Buzz Aldrin Wants A Robust Public Option -- On Space Exploration. Why the times have changed too much for such adventures.

Buzz Aldrin on Moon

Yeah, it was a great endeavor, but fine speeches do not make tax receipts grow on trees

Picture was taken by Neil Armstrong and is credited to NASA on site (link under image itself).  NASA's image guidelines  give permission for this use, though nothing is implied by placement as to the agency's approval of this post or blog.

Mr. Aldrin wants to go adventuring, and appears to endorse a public-private plan that might rival the idea that Congress is working on for health care where it becomes a partially private public funded system. 

I think that's what he means anyway.  He rhapsodizes about a renewed vigor he wants to see in the program and stating that private companies are able to help out (Does he mean without government subsidies?).

He explains the style of venture he wants to see and waxes poetic about a Michener statement pushing for the need to go exploring.

The actual quote is:

'An age is called dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because the people refuse to see it.
- James Michener, "SPACE"' 

Reference:  Wisdom and Sayings

But since the reference is to Space travel apparently I guess we can call Aldrin's use of it substituting 'world' for 'age' accurate in intent if not in exact word use.  I like some of Michener's work, but I'm not sure he's the end resource for either the economics nor the need for space travel.

But one thing Mr. Aldrin forgets is that in the glory years of the rush to the moon, the years in which so much ground was broken, we had mostly a 70% upper tax rate.

The rich paid for this adventuring and in return they got advantages from the science in medicine and technological advances they could turn into new industries and sell to the Americans.  

Just like the great (Cough cough) Cold War invasions.  They were done on the backs of the wealthiest Americans at least, unlike the invasions of Bush 41 and Bush 43 some of which turned out to be very expensive indeed.

Since the Reagan revolution the efforts of our nation are done on the backs of the middle and working classes even as the wealthy are sending the jobs for that sector overseas, squeezing the pay of those who still have jobs and reaping big rewards from government efforts.

Bush 43 himself enacted a huge tax cut for the wealthy and then proceeded to plunge our nation into two wars, one that was completely unnecessary though fought more ferociously than the important struggle to block terrorists from using Afghanistan as a playground for terrorist training camps.

And still the jobs keep flooding out.

See post  Bush Administration a Bust For Jobs

These jobs are going overseas, and wealthy business people are reaping the rewards of our loss, even more than the nations that receive the now low paying positions.

And yet, now the middle and working class, with less and less on their plate except in the eyes of well paid Hollywood directors and equally well paid full time Mainstream Press personnel, are expected to pay for a more robust space program?

 Did I get the benefit from the invention of Tang.  No.  I won't touch the stuff.  I'd rather eat oranges and tangerines or even grapefruit than have that non food in my cupboard.  (And since I've adopted the more healthy style of eating, I've lost 70 pounds and am of normal weight so don't talk to me about how we need calories.  I'm a hard working professional gardener.  You don't need as many calories as you think, and Big Food will stuff extras even into 'healthy foods'.)

Did I get the benefit of Teflon and that phony ceramic plate material? 

Um, okay, but I paid the companies that used that material for every product they sold and they got plenty wealthy from them.  They are still getting plenty wealthy from them even though American has turned off to the plates in a return first to stoneware and then to real ceramic, and Teflon and other related products (otherwise branded non stick coatings and stain and water repellents) have been shown to have very bad environmental consequences which I don't see the companies mitigate ing at their own expense.

The point is that companies and often wealthy shareholders received more than their share from the products they create after using research on science done in space and medicine, so they are getting the greater good from such products.

So, though romanticizing space travel with references to Michener and by implication Star Trek and a Sea Fever type wanderlust and craving for exploration often gets even liberal hearts a pumping, I believe we should not go outward until we fix inwards.

If they want to go out exploring the wealthy and business need to pay their fair share.   They have made so much money from taking American's jobs away, they can pay  at least 70% at the highest rate, or maybe we should go all the war back to Eisenhower's 90% top tax rate, as many have suggested.  I'd go along with that, and in fact, I recommended it earlier if America wants to get back to the Eisenhower days of better equality between classes.

As we can see from the time of Reagan, lower taxes for the wealthy have not made us stronger, and are hurting American families. Big Time.

See Buzz Aldrin's article at Huffington Post "Mr. President, Will You Lead Us to Greatness in Space?  Looking for further reference I see that some version of this is also at Nasa.com and other space and news oriented sites". 

NASA does have a habit of getting their promotions out to everyone.  I wonder how much this effort by Mr. Aldrin was his idea and how much comes from NASA whose public relations costs are often picked up by  you and I, Taxpayer. 

(If private companies are actually willing to put up the proper respources to work a new space exploration is program, I'd be all for it, but generally public private ventures actually are about companies getting extra money from us taxpayers to do whatever they might want to do.)

In any case we need to go back to 70% upper tax rate at the least.  

tags: buzz aldrin  nasa  space exploration  public private partnerships  manned space travel  inner solar sytem  

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