The White House Plans to Privatize the International Space Station

[King of Heroes]

"Private" does not necessarily mean "for-profit". Non-profit organizations are also privately owned. The ISS could conceivably be adopted by a non-profit organization focused on scientific research. Funding would be provided via donations and maybe for-profit subsidiaries that are spun up to leverage research the ISS produces toward practical applications.

Unlikely, but possible.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Wait, what? Entitlement programs are a drop in a bucket compared to what we spend in military. ROI would far greater if we spent a quarter of what we do on entitlement programs than we do on the military. Military doesn't show shit, ever. Lots of fancy toys but some dudes with stones and AK47s and RPGs can fuck us all up for YEARS and still do so.

What are you smoking? Not talking about discretionary spending here.
Defense is only 16%. Add up Social security, government health care, welfare, federal retiree benefits; Just going by this chart that is 67%. The real number is 71%

 

[NoOther]

So "The White House" is deciding to turn over the INTERNATIONAL space station to corporate interest to turn into a fancy hotel?

Hrm...faux anger much? The plan was always to turn it over to commercial means. The idea being that a commercial entity would then use it to perhaps launch Mars missions or other exploratory missions.

 

[sfsuphysics]

What are you smoking. Not talking about discretionary spending here.
Defense is only 16%. Add up Social security, government health care, welfare, federal retiree benefits; Just going by this chart that is 67%. The real number is 71%

Yeah but how many spaces on your paycheck have deductions for "Defense"? Meanwhile social security, medicare, etc do have specific taxes that are taken out for them, so while yeah they are the largest percentage of outgoing money, they do also account for incoming funds too.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Hrm...faux anger much? The plan was always to turn it over to commercial means. The idea being that a commercial entity would then use it to perhaps launch Mars missions or other exploratory missions.

Regardless of plans, my statement still holds. Does the US government own 100% of it? At what point did other countries give up their share?

 

[DocNo]

The horrifically expensive space pen, instead of just using a pencil comes to mind.

lol - the Space Pen was developed privately, by Paul Fisher (in my home town no less). Pencils aren't used in space either - graphite dust floating around randomly is not cool.

BTW - Space Pens are not overly expensive, and they have many advantages. I have friends in Africa who were complaining about pens always drying out - I sent them some Space Pens and they no longer have that problem (the cartridges are sealed and pressurized). The write upside down and underwater (or in heavy rain). Good stuff!

 

[NoOther]

Wait, what? Entitlement programs are a drop in a bucket compared to what we spend in military. ROI would far greater if we spent a quarter of what we do on entitlement programs than we do on the military. Military doesn't show shit, ever. Lots of fancy toys but some dudes with stones and AK47s and RPGs can fuck us all up for YEARS and still do so.

This is perhaps the funniest thing I have heard all year. Thank you for the laugh. The military budget as pointed out above is only around 16% of the total budget. It is also discretionary, so it gets slashed and cut in areas, and expanded in other areas at a whim. Entitlement programs do not, it is far hard to cut any money in a entitlement program. Also there is zero ROI on entitlement programs, where there actually is ROI on military spending, considering much of the R&D ends up in real life advances in the commercial industry as well.

 

[NoOther]

Regardless of plans, my statement still holds. Does the US government own 100% of it? At what point did other countries give up their share?

Legally I believe the current answer to that is "Meh". The US does own quite a bit of it. The space station is modular for one thing. Also you are leaving out the part where the US could just buyout the rest of it. Since it has been planned to be decommissioned for some time, I don't see why other nations would not sell their portion of it.

So again, I do not see your point at all.

 

[DocNo]

What are you smoking. Not talking about discretionary spending here.
Defense is only 16%. Add up Social security, government health care, welfare, federal retiree benefits; Just going by this chart that is 67%. The real number is 71%

Yup. The real elephant in the room - entitlements are going to sink us way faster than Defense or other discretionary spending - but how dare anyone talk about taking away anyone's future "free" stuff?!?

The real reason democracies can't last - they will implode economically as everyone votes to give themselves more free crap.

