[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Enough already. A fact is something tangible. A study, a proof of something. You aren't dealing in facts here. That is just the truth.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I made an off the cuff comment and shared an opinion. That's all I've done. I did not present it as a fact, or as anything other than an opinion. You have essentially responded with opinions. The only difference, you don't admit that.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

government by it's nature is wasteful. Nasa is actually one of the better organizations within the federal government in these issues.

No it's, not, it's far from it.
NASA has been pulled in a different direction for the last 40 years from demo to rep and it's gotten little done. We can't even count the space station if they deorbit the structure before it's had any meaningful use beyond the time to actually construct it and to have wasted all that money just to destroy it would mean several replacement shuttles could have been designed and constructed rather than waste money on an international show or moral.
x30 UTB SSTO
X33 SSR The best of the SSR's never completed best chanceto succeed
X34 UTB
X36 UTF
X37 SSR
X38 SSR
X40
x48 Why did this get NASA funding?
x54 Why does NASA need a recon craft?
X43 SCRAM JET

and a hell of alot more that never came to fruition of any kind.
BUT they did keep aerospace and NASA in business. And you forget or ignore this culture killed 14 astronauts negligently. Additionally NASA waste and heaping helping of money on payrolling employees who aren't actually working or on the job. This organization is more like a country club for engineers than the leading edge of space travel. That's why it shut down for that gaff of a futures project called Orion Aries Constellation.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Nasa works on a shoe string budget compared to other Federal agencies

[horatio]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

Enough already. A fact is something tangible. A study, a proof of something. You aren't dealing in facts here. That is just the truth.

Theory is quite tangible and as I indicated in my last post the answer to the question of which particular agency is more efficient is ultimately an empirical one.
Unlike you I did not presuppose an answer (government is wasteful, i.e. more wasteful than the public sector) to this question because I am well aware that efficiency among different companies and agencies as well as among subgroups in institutions differ widely.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

You edited that last post after it had already been responded to

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

And again, it was just an off the cuff comment and an opinion. It was not meant as an indepth look into my political and economic views. I think that is clear to all who are reading this, except you. I am certainly capable of spending the next few hours going more in depth into the topic. I'm just not sure that I want to right now.

And let's be clear, you can condescend all you want. It doesn't make you any more compelling.

[horatio]

Yep and you proved that you do not care one iota about thinking about this very opinion. Opinions gotta be challenged, just like some days ago when you rightly pointed out with me not being able to admit it that I changed my position about Trek needing change.

By the way, I have used the very same arguments when talking with political friends of mine who argued for a bigger government (and naturally they also accused me of being ideologically blinded, of being a wicked neoliberal and so on). Government is not per se good or bad, wasteful or efficient or whatever. It can ruin the environment like in socialism, it can protect the environment via setting up rules.
And this is really the issue, not market vs. government, private vs. public or whatever but what rules exist in a society to force all the players to act in the best or least damaging way. Sounds fairly pragmatic and non-ideological to me and if it creates some enemies on the right and the left I gotta live with that.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

Nasa works on a shoe string budget compared to other Federal agencies

That's a fallacy.
NASA accomplishes nothing in 40 years and proponents say throw more money at it. That's not going to solve the wasteful spending. This country is already in recession from that concept.

[horatio]

I think Akula has pointed out the problem that when you mothball something and try to resurrect it a few years or decades later all the experts and their expertise is gone. I think guys like Zubrin make the right case, this is inherently inefficient, it will not create useful results today and it has more in common with crazy explorers like Columbus who accidentally reached America.
Going to Mars is as useless as saving the polar bear but via going to Mars we might also accidentally stumble over something and that's why the whole enterprise is worthwhile.

It's a bit like with the Internet, you needed a space of freedom and also financial waste such that people in the military could come up with it, as you cannot achieve it directly, e.g. via setting up a research agenda for a new communication technology. During the sixties there were also similar technological spillovers from the effort to reach the Moon.

So yeah, I think NASA financing, gee, just its very existence can only be rationalized from the 'humankind needs the gaze to the star, a large goal without any apparent benefits' and the 'unanticipated side effects' angles.
One could argue that this very lunatic desire to explore (or do other things) even when there are no practical benefits is what makes us human. Trek is also partly about it, they could all just stay at home and enjoy a happy and easy life with holodecks and replicators but as the old Greek already told us, the happy life is thought to be one of excellence.