Suggestion: read the excellent commentaries/editorials by John Carter McKnight, termed by him “The Spacefaring Web” if you want to follow my reasoning and desire for a new economic-political dynamic more individual rights and space settlement friendly than the current more of the same drivel the Democrats, Republicans, and conventional Libertarians expouse. Then, think it out.

Finally, politics and economics are tools and a means, not an end, for anyone seeking to create a true spacefaring race out in the solar system. For others, political and economic power serve what I term geocentric static culture, rather than serve as midwife to any or all spacefaring cultures. And current geocentric-static political parties and scalar money oriented economies are ill suited to the task of establishing a spacefaring civilization, hence the need for a new political-economic matrix.

To whatever degree that’s true (I’m not going to debate it here, and it seems another strawman to me), it has nothing to do with the pseudo arguments you made against libertarian positions.

I believe I was engaging in serious political discussion. This mythology that our technological culture is supported solely (or even mostly) by “private enterprise” — or that it could be — is dead wrong, and pretending that it is correct does serious damage to producing technically, politically, and economicly realistic routes to a spacefaring civilization.

— Donald

Sorry for the topic drift, Jeff, but yes, we get the picture, Donald. We get the picture that you’re not interested in engaging in serious political discussion.

Do you really think that someone who thinks that privatizing roads would be a good idea should never travel on roads that she’s been forced to pay for with her tax dollars as a protest in support of it?

Unlike you, apparently, most libertarians are realists.

— Donald

Funny, supporting a program in which the Government takes money from an individual (or many individuals, e.g. taxpayers, in this place) under the threat of force (IRS) to give to a bunch of priviledged few (NASA cronies) to spend on a deep space probe with very limited value to the general public doesn’t seem to be a libertarian point of view. What is so important about this mission (or many other similar space robotic missions) that justifies taking money away from people who work hard, earn an income, and who could use that money (taxes) to enhance the quality of life for their family?

Funny, we usually hear on this blogs that the liberals are the evil anti-space devils.

What’s happening here, I think, is a fundamental disconnect in the way you and some of these others decide the validity of policy. If you were to judge outer solar system exploration on a cost/benefit basis, it would be difficult to justify. What is the payoff from learning about the weather on Pluto, anyway, and why does it justify the cost? (I can think of some benefits, but they’re awfully long term.) Clearly there must be some level of cost that wouldn’t be justifiable (I think the $325 T wisecrack is meant to emphasize that), so where does one draw the line?

Still, we have these missions anyway, in part because cost/benefit often isn’t the criterion that is used to make policy decisions. What creates policy is often irrational and emotional, based on who tells the best story. It’s policy driven by myth rather than rational thought. IMO, what we get from this is often policy that feels good but doesn’t actually make sense in the short or the long term.