 

[DocNo]

Yeah but how many spaces on your paycheck have deductions for "Defense"? Meanwhile social security, medicare, etc do have specific taxes that are taken out for them, so while yeah they are the largest percentage of outgoing money, they do also account for incoming funds too.

Not enough to account for what's going out. Has been that way for almost a decade now, and it's not slowing down.

The system, as currently structured, isn't sustainable. Not at all. Yet no one wants to even talk about it. More people retiring combined with them living longer is what's really at play here. Without substantial restructuring it's going to collapse long before I'm supposed to get benefits out of it. And since most politicians are pussies and most Americans talk a good game about fiscal responsibility but vote otherwse, I don't expect anything to change until we collectively drive over the proverbial cliff.

Just look at all the denial in this thread.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

The plan was always to turn it over to commercial means. The idea being that a commercial entity would then use it to perhaps launch Mars missions or other exploratory missions.

I've never read that. The Russians have considered disconnecting and re-purposing their modules at the end of the ISS mission. Their modules were supposedly built to last at least 30 years. NASA came up with some ideas for recycling Zvezda and a US module for a fuel depot. In practice they just keep extending the ISS mission.

Yup. The real elephant in the room - entitlements are going to sink us way faster than Defense or other discretionary spending - but how dare anyone talk about taking away anyone's future "free" stuff?!?

Slow down there, chicken little. The boomers will be dead soon. Their bump in the population pyramid has had a number of positive and negative effects as it's moved along.

 

[mrp]

Science is business. I consider privatization a better alternative to a controlled atmospheric burn up, or an intentional crash landing in the ocean. That is where the station is headed otherwise. It is past it's original EOL already, and they are not going to just keep extending it like they did this time.

Agreed, the ISS is tying up funding that could be used for exploration. This is along the same lines as the commercial resupply missions to the ISS.

 

[DKS]

I've never read that. The Russians have considered disconnecting and re-purposing their modules at the end of the ISS mission. Their modules were supposedly built to last at least 30 years. NASA came up with some ideas for recycling Zvezda and a US module for a fuel depot. In practice they just keep extending the ISS mission.



Slow down there, chicken little. The boomers will be dead soon. Their bump in the population pyramid has had a number of positive and negative effects as it's moved along.

I suspect other national governments with components on the ISS such as Canada may want to have a say in how their technology is used or sold to private enterprise. Nothing good can come from this proposal.

 

[Gorankar]

Obviously the countries that share ownership with the ISS are going to be consulted. If they don't wanna sell they can take their modules.
This is all depending on them finding an actual buyer for a station that is past EOL.
What the White House did was toss out there that the ISS might be for sale. Now they find out if anyone's actually interested, aand we can start hearing proposals on how they intend to use it.
The buyer could of course be another country as well, if they want to foot the bill for the place.

Why throw away your old space junk when you might be able to find someone to buy it?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Legally I believe the current answer to that is "Meh". The US does own quite a bit of it. The space station is modular for one thing. Also you are leaving out the part where the US could just buyout the rest of it. Since it has been planned to be decommissioned for some time, I don't see why other nations would not sell their portion of it.

So again, I do not see your point at all.

Other countries might not sell their portion of it... to the US. They might have delusions of grandeur in selling their pieces commercially. Other countries might want to buy out the US portion as well, either way it goes there is literally zero chance that any country makes their money back including the US. Lots of could ofs though.

My point was that it's called the International Space Station, not the United States Space Station is all, my point had nothing to do with the current political climate in DC or any of that, it just seemed like an arrogant statement to say "We're going to sell something we don't own all of", kind of like how Napoleon sold us all the land France "owned" in the Lousiana purchase.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Yeah but how many spaces on your paycheck have deductions for "Defense"? Meanwhile social security, medicare, etc do have specific taxes that are taken out for them, so while yeah they are the largest percentage of outgoing money, they do also account for incoming funds too.

I've challenged a lot of people who can't seem to understand the fraud in these government programs to go to the local Social Security office and look at the people in the waiting room.
Will you see elderly people concerning with their SS benefits? NO. You will see MOSTLY young able bodied people lined up and concerning DISABILITY. The vast majority of them are NOT DISABLED!!! M A S S I V E F R A U D and for the most part government agencies turn a blind eye because these people are a made to order democrat voting block.

