Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (03/09/89)
> of building and launching the satellites? Indeed, what is the > relevance of the asking price for Landsat tapes when their operation is > subsidized? As in many other areas of our economy, the distortion of the marker via subsidies has become necessary to undo the damage caused by other distortions. The fact that EOSAT can not supply proprietary data, ie they can not supply specific images to a company willing to pay for specific images, somewhat limits they utility of the LANDSAT's. Let's face it, the fact that LANDSAT's broadcast unencrypted data means that the only thing EOSAT can really charge for is the image processing and a premium for the pictures that doesn't exceed the cost and hassle (and probable missing of a great deal of data) of someone putting up their own earth station. Yes, for any small user this would be silly. But it means that there is no one to charge real costs to Standard Oil or someone else who might REALLY need the data. Push up the price on SOCO and I'll bet they'd just put up their own dish. So there is no way they can make enough money to build new satellites. And on top of it, they got shnookered on the contract to start with. Given the constraints (above) they were forced to accept, they realistically insisted that the government subsidize the system to pay for it's own stupidity. The ink was hardly dry before the government welched on the deal. Had the people in government been subject to normal contract law, EOSAT could have voided the contract and sued the crooked butts off the US government. This is very similar to the situation with foodstamps (and any of a hundred other areas I could come up with, with a bit of research). We subsidize poor farming practices, crop monocultures and soil destruction by overfarming because the farmers have the clout to put their hands in your wallet, and then have to pay again to subsidize the poor who can afford the price supported food that we paid to price support. Don't you just LOVE government? An extra quiz for 10 points: What do tax subsidized streets and tax subsidized rapid transit have in common with the above? What about tax subsidized irrigation water and tax subsidized efforts to do something about ecological problems caused by lowered water tables and lake levels? What about tax subsidized grazing, mining and logging and tax subsidized environmental efforts to undo the damage? How about tax subsidized shuttles and stations and the need for tax subsidies to private rockets and stations? Anyone see a pattern?