I don’t have a breakdown of how much came from what sources but the Ansari X-Prize money mostly came from private sources.

I’m all for manned spaceflight. It’s very cool. But let’s not pretend that people are needed to sample the rocks of Mars, or to drill holes in Europa. If we send people to Mars, it’ll be to say: we sent people to Mars.

There are things that robots are good at the people are not – and visa versa. Robots are great at long missions but they suck at unexpected situations. I can see a Mars mission with people and robot surveyors. The robots just go and go, the people improvise if needed, provide on the spot correction and guidance. And hit the reset button if the things get stuck.

But we may be getting off track. What I can’t see is how a private venture can profitably explore space. Is anyone here in favor of tax breaks or prizes to get things like that going?

Generating a government subsidy isn’t the same thing as being productive. The $10 million prize was a government research grant. So the money didn’t go to NASA – it’s still a government investment. Not that I dislike government investment in research; quite the opposite. But you make it sound like Scaled Composites made $10 million because of some practical product or service.

I don’t know what the profit is for the Russians but every tourist they send is $20 million gross.

How about none. Negative. The $20 million doesn’t even pay for the flights the tourists ride on.

I’m not a partisan one way or the other

Debatable.

– but the cheaper it becomes to launch to orbit the more manned activity will make sense.

The cheaper it becomes to launch to orbit, the more *any* space activity will make sense.

I’m all for manned spaceflight. It’s very cool. But let’s not pretend that people are needed to sample the rocks of Mars, or to drill holes in Europa. If we send people to Mars, it’ll be to say: we sent people to Mars.

Wasn’t Congress – it was everyone. The Nixon administration (IIRC) initiated the program. The Air Force wanted a piece of the system and demanded cross-range capability for polar orbits. Cross-range dictated wings which were the proximate cause of the latter accident.

Plenty of blame to go around. We all share a wee bit of it – we elected the guys who oversaw the entire program.

Manned spaceflight won Scaled Composites a $10 million dollar prize. It probably goosed Richard Branson to launch Virgin Galactic.

I don’t know what the profit is for the Russians but every tourist they send is $20 million gross.

From a technical pov there are things that people can do that robots can’t. I’m not a partisan one way or the other – but the cheaper it becomes to launch to orbit the more manned activity will make sense.

And what in the way they have handled social security, medicare, medicaid reforms or they way they handle budget deficits and national debt persuades anyone that these guys are long term thinkers?

Me – I favor less government control in our lives – if the state needs something badly enough to charter a corporation to do it there are other and better ways of getting it done.

I’m not saying the government always does things best – obviously that’s not the case. But it’s easy to simply overlook examples that don’t support your theory.

Lately, they’ve started taking corporate sponsorship of the train cars and buses and have further increased rates. Apparently, getting gas tax revenue from MD, VA, and DC wasn’t enough. I’ve heard it time and time again “I can pay 2*X to take the Metro into the city or I can just drive and pay for parking.” To me, I appreciate getting some of the time back to read, but I see their point.

The only saving grace is the people. Other than the food-police, the bulk of the staff is great. They’re polite, helpful, and generally seem to enjoy what they do. Then again, last week we found out that a huge number of the drivers are making $100k+ – on a $60k base – due to overtime. I’d be pretty happy if I had that deal too…