 

[NoOther]

I've never read that. The Russians have considered disconnecting and re-purposing their modules at the end of the ISS mission. Their modules were supposedly built to last at least 30 years. NASA came up with some ideas for recycling Zvezda and a US module for a fuel depot. In practice they just keep extending the ISS mission.

I don't know why you have not heard about it before, I have been hearing it for quite some time. Here is an article from 2016.

Other countries might not sell their portion of it... to the US. They might have delusions of grandeur in selling their pieces commercially. Other countries might want to buy out the US portion as well, either way it goes there is literally zero chance that any country makes their money back including the US. Lots of could ofs though.

My point was that it's called the International Space Station, not the United States Space Station is all, my point had nothing to do with the current political climate in DC or any of that, it just seemed like an arrogant statement to say "We're going to sell something we don't own all of", kind of like how Napoleon sold us all the land France "owned" in the Lousiana purchase.

The US pays the vast majority of the bill, other countries have significantly dialed back their space investment, and you believe that they would not sell their portion and even would want to buy the Space Station? Come on man. Making it commercial is nothing new and has been talked about before.

As for making their money back, what does that have to do with anything? The point is, it is costing money to maintain and is outdated. Selling it, or even just giving it over to a commercial entity at least nets something in return. The other option is to just scuttle it, which also costs a significant amount of money.

 

[RC-Heli-3D]

We need to develop new forms of propulsion than using solid fuels for controlled explosion effects. I am ready for the millennium falcon hitting the sound barrier in our atmosphere.

 

[tetris42]

The bigger the program, the more money involved, the more fraud, waste, and abuse. This does happen inside corporations as well, and even internal politics can get in the way, but as a rule not anywhere near on the scale as a US government entity.

Waste? Sure, you may have a point there. Fraud? I don't seem to recall the government almost crashing the economy back in 2008 from misrepresenting subprime mortgage loans. Abuse? Was it government activity that led the the Cuyahoga river being so polluted they caught on fire, or children working in mines, or polluting the entire Gulf of Mexico?

 

[sfsuphysics]

I've challenged a lot of people who can't seem to understand the fraud in these government programs to go to the local Social Security office and look at the people in the waiting room.
Will you see elderly people concerning with their SS benefits? NO. You will see MOSTLY young able bodied people lined up and concerning DISABILITY. The vast majority of them are NOT DISABLED!!! M A S S I V E F R A U D and for the most part government agencies turn a blind eye because these people are a made to order democrat voting block.

Now I'm not saying there's not some level of fraud, as there is with just about anything... why do you think you can't return computers to Costco 5 years later anymore? Yeah sure Costco changed their policy on that, but not on everything. That said, I really don't see how this rant on fraud had anything to do with the statement I made. There was some argument of percentage on programs for government spending, and my counter to that is that those big ticket items, SS, Medicare, are actually being funded by specific taxes, so if SS is being 100% funded by taxes (and that's an argument I don't want to get in) then it shouldn't even be on that pie chart because yes the government might spend more on that than anything else but it's already been paid for by everyone from their paychecks. Where as something like defense comes from a "general fund", so that spending is directly taking away from all the other programs that might better use that money (again, that's an argument I don't necessarily agree with, just don't want to get into that).

And I sure as fuck don't know why you felt the need to turn this around into an attack on democrats... actually that's rhetoric, I know why.

 

[lcpiper]

Science is business. I consider privatization a better alternative to a controlled atmospheric burn up, or an intentional crash landing in the ocean. That is where the station is headed otherwise. It is past it's original EOL already, and they are not going to just keep extending it like they did this time.

Exactly ......

The only kinds of people who would think this is a bad idea is academics, professors who have never left the campus, etc.

