REM%IMSSS@su-ai.arpa (Robert Elton Maas) (10/23/86)
nrh> Date: 6 Oct 86 05:06:00 GMT nrh> From: pyrnj!mirror!gabriel!inmet!nrh@caip.rutgers.edu nrh> ... What is important is that each shuttle flight nrh> represents a loss to the taxpayers of something like $100 nrh> million. I have two rebuttals, one already stated by somebody else and one new: (1) Most of the money goes to employees within our own nation, recirculating into the tax base, only a small part for exotic materials or foreign employees leaves our economy. -- What really happens is that money is diverted from other employees to these aerospace employees. If these aerospace employees would otherwise be wasting their college education and years of expertise working at a hamburger stand, hiring them to run the shuttle would be beneficial even if the shuttle were virtually worthless, which it isn't. If these aerospace employees would otherwise be building a private launch facility, then we have a major decision to resolve, is the diversion worth it?? (2) We aren't throwing the money away into a business that is failing. We are conducting basic research in operations in space. We are investing in the future, not blowing it on a poor choice of the present. Every company must invest in unproven methods in order to have something new, better then the competitors, in the future to turn into a profit-making activity. The question is what fraction of profit to pay to stockholders and what fraction to invest in the future of the company. Our nation must do the same, and in addition being a major nation in the world must consider investments which help the human race at large rather than the United States alone.