John Paul II: Philosopher, Poet, Dramatist, Priest, Pope (1920-2005)

God rest his soul.

In my view, he was one of the greatest men of the last century.

John Paul II was lover of freedom. Readers of ths blog may be interested in this quote from him: “Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellspring of initiative and creativity.” He had lived under communism. He knew the score.

He devoted his life to the service of God, as he saw it, through all hardships, and in the face of all opposition.

He was a deep thinker and a prolific writer. It will take decades for the Church, and the world, to digest and fully understand what he wrote and his vision for the Church going forward.

We will not see anything like him again.

May God have mercy on his successor, and grant him courage. He’ll need it.

Oremus pro beatissimo Papa nostro Joanni Paulo.

Up, Up, And Away!

I discussed Chinese preparations to invade Taiwan in this post. Fellow Chicago Boy TMLutas of Flit fame left a comment.

“In other words, conventional invasion has an expiration date attached. I would guess it’s about 5 years after cheap launch becomes a reality.”

This prompted reader David Davenport to ask what was meant by “cheap launch”.

Generally speaking, the biggest expense for a satellite is getting it up there. Rockets are terribly inefficient and costly, but so far no one has built a viable alternative. But there have been some ideas proposed to get around this problem.

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Rendezvous with Titan

Huygens Probe Descends on Titan

Cassini, the NASA/JPL spacecraft currently in orbit around magnificent Saturn, is about to release a probe. On December the 24th, the European Space Agency (ESA) designed and built Huygens Probe will be released on a glide path calculated to insert it on a landing trajectory on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The landing is scheduled for January 14th, 2005.

The Huygens Probe is named after the multi-talented Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan and Saturn’s rings in the 17th century.

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Defund NASA

Here’s a good article by Paul Jacob on the merits of defunding NASA, and allowing private enterprise to lead the charge into space.

Americans and scientists and the current space industry must wean themselves from the idea of subsidy — a point I often make, of other industries, in my Common Sense e-letter. No matter how expertly NASA charges corporations for its services, such as satellite placement and repair, the very existence of a government-funded service bureau introduces a corrupting element into the industry.

Private enterprise can bloom in space. But only by getting NASA and government subsidies out.

Update: Ken made an excellent point in the comments. I was reponding, but I’ll respond here.

The free market has a record of innovation, lowering cost, and improving quality, particularly so in the high tech/high science industry. Government can and should piggy back off the private sector.

You would be surprised what private enterprise will fund. For example, say launch costs for putting heavy loads into space are cut to the point of commodity. Then the variable cost of the high-end research is diminished more or less to the research itself. Even that would probably benefit from privatization. Some company out there will want to look into Magnetic Sail Plasma Beam Propulsion. VC funded startups would want to patent it. Skunk works for the big defense companies would be the candidates with the infrastructure and knowledge base to support it. Letting a VC funded startup shoulder the cost for an expensive bleeding edge technology has historically been a very successful model. For that one startup that figures it out, the payoff would be, literally, astronomical. The other 99% of VC funded startups may be complete duds/write-offs. But that payoff is exactly what VC’s are gunning for. Say I am Kleiner Perkins. I would set aside $100 million, find 10 companies showing the most promise in space propulsion and put $10 million into each. If there aren’t any companies, I would incubate them (KPCB has an in-house entrepreneur program iirc) I would then syndicate the companies to where I own about 20% of each company to lessen the risk, and the companies would get more money to work with. So each company would get about $50 million in funding. If even one company does hit it big, that $10 million is going to be worth a lot more than $100 million. What’s high end space propulsion worth? If they had a lock on Magnetic Sail Plasma Beam Propulsion, I would value it in the public markets to the tune of $5 to $10 billion. 20% of $5 billion is $1 billion, for a 10 fold return on the original investment of $100 million. Bingo, science fiction becomes reality, and we have a new propulsion system.

It’s one scenario. But my main point is that government has a lackluster track record for innovation. They tend to play it safe when it comes to being a catalyst for major change. So why not let the profit-driven private sector do it? It may not seem as “noble” as the pure pursuit of science, but it has a knack of getting the job done.