[amsat-bb] Re: A rose is a rose... is a rose

9 Aug 2011

      I agree, that there is change that can happen.  Here's my view on what I really 
think are the issues.
I was specifically referring to the notion that "funding" is the "problem". 
Funding will be the "issue" that allows change to actually happen, and at what 
speed it can happen.  Money availability is largely controlled by the "Fed" in 
terms of providing an interest rate that will allow private enterprise to 
"invest" by getting loans from the banks that the Fed serves.
Sure, there is also a fixed amount of "money" available from private parties.
But, if no one who "has the money" wants to fund "space flight", then it won't 
ever happen privately.  I.e. why hasn't the privetization already happened? I 
think it's because it doesn't "make money".  There's nothing "known" to generate 
value out of space "flight".  Space based research, perhaps, but not "space 
flight".  Transportation to the ISS is an occasional thing... Not a giant 
opportunity for continued income and business growth (limited occupancy etc.).
There has to be some other interests generated.  Nasa's exploratory program can 
provide the data and some "Wow moments" that raise the interest levels of those 
with money.  But, if there is no "investment" opportunity, then a mindset change 
has to happen that causes people to believe that it needs to happen and they 
should "pay" for it rather than "invest" in it.
Because of the development of "the space program" by the government of the U.S., 
that's largely where it has been funded from, and the Fed, has "printed money" 
for many parts of that development.
If there is only a "small" amount of private funding available, it may not go to 
the 'right' places.  So, in order for "all possible opportunities to be 
explored", there has to exist enough interests with enough money to make it 
happen.  Federally funded exploration programs are one way to make sure specific 
tasks are executed.  But, because people believe that "money" is and should be 
of a "fixed supply", we'll have countless arguments about "budget".
If we did something with a space program over the course of 10 years, instead of 
doing it in 1 year, for example, people would see less effect of the "money 
spent" over 10 years.  But if all of the economic impact occured in just 1 year, 
it could have very recognizable impact, as the wars have in the past.  The Fed 
has moved the economy along at slow speeds because its easier to keep an eye on it.
The amount of "cash" available, is arbitrary, because the Fed decides when to 
print it based on their economic outlook and then decided interest rates.  They 
are printing like mad right now because of the recession.  This is the policy 
and procedures of how the Fed works as an independent organization (no one who 
you voted for can make them do anything).
As we all know, a huge mount of "value" was "injected" into our economy by 
massive, risky, unmanaged credit.  We didn't have the money in circulation to 
support that value, and suddenly it was realized that there was a problem.  Next 
was the decision about who loses?  Is it the person making the purchase, or the 
person loaning the money, or the person who sold the risky item?  It has been 
decided that no one loses, and we'll just adjust the economy by printing money 
so everyone can "do" what needs to be done to recover.  Go watch the Fed vs the 
congress videos on youtube.com if you didn't get to see how much grilling the 
Fed got for "fixing the economy" by bailing out the "can't fail".
Let's hope everyone is acting responsibly this time, because printing more money 
only adds "money" to support the "value", if everyone agrees to "keep" the value 
of "money" the same in the economy.  Otherwise, we get "inflation" that will 
devalue money again, and that won't help.  Hyper-inflation is being predicted.
You can hope for privatization to work, but there are no guarantees.  With a 
baseless "money", we can, actually just print like mad, all we want to employ as 
many people as possible to do as much "work" as we can find to do.  Since 
everyone is working, and we are getting useful results, does it seem wrong to 
"print money" to employ people to work?  We did this for the wars...
Once we are done with a "work" program, how do all those people continue to live 
in the economy?  What is happening with the Space Shuttle program?  An answer 
might be that we just keep printing money and let them "live".  But that's what 
everyone calls socialism and historically, it hasn't worked.  Food stamps, 
unemployment, and other assistance programs are argued to create socialistic 
behaviors, but how do we decide the moment that a person or a project deserves 
to fail?  Do we have to judge it as "bad", or do we need to declare it "okay to 
fail"?
Practically, we can argue and discuss about gold or silver backed currency till 
we are blue in the face.  In a resource backed, currency based economy, if new 
people are to be employed, someone else needs to take a pay cut, spend some 
money, or die so that the new person can be paid some money.  If more "value" is 
created in the economy with new products, then the price of other items have to 
decline for that other value to be accessible for purchase.  If you have to plan 
your business to continuously reduce prices, how far can you go before you 
can't?  What does that do to initial prices and who can purchase?  The Fed 
controls available money, hoping to manage this appropriately so that printing 
only should happen when new economic value exists.
Getting more of the "resource" such as mining gold/silver, would be like 
