Can Manned Spaceflight Save the Economy?

Barry asks: "Driving home last night I was listening to a particularly goofy AM talk station. Just before the syndicated UFO talk show 'Strange Days... Indeed' came on, the discussion turned to the Mars Rovers and George Bush's newfound love of space exploration. The interesting thought was that a large number of American political leaders were about to join Bush in endorsing a new manned space program because it would generate 'millions of jobs'. Given that manufacturing jobs are being shipped offshore, and high tech jobs are following, this almost made sense. A primarily unemployed population could mean big trouble. So I am wondering how many people were employed during the height of NASA's glory days, and what kind of economic impact would we expect if a similar program - a Mars mission for example - were launched today?"

Re:ummm flawed logic?

[twistedcubic]

Actually, your definition of "saving the economy" is probably very different from GW's and the economists who love him. Nevertheless, since space exploration is where the money is going to be, might as well transition into that career change :)

au contraire.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sick of the latest [cbsnews.com] of Bush's diversionary tactics.
To him I say,
Can manned spaceflight -- save the economy!

Only if it feeds back

[Jerf]

This could be a gigantic boon for the economy, in theory. Anybody who's interested in space has read about the resources and the possibilities in space, and if we could tap that such that space exploration could become self-sustaining, there's no practical upper limit to the wealth this could generate.

If the US intends to maintain its lead, rather then "sink" into a parity position with many countries (by staying relatively stagnant while other countries catch up), this is probably the biggest win that is feasible. (Note that everybody really ought to be rooting for this, even non-Americans, because if the US is rising, so is everybody else in absolute terms; without somebody leading the way I'm fearful we could all end up stagnating together. Yes, some other country could take over but the US could take over more quickly; for a real-life tech example of this, note how quickly IBM because the largest Linux company.) It's worth a try.

In this sense, its utility as an economy saver will be directly related to how deliberately it is run with this idea in mind, to be bold, to deliberately ask private companies to produce technologies and benefit from them, etc.

To the extent that this is run like NASA, it may not be a waste but it will not be an "economy saving" gain.

So, it depends on how its run. As is too often the case, if it is run too "selfishly" (too much focus on the short-term gain), it will be useless. But if it is run well, it could be an amazing boon for the entire human race.

I know which one I'd bet on if I had too... but I can still hope...

Re:rediculous

[shadowbearer]

The Bush PR engine strikes again.

So far I've just seen rhetoric; not any solid plans, nor any way to prevent this getting eaten by the scum-sucking administrative hordes.

For some reason, it reminds me of Reagan and the ISS announcement.

Sigh.

SB

It's a bad idea

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Keynes studied this kind of 'make work' and generally reckoned it's a distinctly bad idea. Most economists agree.

That aside, socialistic space programs like NASA (sorry, but that's pretty much what a government funded program like NASA amounts to) are unable to grow, and being a monopoly, NASA has very little incentive to become more cost-effective. The historical record shows that the inflation adjusted NASA budget is roughly fixed (within a factor of 2). That's a political reality-no huge growth is likely; business atleast has the chance to grow; and often has a much bigger incentive to reduce costs, which allows growth also; via lower prices.

This analysis suggest that the US government should ramp down NASA, and encourage private industry to take up the slack. It's the only thing that makes any sense in the long run; it's the only way to get to Space in any big way.

Yes, it's the broken window falacy.

[GlenRaphael]

Or as Dave Barry [reason.com] puts it:

"See, when the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."

It's nuts to assume that throwing money at some new boondoggle will help the economy. Yeah, throwing money into space might employ people. Or alternately, you could employ a lot of people in the hole-digging industry if the government simply funded a giant industry to dig holes and fill them up again. Why not do that? See the parent poster's link [mises.org].

Insanity

[dffuller]

This reminds me of a Winston Churchill quote I recently read:

"For a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket trying to lift himself up by the handle."

There is absolutely no way that government jobs are going to improve our economic situation; even the wackiest Keynsian economist can tell you that.

Re:NASA stopped creating most of its amazing spino

[GlenRaphael]

VIRTUAL REALITY - NASA-developed research allows a user, with assistance from advanced technology devices, to figuratively project oneself into a computer-generated environment, matching the user's head motion, and, when coupled with a stereo viewing device and appropriate software, creates a telepresence experience.

Oh, sure, NASA is the home of all VR technology.

Come on! Can't you people even TRY to be credible? Do you wanna tell me that the developers of Battle Zone were secretly working for the space program? Or that John Warnock (yeah, the same one who later founded Adobe) was really preparing for a moon shot when he invented the key overlapping object algorithms?

There's some truth in the original assertion. NASA/Ames was one of the earliest sponsors of "goggles and gloves" interface work and related technologies. They had several uses in mind. One idea they were thinking about was virtual control panels. Take the shuttle or the space station: interior space is at a premium and there's a huge need for buttons and joysticks and LEDs and displays to show status and interact with all the gadgets and control surfaces. The user interface parts of a space station or space ship tend to be expensive, delicate, heavy, inflexible, take up a lot of space, and kind of get in the way when not actively in use. The dream of VR with regard to this problem is that with you could take any blank wall of a space station and turn it into exactly the right UI for the task at hand. The astronaut puts on the goggles and gloves when he needs to, say, manipulate the robot arm; he sees all the relevant controls and can interact with them. But it's just a wall, so when you turn the interface off, it's impossible to accidentally interact with it, the indicator lights don't burn out or short out, and you can't accidentally trip over the joystick or crash into the monitor because it isn't there.

