Contra Mozilla

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Big Government

There are, we are told, certain projects which are so big that only a large government can undertake them. Going to outer space, for example, is often cited as something that the government (e.g. NASA) can do but private individuals can not.

The odds-makers in Las Vegas now beg to differ.:
NASA may believe that it'll be the first to land humans on Mars, but don't tell that to Las Vegas betting houses. Popular Mechanics has asked Docsports' Raphael Esparza to set odds for the first organization to put people on Mars, and he believes that SpaceX stands a much better chance of reaching the Red Planet (5 to 1) than anyone else, including NASA (80 to 1). To put it bluntly, SpaceX has the money and the motivation that others don't -- NASA would be the favorite, but its budget cuts are holding it back.
Granted, SpaceX and other private pioneers of the space age get some of their funding from the government via grants--but if NASA can't do it on account of lacking money, whereas SpaceX can, it seems to me that there is more than merely government money at work here.

I support NASA's mission to explore space, and think that this is one of the more worthy things that our government is doing (especially our current government), but I also welcome the fact that individuals in the US may be able to do this--with or without NASA's help.

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