"printing" money because once you add it to the economy, there will be more 
available and the worth of the existing will likely decline unless there is 
additional "value" added to the economy to make the "gold" harder to get.  This 
is why some people believe the Fed is okay as long as it's managed 
appropriately.  It is cheaper to print money then it is to "mine" gold, and gold 
and silver are useful resources, where as "paper" is manufactured from renewable 
resources.
With the Fed in operation, the "annual cost of living increase" in your pay 
check was about equalizing your "money" with the "Fed" printing rate so that you 
didn't have to take an effective cut in pay because of the inflation being created.
The Fed prints enough new money to take "growth" into account, based on what it 
can track.  The problem was that too much "money" was being loaned out and the 
"banks" had stacked their own debt at more than 10-to-1 against cash on hand 
with loans because of lack of regulation.  Thus the economy was larger than the 
Fed could "perceive" and we didn't have enough "cash" to cover such risky 
behavior.  And yes, the risky behavior should not of been happening either.
It's important to learn how it all works so that we understand that 
privetization is possible, but there are countless circumstances that don't 
always make it economically possible.  Money, today, is a vehicle that can be 
used for a lot of things, and the misuse of it, as we've seen, can destroy the 
economy or damage it severely.
The X-Prize, for example had very view participants because there wasn't any 
"real" prize except recognition, and ultimately the "knowledge" gained from 
participation.
Where are all the interests at really?  I think there should be lots of 
interest, but I sure don't see anything that would suggest that there would be 
10 space flight companies making regular trips into space by 2020.
This is way off topic for this group...
Gregg Wonderly
W5GGW
On 8/9/2011 11:08 AM, R Oler wrote:
...
Greg. well all I can say is that anyone who says that the US has "virtually
abandoned" crewed spaceflight is not up on current events. What we are doing is
transitioning from a program of the military industrial complex to one which
centers on private enterprise...and that will open space access for a lot of
things. And that will include amateur radio payloads. In my view the association
between amateur radio and human spaceflight has hurt amateur radio more then it
has helped.
Go read "The Revolution in Military Affairs"...and you will get the drift Robert
G. Oler WB5MZO Life member AMSAT ARRL NARS
...
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 10:08:01 -0500
From: w5ggw@cox.net
To: orbitjet@hotmail.com
CC: m5aka@yahoo.co.uk; amsat-bb@amsat.org; bruninga@usna.edu
Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: A rose is a rose... is a rose
When these kinds of comments come up, I often wonder how many people actually
understand how the US economy works. I spend some time to put together some
view points of how the FED is affecting what's happening and how the "basis of
the FED" as a mechanism is not really working to manage the complexities of our
economy. There are things all over youtube.com which are records of senate and
congressional committee sessions, historical videos, documentaries etc. If you
are not really sure how the FED works and what all the "troubles" of the economy
in the U.S. and the world (because many countries chose to tie themselves to our
currency system), visible my Google+ post that I've put up and look around at
some of the videos I've linked to.
https://plus.google.com/110612293771822302429/posts/eG6QC13kgv8
Gregg Wonderly
W5GGW
On 8/5/2011 5:39 PM, R Oler wrote:
...
Trevor...there is not a chance that is going to happen. The US is on the
verge of a revolution in space affairs (to mimic Admiral Bill Owens) and we are
about to leave a technowelfare program and go into something truly free
enterprise. Watch
...
...
Robert G. Oler WB5MZO life member AMSAT ARRL NARS
...
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 23:04:09 +0100
From: m5aka@yahoo.co.uk
To: amsat-bb@amsat.org; bruninga@usna.edu
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: A rose is a rose... is a rose
Bob, Politicians are the same the world over.
I note that some of your Politicians seem paranoid about the USA's biggest
trading partner, Beijing. I don't mind betting that in a few years time your
Politicians will be falling over themselves to vote billions of tax dollars to
the Space program to prevent the US falling into 3rd place behind the Russian
Federation and Beijing.
...
...
...
73 Trevor M5AKA
--- On Fri, 5/8/11, Bob Bruningabruninga@usna.edu wrote:
...
...
> ,,,it now lists keps for 'Radioscaf-B'. (no
> ARRISat-1' listing). Will that eventually change?
I chuckle.
We in the USA have virtually abandoned manned space. We
have no manned space
flight vehicles because all we do is squabble with the
attention span of 2
year olds in our politics and long term outlooks. All
our politicians do is
worry about their re-election in the next 2 years.
They cannot face the
really big issues that need to be solved without
jeopardizing their
re-election by the me-first, screw-them electorate.
The voters only have
the attention span from one radio talk show to the next.
So since the Russians are now the only manned space program
that can provide
the ride, I guess they get to call it whatever they
want. Our guys worked
VERY HARD to build it and deliver it against unbelieveable
pressures and
bureaucratic issues, but the only way to get it to ISS was
to give it to the
Russians.
Sigh...
Bob, WB4APR

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