 

[NoOther]

There was some argument of percentage on programs for government spending, and my counter to that is that those big ticket items, SS, Medicare, are actually being funded by specific taxes, so if SS is being 100% funded by taxes (and that's an argument I don't want to get in) then it shouldn't even be on that pie chart because yes the government might spend more on that than anything else but it's already been paid for by everyone from their paychecks. Where as something like defense comes from a "general fund", so that spending is directly taking away from all the other programs that might better use that money (again, that's an argument I don't necessarily agree with, just don't want to get into that).

Here is where that argument completely fails... Military Defense is a constitutional right for the citizens. It is a pledge between the citizen and their country, that their country will defend them. Social Security and Medicaid are not. Also, those taxes for your Social Security? Yeah, they don't go to your Social Security, they go into a fund that the government uses to pay for other things too. It is part of why people are so upset about the current Social Security program.

 

[PaulP]

So much misinformation on this thread. Most people don't seem to know that all the major components to the ISS have a maximum 30 year lifespan. Space is a very harsh environment. By 2025 those components will have been in orbit for 30 years. So the plan all along was to retire the ISS at that time. Recently there has been talk about running it for a few years longer, but the Russians don't seem interested; they seem to be intent on separating their pieces and going their own way in 2025. If that happens, then the station has a very real deadline since the remaining parts, while having independent power and life support systems, has no way of preventing the slow decay of its orbit. All the boosters are on the Russian segment. So if we want to keep using it for a few more years after 2025 (some have suggested that 3 years more is the max), the US will have to completely fund it on its own. That leads us to this point where the President is suggesting finding private parties to help provide funding to keep it operational for that three year period. This type of public/private partnership is not new and the idea (for the ISS) was originally floated by the Obama administration. Under this plan the ISS would continue to be owned by the International consortium, less the Russians if they take their marbles and go home, and managed by NASA, just as it is now. And instead of just talking about it, this administration is asking Congress for money to start that transition effort now, because 2025 is not that far away.

 

[DukenukemX]

I don't see good things coming from this.

 

[Gorankar]

Waste? Sure, you may have a point there. Fraud? I don't seem to recall the government almost crashing the economy back in 2008 from misrepresenting subprime mortgage loans. Abuse? Was it government activity that led the the Cuyahoga river being so polluted they caught on fire, or children working in mines, or polluting the entire Gulf of Mexico?

I am sure you have a point in there somewhere. When government entities and personnel engage in fraud, waste, and abuse it cost me money, when corporations do it, it cost their shareholders money. That is the only thing I care about.

And government personnel certainly do engage in fraud waste and abuse on a relatively ridiculous scale. I know this from 1st hand experience.

 

[TwistedAegis]

The government does not need to succeed to stay in business. Corporations do have to eventually succeed, or they cease to exist. The levels of fraud, waste, and abuse in any government run endeavor tends to be fairly prevalent. The bigger the program, the more money involved, the more fraud, waste, and abuse. This does happen inside corporations as well, and even internal politics can get in the way, but as a rule not anywhere near on the scale as a US government entity. The horrifically expensive space pen, instead of just using a pencil comes to mind.

Corporations can cease doing business in unprofitable business lines.

Governments' business is people - you can't just "cut off" people and let them die. Even if you wanted to, from a purely realpolitik point of view it isn't an effective way to run a functioning democratic society. So from the get-go, government can't run "like a business".

 

[darckhart]

Exactly ......

The only kinds of people who would think this is a bad idea is academics, professors who have never left the campus, etc.

Yeeaaa... no. Just look at the private sector in biopharm and defense. They bleed money from cost overrun and never delivering on time. Then to top it off, they charge exorbitant prices when it is ready to sell. I don't think federal funding method works either due to bloated bureaucracy, but I sure as heck don't want corporations doing it. Hell, just shift some money from that Defense budget increase. Or that idiotic border wall idea.

 

[nutzo]

The landscape of America has changed drastically since the genesis of the space program. America is so saddled with entitlement payouts it cannot afford space exploration. It has to private companies. This is the case in today's America. The best thing the government can do is get out of the way be easing regulation. To put it bluntly entitlement spending is killing us. Programs put in place in the last century to "help" Americans have been so abused it is ruining America.

And we have the winner.
The government bureaucracy has grown so large and so wasteful, little real work can get done.
You need to also include all the handouts to the states, foreign aid, and government pensions.

