Comment left elsewhere, in response to the crash of Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo, and a snarky (and IMHO inappropriate) comment So glad that private industry can do things so much better than government can. -- The principle difference between private enterprise and public government is not that private enterprise doesnt fail, but that in fact they do--and are obliterated for the failure. If (God forbid) this accident wipes out Virgin Galactic, it does not mean the end of all private enterprise in space; we would still have SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Bigelow Aerospace and Armadillo Aerospace, just to name a few, all of whom have had some success. Nor would it stop Boeing who just announced its entrance in the field as a private corporation, nor would it stop other corporations from being founded based on what was learned by previous generations. If Government fails, however, it cannot be obliterated and replaced by a more efficient government, except through a revolution. Why many on the right disagreed with TARP II and with other corporate bailouts was that the bailouts were specifically designed to *prevent* corporate failure: many on the Right, for example, argued that GM should go bankrupt and dismembered in bankruptcy court along with the too big to fail banks. (Imagine where Tesla would be, for example, if it were able to pick up elements of a dismembered and bankrupt GM for pennies on the dollar.) In fact this was the original impetus for the Tea Party movement: that a culture of bailouts creates moral hazards by preventing failure--failure which weeds out the weak companies and the old ideas in favor of new ideas and new companies. (Thats not to suggest that the Tea Party movement hasnt been corrupted by other people seeking to ride its coattails, natch. Any large movement when it gains momentum will find the same parasites clinging onto them for a ride.) -- The Government, because it cannot fail as an entity (unlike corporations, which can, do, and more importantly *should* fail) is in a sense special--and fiscal conservatives believe because of this special property of essential immortality, governments should be inherently limited in scope as to what they do. And while it is sad that apparently one pilot lost his life and another was injured flying an experimental spacecraft, they were most certainly not the first people injured or killed flying or even flying into space, nor will they be the last. But we know in the century and change since Kitty Hawk, every failure is an opportunity to learn and improve. -- And while that may sound callous to someone that people had to die in order for others to learn and improve the safety of flight--that is simply how things have evolved. It was the early accidents of barn stormers in the 1920s which triggered the creation of the National Transportation Safety Board. It was a 1956 mid-air collision over the Grand Canyon that killed 128 people that triggered the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration and the creation of Air Traffic Control in this country. And it was the collision over San Diego of a passenger jet and a small private airplane, killing 144, which led to the modernization of commercial airspace in this country, and to the creation of TCAS, a traffic collision system which is used by modern airlines today to avoid mid-air collisions. And while all this learning was taking place a number of corporations lost significant money or went completely bankrupt as a result of those accidents. Such as ValueJet, which all but went out of business after the crash of Flight 592 in Florida.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 12:48:03 +0000
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