Another big idea was using telepresence to control things like a robot arm or a mars rover in hostile environments.

NASA had real prospective uses for this sort of technology and a big budget, so they were a real player in the early days of VR. Which isn't to say that everything VResque wouldn't have happened anyway without them, but it's something. It's not nothing.

Here's a relevant link [fourthwavegroup.com].

Not fast enough to help Bush re-election

[JGski]

There are two "sustainable" sources of GDP growth: population growth and technology innovation. By that I mean, sources that have any chance of ongoing exponential growth, aka the definition of a "healthy economy".

Government spending can contribute to growth but it's a degenerative feedback loop - government "expenses" like taxes tend to eat up a portion of the economic kick each time money flows back through the goverment since most income is taxed. Thus government spending creates a blip which dissipates - if other growth sources aren't on the edge of recovery, the economy won't catch "fire" and start growing.

A space mission would eventually create technological innovation to fuel growth but it takes time to develop new technologies in the first place, more time for a critical mass of technology portfolios that are cross-purposeable outside of government/military to accumulate, and even more time for those technologies to finally take root. The rule of thumb is 15-25 years from the first scientific discovery/creation to the point when noticeable economic benefit results. Consider the Internet. Consider transistors. Consider integrated circuits. Of course you may not pick the correct newly discovered technology to bet on today.

It's not entirely clear how cost effective a Space Program would be. Sure there have been "homeruns" like semiconductors, computers and integrated circuits which never would of existed with the Cold War and the Space Race, but what's in the pipeline that would apply to a space mission, and then be applicable to a broader. The next "Velcro" won't power a major economic burst. Another internet or transistor might. Unfortunately computers and semiconductors themselves are mostly in evolution mode, rather than revolution mode. The "next big things" like nanotechnology and biotechnology are either just entering their 20-year obligatory incubation period or have industrio-technological structural impediments that will prevent revolutionary advances, and neither would seem to have a major role in a space program anyway.

My net-net is: don't assume a new space program will fix anything economically. If Bush thinks it will, he's, again, deluded. The time-constants are all wrong. If you use economics as a justification for a space program you are perpetrating an improbability. There are other good reasons to have a program. Jobs mean stability even if you don't have net growth. A space program, done right, can inspire a nation which is not a trivial thing. If you allow a economic window of 10-30 years, by then a space program will almost certain contribute to technology - the Net Present Value is still debateable. We certainly don't think that far ahead often enough though.

Short Bus

[Ratbert42]

It's exactly this retarded logic that works so well with most Americans. I actually sat in a United Way campaign meeting last month and listened to how wonderful it is that if I just donate a dollar, often an agency can get matching federal funds, sometimes up to 13:1 matching. I was the only one going "wait a second. Those $13 matching dollars are mine!"

I wish I could run my business by taking 40% of people's incomes, wasting 75% of that, and "giving" the rest back to them in crap they don't really need.

Re:ummm flawed logic?

[fingusernames]

Has nobody here read about the proposals? This is Slashdot, but I would expect at least a few people to inject some accurate information.

Bush hasn't proposed raising the NASA budget by 100% or something. He has proposed raising it by about 5%, and REDIRECTING funds internally toward the GOAL of returning to the moon, and later going to Mars. He has proposed replacing the shuttle with an Apollo-like capsule system and an upper stage payload system, like Saturn provided, freeing up the 3.5 BILLION spent per year on the shuttles. That money would be used toward development of NEW technology, rather than maintaining and refitting the 1970 era shuttles.

So, we are talking about 5% growth in the NASA budget, which already is pretty small in the overal federal budget, and moving existing funds around to more productive uses, uses which would promote research and development of new technology.

Sounds QUITE reasonable to me, and it actually gives NASA a MISSION again, as opposed to being some low orbit trucking company.

Larry

Re:sure, why not?

[m_evanchik]

Government inefficiency is a canard. Government is usually fairly efficient. Just like private enterprise, sometimes public enterprise does the job well, sometimes it does it poorly.

One reason that public enterprise sometimes seems more inefficient is because unlike private enterprise, it cannot choose to service only profitable customers. This is evident in the schol systems, where publicly-run or -subsidized schools must deal with the hardest educational cases, such as children with disabilities. Another problem is that, by requiring payments, private schools necessarily only enroll students whose parents take an active interest in their education. The additional financial commitment signals greater parental involvement, which is key to educational success.

The case for more "equitable" taxation across income levels falls apart in the current regime. The rich often pay less a percentage of their incomes than the poor or middle class, when you factor in all taxes, especially sales taxes. While punitive taxes of almost 100% are a bad idea, it is also of questionable value to lower taxes on some income to nothing, as is the case without the inheritance tax.

In the case of health care, in the United States, government run health programs, like medicare or medicaid, have significantly lower administrative costs than their private counterparts.

Finally, all of the first great expeditions of discovery were government-financed: Columbus, Magellan, Vespucci, Hudson, etc., etc.. All of these ventures were wholly dependent on the public teat.

The truth is that a well-run government usually does about as well as a well-run business.