Wait, what? Entitlement programs are a drop in a bucket compared to what we spend in military. ROI would far greater if we spent a quarter of what we do on entitlement programs than we do on the military. Military doesn't show shit, ever. Lots of fancy toys but some dudes with stones and AK47s and RPGs can fuck us all up for YEARS and still do so.

15% spent on the military, compared to 73% spent on entitlements.
Considering how messed up the world is after the previous administration, I'd argue we are not spending enough on the military.

 

[NoOther]

Corporations can cease doing business in unprofitable business lines.

Governments' business is people - you can't just "cut off" people and let them die. Even if you wanted to, from a purely realpolitik point of view it isn't an effective way to run a functioning democratic society. So from the get-go, government can't run "like a business".

You actually have that backwards. Cutting off people and letting them die from a business perspective is death, as the people are generally your customers. No customer would want to continue to do business with you if that was your regular operation. On the other hand, it is exactly the government's job to determine when to cut off people and let them die. That actually happens on a regular basis. They consistently determine when to leave soldiers behind, or leave allies behind, or when they cannot sustain a position. It even includes letting whole cities burn.

 

[NoOther]

Yeeaaa... no. Just look at the private sector in biopharm and defense. They bleed money from cost overrun and never delivering on time. Then to top it off, they charge exorbitant prices when it is ready to sell. I don't think federal funding method works either due to bloated bureaucracy, but I sure as heck don't want corporations doing it. Hell, just shift some money from that Defense budget increase. Or that idiotic border wall idea.

And the private companies that do that often tend to fail... Also biopharm is a terrible example as it really is their job to fail far more than it is to succeed. They try many different formulas, models, test, etc before they even find one that can make it to market and make profit.

 

[TwistedAegis]

You actually have that backwards. Cutting off people and letting them die from a business perspective is death, as the people are generally your customers. No customer would want to continue to do business with you if that was your regular operation.

On the other hand, it is exactly the government's job to determine when to cut off people and let them die. That actually happens on a regular basis. They consistently determine when to leave soldiers behind, or leave allies behind, or when they cannot sustain a position. It even includes letting whole cities burn.

Not backwards at all; you're talking about military decision making, not the overall government.

If it costs a business $100 to make a shirt for customer A, but $120 to make it, the business won't make that shirt.

If it costs a hospital $1,000 to serve a patient who has only $500, they won't do it. Etc.

Meanwhile, a government is not going to leave people domestically dying on the streets; well, at least not much more than they do already in the best country on earth..

 

[lcpiper]

Yeeaaa... no. Just look at the private sector in biopharm and defense. They bleed money from cost overrun and never delivering on time. Then to top it off, they charge exorbitant prices when it is ready to sell. I don't think federal funding method works either due to bloated bureaucracy, but I sure as heck don't want corporations doing it. Hell, just shift some money from that Defense budget increase. Or that idiotic border wall idea.

I can't speak to pharma but I know some things after being a contractor for 20 years, most of the problems defense contractors have with their contracts is because of the government customer. If government types are at all involved in the contract work, shit will get fucked up.

Prime example, I started working on this current contract almost 3 years ago. Our IT infrastructure was a mess. At the time I thought that the guys we were replacing were just terribly incompetatant, but over time I came to realize that our server room was the way it was because it had never been planned, it had been "grown". Add something and make it work, keep it all going, add some more, so and so has some old used XXXX equipment they will give us, on and on. We rebuilt it essentially from the ground up and it's far better now, up time is terrific considering we get no maintenance windows and can't work after hours or on weekends.

My best example is backups, there are none. This is a software development lab, what we have in storage is simply not replaceable and we have no backups. We ordered tape drives over 2 years ago, they were cancelled, no money. We reordered the tape drives, they were finally purchased and arrived about 7 months ago .... with no software, the software had been cancelled when they ordered the tape drives.........now we just got the software, and a few weeks later, licenses, but now we are waiting on the customer to confirm and accept our backup strategy, three years, no backups. But it's not the contractor's fault, the customer and their terrible oversight and frankly, in some cases, ineptitude, is a constant roadblock to progress.

