Privatized NASA, effective?

[nightfever]

Congressman Ron Paul, as part of his presidential campaign, wants to privatize NASA. Would this be a good idea for the program, or not? Would it hurt space exploration, or would it allow exploration to be placed in the hands of private market forces that could potentially be more efficient? Your thoughts?

[PhantomWolf]

Oct 26, 2011 15:49:18 GMT -4 nightfever said:

Congressman Ron Paul, as part of his presidential campaign, wants to privatize NASA. Would this be a good idea for the program, or not? Would it hurt space exploration, or would it allow exploration to be placed in the hands of private market forces that could potentially be more efficient? Your thoughts?

If it wasn't for Goverment backing, where would private space industry be?

[echnaton]

Ron Paul talks about many thing, many of which are good, but I don't think he could force the government to cut support for that many jobs. Until someone finds a compelling and profitable reason to go into space it will require government subsidies.

[nightfever]

I also have a sub-question, if you may: Could money for a private spae program be entirely fueled by donations?

[JayUtah]

No, a privatized NASA would not be effective.

The problem with tasking private industry to do public research is that it's a conflict of interest. Private industry does research meant only to increase shareholder value. There is no incentive to share the fruits of that labor with the world at large, and especially with their competitors. This leads to an inefficient expenditure of research resources, since multiple companies may be duplicating the same basic research.

Publicly funded research is extremely important, especially when the research may be costly or may need scarce resources and infrastructure. It is important to do the research once, using public funds, and then share those results with everyone. That doesn't prevent private companies from using that research to make a profit if they can, but it provides for the knowledge to be made available to all and not locked up and kept secret as a competitive advantage in a private marketplace.

That's not to say there aren't some tasks NASA is doing that might be better done by private industry. NASA tried to sell the space shuttle to the public as a credible competitor in the commercial heavy-launch business. NASA shouldn't be trying to compete against private industry for commercial services. But NASA does, and should do, basic research in launch vehicle innovation that all concerned parties can use.

"Doing away with NASA" seems to be the battle cry this election season, but few people seem to realize what else NASA does besides explore space. Research into air safety and crash survival, for example, benefits all manufacturers of passenger airliners. We want that to be publicly funded and available to all interested parties.

A good rule of thumb is to look at the division of effort between public institutions such as the National Institute of Health and the private healthcare industry. That's a good model for how to organize public and private interests to provide for the public good yet allow private industry to do business.

[JayUtah]

Oct 27, 2011 10:24:40 GMT -4 nightfever said:

Could money for a private spae program be entirely fueled by donations?

It's already being done by people like Elon Musk and Paul Allen. They have what amounts to their own private space programs.

The question is still what you want the space program to accomplish. Elon Musk contributes billions to launch vehicle research, but it goes to his own company, which he expects to make a profit. Whatever innovation his company develops with his money is private property and will be kept secret in order to maintain commercial advantage.

People invest in private industry with the expectation of getting their money back with interest. That means they expect the people who take their money to use it in a way that makes a profit, usually in a short period of time. People don't want to wait decades to see their investment pay off. That means that companies tend to be short-sighted in how they spend their research dollars.

We often engage in "pure" science, which is scientific inquiry not generally aimed at solving specific problems but simply in looking to see what's out there. Pure science is almost never directly profitable, but lays important long-term foundations for future work. Private companies don't often do pure science because it doesn't produce a visible return for the shareholders. Hence we evolved a system where public funds would go to pure research, where everyone pays and everyone gets to see the results. That way it's not tied to any specific profit motive.

[nightfever]

Thank you for your replies

[twik]

I don't see a privatized NASA as being of much use for pure research. Private organizations are bound to concentrate only on things that will benefit them, as well as to conceal or control information that would give them a competitive advantage.

So, the question is really, "Do we want a government-supported agency for that will do research that is not specifically aimed at generating a profit, and which makes that information generally available, or do we think space flight can advance sufficiently through companies working for their own benefit, and generating information and technology for the world in general as a sort of by-product?"

I'm not saying that the second is not a position that can be defended strongly - lots of technology is developed by private industry. However, there are some things (such as photographs of the Martian surface) that will have little monetary benefit for decades, if ever. I don't think a "private NASA" would bother with the Martian Rovers - if they did, they would probably be out of business pretty soon.

So, a "privatized NASA" would be a NASA in name only. It would not be doing what NASA does now.

[twik]

Oh, and for the second question - if the public is unwilling to pay taxes for NASA, how many do you think will make charitable donations? Perhaps enough to keep the Space Centers open as museums, not much more.

[ka9q]

Charitable donations are already heavily influenced by tax law. Donations to charities are tax deductible, so the government effectively subsidizes the charity. For a straight cash donation the subsidy is just your marginal tax rate, but it can be considerably greater in certain special cases. For example, if you donate highly appreciated stock to a charity, you can deduct its full market value and the charity can sell it without either of you having to pay the capital gains tax.

Charitable entities unable to get (or who lose) tax-deductible status find it almost impossible to get donations.

[raven]

NASA, in my opinion should be about Science for Sciences Sake.
There isn't exactly a profit to had by sending rovers to Mars or diving into Jupiter, or sending a telescope above an obscuring atmosphere for clearer imaging. No sane investor would stand for it.
Yet NASA did those things.
And they gave us a new eye into the heavens, new and detailed knowledge of our next planet out, and information unattainable otherwise on the the largest of the gas giants in our solar system.
We can debate the place manned missions have in this, but in my opinion Science is NASA biggest priority, and a private NASA, whatever else it could do better, could not fulfil this priority.

[ka9q]

I agree. Private companies are great for many things, such as providing goods and services in exchange for money, especially when an open and competitive market keeps them honest and efficient. But they just don't have an incentive to pursue pure scientific knowledge that may not pay off economically for a long time, if it ever does.

So there's definitely a place for public funding of basic science. Not just the kind of science that NASA does (space science, astronomy, etc) but every kind of pure science including biology, physics, chemistry, geology, psychology, and many others.

[randombloke]

The only way a privatised NASA could function in anything close to the same capacity as the current incarnation is if the government of the USA was its only customer and also its sole shareholder. At which point you have to ask why you'd go to all that trouble to do essentially nothing?

[ka9q]

Well, that's pretty much what we already have considering how much NASA work is done by industrial contractors.

[twik]

But the industrial contractors are doing what NASA tells them to do. They're not doing their own projects.