZ]

Psst, Newt. We already have rockets capable of reaching Mars.

Which is why we should forgo the idea a moon base. How will it help us to get to Mars? Any Mars training could be done in Antarctica.

 

[MaGZ]

I'm wondering, did Kennedy have a serious clue how we'd get to the moon in less than a decade when he proposed it?

Probably not, but von Braun and his team did.

 

[MaGZ]

Newt knows all about astronautics. He took up space in school.

(Rim shot!)

How can you pay for such a program? Tax cuts, of course! And you can cook the books a little, and--voila!--some debts simply don't get included as debts, because, well, they just don't. Hey, it worked for George W. Bush, didn't it?

Actually a Mission to Mars would be good for the economy, generating new advances and White employment.

 

[MaGZ]

The thing is, there's no really good reason to send a man to the Moon anymore. We know more about it now and there's nothing really useful to do there. He would be better off supporting the ISS or even a next generation ISS than a permanent moon base. Anything we want to do on Mars can be done cheaper and easier by robots. Newt criticizes Romney for being "only practical" when space exploration is an endeavor that cries out for practicality. The time for being romantic about space is long gone. Newt's grandiose space dreams are a far cry from a practical plan.

Mars should be terraformed and colonized. A future Mars Space Program should be like a Holy Order of men and women who go to Mars to stay.

 

[mhaze]

mhaze, your last two posts set new standards in meandering, tedious nothingness. Even if I were interested in addressing the points you possibly made, I'd rather not subject myself to the mind-numbing task of sifting through your incoherent stream-of consciousness to figure out what those points might be.

The basic argument I have made in this thread is simple and direct: The notion that the government can establish a moon base by offering a prize to whoever does it first is unworkable and/or foolish based on the numbers presented. It either calls for the highly unrealistic hope that someone will spend $440 billion of their own money to do it, or that the government should waste $7 billion to have it done for them.

It would be great if you could actually address that argument and not continually wander off into muddled, pseudo-intellectual drivel.

Nonsense. You claimed NASA could do it, I showed what that's not reality.

You claimed (repeatedly) that a moon base would cost 440B, I added up that launch and habitat cost, increased that by 1.3B, and got 3B for a budgetary number. Make up your mind. It's either 440B, or it's 3B. You want to have it both ways - so you can criticize both ends.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Probably not, but von Braun and his team did.

True enough, though I suspect JFK had a decent layman's understanding of the scope of his proposal.

When he said "and do the other things" I think those were the things that were already in the works and in the Cold War Space Race news back then (first satellite in space, first living animal in space, first man in space, first man to orbit the Earth, first to orbit the Moon, first in-space docking, etc., right on up to first man to land on the Moon and return safely).

He also recognized that it would be difficult and immensely expensive (and that he'd get a lot of criticism on that account--remember this started before LBJ's War on Poverty).

Newt thinks there is such a thing as a free lunch. . er launch!

 

[MaGZ]

Newt wants to go to the Moon in 8 years?

So, I guess that he has become a big-government make-work Liberal then.

Because I know for fact that MY fortunes will improve if we spend the $2-3 Trillion needed to do this. Every engineer who can get a security clearance will be made of GOLD. Boeing will have to open new plants. Washington lobbyists and defense contractors will all be in Fat City. Millions now unemployed will be in good Union jobs with benefits. Good times.

However; Where does he think the $2-3 Trillion will come from???

From his Jew-backer in Las Vegas.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It's either 440B, or it's 3B. You want to have it both ways - so you can criticize both ends.

Actually I think it would be considerably higher than $440 billion.

However, I can have it both ways for argument's sake. All I have to do is stipulate your $3 billion figure for purposes of discussion.

It's not a difficult thing to do. Our language and logic allows for the consideration of contrary to fact propositions.

"If P then Q" doesn't mean that I have to accept P. I just have to consider what its being true would logically lead to. I can, in fact, show that "if P then Q" is false logically and not just because I reject P.

 

[mhaze]

Mars should be terraformed and colonized. A future Mars Space Program should be like a Holy Order of men and women who go to Mars to stay.

That's likely a thousand year project. That's why the Moon makes sense as a short term objective for colonization. Also, the Martian soil is apparently highly oxidative - rub it on your skin, sores break out.

Might not be so practical.

 

[mhaze]

Actually I think it would be considerably higher than $440 billion.

However, I can have it both ways for argument's sake. All I have to do is stipulate your $3 billion figure for purposes of discussion.

It's not a difficult thing to do. Our language and logic allows for the consideration of contrary to fact propositions.

"If P then Q" doesn't mean that I have to accept P. I just have to consider what its being true would logically lead to. I can, in fact, show that "if P then Q" is false logically and not just because I reject P.

Actually, you can make anything up that you want. But why not go ahead, tell us what the parts of the cost budget would be that adds to >440B....

That's all I did for the 3B number...

Wait...let me guess...it's like this.

Cost to put moon base up:: 500B
Cost of moonbase 3B
Cost of Democratic political stealing and payoffs to cronys: 497B

IT'S SO SIMPLE!!!!

 

[MaGZ]

Folk this is a politician - of course he can't deliver what he promises! I am sure if he was elected you would all be amazed by the end of the first term at how you never heard him make those promises although you are sure you did!

On a wider point - to me the good thing about his statement is that it does show a vision of a forward moving optimistic future for the USA, which has to be better that than the constant refrain about how the USA is a cesspit "these days" and "we need to go back to the good old days that made us great".

Since we know they will never deliver on their campaign promises I think it is better to encourage those that are looking towards the future rather than the past.


(Smilies for the above are - insert where you want.)

Years ago Newt got bitten by the futuristic bug of the neo-Marxist Tofflers.

 

[MaGZ]

You think the cost of putting a billion or so people on the Moon will ever compete with what it would cost to live in Antarctica and Greenland?

Wouldn’t it be better to limit the population thru a type of eugenic form of population control?

 

[MaGZ]

Did anyone else catch what Romeny said at the Florida Republican debate last night about this very isse?

He said that New was simply pandering to the Florida aerospace industry by this Moonbase idea, and I have to admit that his charge makes a great deal of sense.

After all, Newt never said anything about the space program until Florida got on his screen.

Actually in an earlier debate Newt said NASA was too bureaucratic.