We develop software and have these problems, what problems are you going to see with a new airplane or air defense system? The more complex the product, the harder it is to find government people who can hold up their end of the process.

 

[NoOther]

Not backwards at all; you're talking about military decision making, not the overall government.

Military is part of the overall government. And I didn't even mention their decisions for disaster relief, which are also life and death oftentimes. The government makes decisions all the time about actual human lives. Businesses aren't generally directly involved in the decisions about life and death unless it is the medical field. There are occupations that inherently come with danger, but in reality that is the worker making decisions on their own. Businesses often have to institute safety guidelines to help protect their employees. They aren't actively deciding whether they should live.

If it costs a business $100 to make a shirt for customer A, but $120 to make it, the business won't make that shirt.

Say what? So does the shirt cost 100 or 120? I am confused? And what are they selling the shirt for? And who is their customer? What are the materials needed,etc. And what the hell does a shirt have to do with life or death?

If it costs a hospital $1,000 to serve a patient who has only $500, they won't do it. Etc.

False. Hospitals have a code they follow to treat patients. They regularly treat patients that have zero money. They also treat poor patients and will actually negotiate easier payments for them over long periods after reducing the total of their bill to help them out. There are actually very rare occurrences when hospitals turn anyone away. Also note that hospitals often receive money from local government or from charities, few hospitals are for profit enterprises.

Meanwhile, a government is not going to leave people domestically dying on the streets; well, at least not much more than they do already in the best country on earth..

Actually governments do exactly that, consistently. All over the world governments are currently allowing citizens to die for one reason or another.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[lcpiper]

And we have the winner.
The government bureaucracy has grown so large and so wasteful, little real work can get done.
You need to also include all the handouts to the states, foreign aid, and government pensions.






15% spent on the military, compared to 73% spent on entitlements.
Considering how messed up the world is after the previous administration, I'd argue we are not spending enough on the military.

Overall I am not disagreeing with you, but I wanted to point out;

"Handouts to the States?"

I'd bring up that those handouts are the result of tax dollars levied against the citizenry of those States, and held over their heads to force the States to comply with the Fed. Don't follow Federal Education regulation and loose your funding ... which is money that we took from your people for education so...........

What could our States have done with that money, minus the Fed's slice of the pie?

This is how the Federal government got so big to begin with. It doesn't matter what it is you want the Federal government to do, it never comes out of hide, they always have to "grow" the capability to do what you ask them to do.

Take drones, "I'm scared some perv with a drone will be peeking in my windows", so the FAA needs to regulate drones, and now the FCC has grown by another 1,100 jobs and an additional 3.8 million in their budget.

(Honestly I pulled the numbers out of my ass, they are for illustrative purposes )

 

[SilverSliver]

Commercial endeavors are what will drive us to space from this point on. The #1 goal of SpaceX and all commercial space entities should not be going to Mars. The #1 goal of SpaceX and all commercial space entities should be capturing an asteroid and mining it. We must begin constructing our space endeavors in space. Asteroids and comets moved into orbit around the moon and mined there is the only logical first step. After that, cloud cities in Venus are the most logical step for making our species multi-planetary.

 

[RC-Heli-3D]

Commercial endeavors are what will drive us to space from this point on. The #1 goal of SpaceX and all commercial space entities should not be going to Mars. The #1 goal of SpaceX and all commercial space entities should be capturing an asteroid and mining it. We must begin constructing our space endeavors in space. Asteroids and comets moved into orbit around the moon and mined there is the only logical first step. After that, cloud cities in Venus are the most logical step for making our species multi-planetary.

I would encourage on trying to find a way to travel beyond the speed of light.

 

[lcpiper]

...........................Wait, what? Entitlement programs are a drop in a bucket compared to what we spend in military. ROI would far greater if we spent a quarter of what we do on entitlement programs than we do on the military. Military doesn't show shit, ever. Lots of fancy toys but some dudes with stones and AK47s and RPGs can fuck us all up for YEARS and still do so.

