Comments on Mundane-SF: Can to ten backwards in Japanese?

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"Private sector can't give you roads, and governme...

2007-09-25T02:05:00.000-07:00

"Private sector can't give you roads, and government can't give you popular TV shows."

Oh, I don't know about that. Pretty much every single major highway or public works project in Sydney in the last decade has been built and operated by private companies. And any number of the most popular shows on television have come from the public network.

But, you know. Obviously not.

See more recent post for how much this captures th...

2007-09-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

See more recent post for how much this captures this member of the public's imagination.

A single prize obviously can't mitigate the costs of R&D because the odds of winning are so low you can't borrow against it. Therefore only people who can afford to lose the full cost can enter, ie billionaires.

I don't know where this government vs. private sector ideology emerges from. They are two very different social mechanisms with an array of strengths and weaknesses. Private sector can't give you roads, and government can't give you popular TV shows.

You cannot dogmatically claim that one is better than the other as a general rule. I have seen no argument on the facts as to how space travel could be done better by "private money". In fact, the limited ambition of this competition is good evidence that it isn't.

Saying that this is the first step to more impressive things is just fantasy. The Ansari X Prize didn't lead to anything after it was won on account of lowering the benchmark from 100 miles to 100 kilometres. Why would this one go anywhere?

What’s special about the Google X Prize is that it...

2007-09-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

What’s special about the Google X Prize is that it captures the publics imagination. Private industry will be going into space, and they will be doing so to turn a profit, just as any private industry seeks to do.

The X-prize helps mitigate some of the costs of R&D, operations and the mission itself, it also serves as a publicity vehicle.

I’m not particularly disappointed that space tourism will be for the vastly wealthy - at first. Prices will come down as production and launch costs go down as well.

What really excites me is that we’re going into space - we as a race. And we’re doing so not just for government showboating. The space race was, in essence a pissing contest which just happened to have tons of scientific and practical benefits that trickled down to the general public.

We cannot and we should not rely solely on our governments to get us into space on a permanent basis. It’s going to take private industry, profits and a reason other than pure knowledge seeking (unless humanity pulls a 360, solves every problem on Earth and moves to an altruistic society) to get us out there.

Yes other nations are going into space, yes there will be a second space race. Yes, it will still be a glorified pissing contest between governments to see who can get the furthest, fastest. Some of the innovations from these projects will trickle down to private industry but lately it’s private industries advances that are moving into the government sphere, not the other way around.