Need to get a grip while you are being "real". You make it sound like "some dudes with stones and AK47s and RPGs can fuck us all up for YEARS and still do so" is our military fighting a war. That's isn't what was going on. You probably missed the day President Bush announced “mission accomplished” and the end of combat operations on May 1, 2003. This was the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or what we called OIF. After this, we began OEF, Operation Enduring Freedom which was the US trying to help the Iraqi's establish a safe and free country for themselves. If you think things were the same between these two operations then you are very mistaken as they were as different as day and night. Prior to the OIF, the US military just killed as efficiently as possible and would do so with very little provocation. Afterwards, the US military was asked to transition into a roll they had not been asked to do since Vietnam. What's more, it's a roll they had not trained and planned for so it was alien to the forces.

The day to day reality of the conflict from OEF onward is best described as trying to do a tricky job while some other assholes are fucking with you. So while some US Battalion is tasked with training an Iraqi Police department in some city. This should already sound wrong, US Army training cops ....., yes this is already a problem. But there we are, we are going to try and turn soldiers into policemen, and have them train foreign policemen, while some other assholes are fucking with you. Now your Police Battalion is made up of cops protecting a mostly Sunni part of the city but there is a Shia part of the city and there is another battalion helping out that police department. But the Shia's kill the Sunnis and the Sunnis are killing the Shia's and they just won't stop that shit and sometimes it's the Americans who get caught in the middle.

But that's the job, or at least that's the job our political leaders saddled the military with. The military didn't jump up and say hey, I wana go play in the desert and let some asshole illiterate fuckers take turns trying to blow me up but that's the job they were given.

So how about you revise your statement about who doesn't "show shit" and make the politicians wear that shitty hat that you want to make the military wear?

 

[Guarana [BAWLS]]

What are you smoking? Not talking about discretionary spending here.
Defense is only 16%. Add up Social security, government health care, welfare, federal retiree benefits; Just going by this chart that is 67%. The real number is 71%

Except Social Security is paid for by a separate tax in its entirety? It is a separate pie from the national budget?

And I find it hard to swallow that Medicare/Medicaid are 50% larger than the military budget.

 

[NoOther]

Commercial endeavors are what will drive us to space from this point on. The #1 goal of SpaceX and all commercial space entities should not be going to Mars. The #1 goal of SpaceX and all commercial space entities should be capturing an asteroid and mining it. We must begin constructing our space endeavors in space. Asteroids and comets moved into orbit around the moon and mined there is the only logical first step. After that, cloud cities in Venus are the most logical step for making our species multi-planetary.

Mining asteroids at the moment is astronomically more expensive than going to Mars... You have to send something out to capture the asteroid, or to go out mine it, and bring all of it back to earth. Not to mention that you would have to analyze it thoroughly to make sure it doesn't contain any potential harmful entities that might wreak havoc here. The amount of money you might get for that material pales in comparison to the cost to acquire it. Setting up a colony on Mars is actually the first step in trying to achieve these other endeavors you wish to do. Except Venus, that is just crazy, what makes you think that is some viable target? The surface melts lead, the Atmosphere has hurricane force winds. The air is full of carbon dioxide.

 

[tetris42]

I am sure you have a point in there somewhere. When government entities and personnel engage in fraud, waste, and abuse it cost me money, when corporations do it, it cost their shareholders money. That is the only thing I care about.

My point was some of the largest cases of fraud and abuse have come from the private sector, not the government, yet you're claiming it's nowhere near the same scale. What's a case of government fraud that's been bigger than the 2008 crash? "Abuse" is a more interpretive term, that's why I was looking at abuse of workers and the environment. If you factor in the military, yeah, the military might top them. But you're saying "government" as though it's all one in the same. What sector of government that's not the military has caused more abuse to people or the environment than the private sector has? And if you think that abuse by corporations doesn't come around for you to pay for it, you're dreaming. If a corporation dumps shit in the river, gets away with it, guess who has to pay to clean it up? Your tax dollars. Or better yet, it costs your health care dollars to cover all the people it gives cancer later on. Just because the costs aren't upfront doesn't mean they're not there and very large. That's the problem with our whole system, we don't look at the long term, all those are just externalities.