China Poised to Bring Home Moon Samples
With the impending success of a Lunar sample-return mission, it's worth asking: Does China now lead in the space race?
In particular, how much more difficult than a Lunar sample-return mission is a Mars sample-return mission? Not much I would guess. So what's to stop China from bringing home samples of Martian soil, possibly with microbial life included, before anyone else? Nothing except a geriatric US space agency that lacks a sharp focus on the conquest of space, and couple of American billionaires. True, Musk and Bezos are extremely rich, but can they compete with the Government of China in a race that depends on the availability of a large amounts of brilliant engineering talent and unrestrained expenditure.
What's more, being overtaken in the space race by a Third World country that graduates ten times as many engineers as the US is somethings that intelligent Americans must expect, particularly at a time when white privilege, transgenderism, and shuttering the economy to protect an obesity-prone population habituated to the toxic products of the American fast-food and food-processing industries from the consequences of a novel corona (i.e., common cold type) virus have become leading national preoccupations.
Yes, it looks like an end to the technological supremacy of the American Empire and a time for the Communists again to terrorize the world.
Related:
ZH: China's New Supercomputer "10 Billion Times Faster" Than Google's
We didn't have to organize our society to allow for the creation of such men as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. We didn't have to give them the power of kings. It was contrary to our democratic principles to give ONE rich man the effective vote of millions of other citizens. (I'm not talking communistic redistribution of wealth here. We could have seen Bezos and Musk were richly rewarded for their superior merits, just not THIS MUCH. Bezos may be closing in on the personal net wealth $200 billion dollar mark. We could let them be more rich than Croesus and then when pursuit of further private wealth became meaningless for them, find a way to integrate their talents into the projects of furthering public wealth.)
ReplyDeleteWhen we were firing on all cylinders, we would have recaptured the funds and resources flowing into their private pockets in order to harness those for the greater good of all. This easily could have encompassed the continuation of NASA as a driving force of progress.
I don't think it is fair to complain NASA is a bureaucracy and therefore sluggish. It was a bureaucracy when the USA streaked to the moon in ten or so short years. Also, the now successful Chinese efforts are bureaucratic. I do not think it is generally true bureaucratic organization is stultified and unproductive.
The great reset is going to favor the Chinese model for governance and social organization. From a certain point of view, e.g. progress technologically and exploration of space, it shows signs of superiority. (I'm not sure comparing contemporary China with what the USA and the rest of the west has devolved into is fair, but that is the "on the ground" comparison we are forced to make.) The superior results Musk is achieving can easily be incorporated into the Chinese efforts. I am sure they will be. Musk won't have much to say about it, either. He relies for the protection and preservation of his wealth and property on the frail USA, no matter how rich he is. The frail USA will betray him in a heart beat. Musk probably calculates with this in mind.
I don't care if Bezos is worth 200 billion or 200 trillion provided the money is employed in his business and (a) his business plays by the rules of fair free market competition, and (b) his business provides goods or services that contribute to the welfare of society.
DeleteBezos, after all, is a very smart business manager and he is likely able to generate more value with the available resources than pretty much anyone else. However, I would certainly tax the likes of Bezos heavily on whatever portion of their income they devote to personal consumption. To that end, I think the US would do well to introduce a value added, or consumption tax, at a rate of something like 25%, with a full rebate to those with below the median income from employment (around $39,000, I believe).
In addition, since very rich people derive most of their wealth through capital gains which are not taxed at all if not realized, I would like to see a capital tax of one to two percent, with a basic personal exemption of a million or two.
There are, however, many other issues relating to the concentration of wealth. How much, for example, can a Musk or a Gates gain through political influence? A great deal it would seem. Such advantage may not be a bad thing if the end result is increased national wealth or security. I suspect that influence to aid business tycoons is exercised by governments world-wide precisely to promote national objectives. But naturally an individual with the power to buy political influence will be inclined to use such power for reasons other than the public good. Then great accumulations of wealth may do great harm.
I suspect that you are right in your assessment of the performance of NASA in getting men on the Moon. However, government agencies tend to lose focus over time to become swamps of bureaucratic inertia. I have some experience to back that up, having in the ignorance of my youth, worked for three different governments. My role was that of a humble technician, however, I did have some interaction with the top layers of administration and can assert with confidence that serving the public interest was not a high priority to most of them.
To me, George Bernard Shaw's description of the Average middle-class Englishman seemed to fit the average bureaucrat: fairly intelligent, fairly lazy, and fairly honest, for which reasons I found the company congenial, which is more than I can say of my interaction with many of those I had to deal during a subsequent brief stint in academia -- hence my eventual move to self employment where I found relationships with both suppliers and customers more predictable and, hence more productive, than in the public sector. True, I was swindled by several suppliers, but in a free market one is soon rid of such relationships. Moreover, since a reputation for competence and trustworthiness is a valuable asset in the market sector of the economy, the smartest people go out of their way to earn such a reputation.
What I think is interesting is that the US, China, Russia, India are already converged on the principle of allowing very smart capitalists to do their thing and get very rich. A important difference between China and America is that in China the Communist Party rules and any capitalist who fails to adhere to state direction is likely to have a bullet in the back of the head, whereas in America, the capitalists rule. Who can say, really, which is the best system. We are it seems just rollicking along, without any real idea of where we are going or how things will end, although a nuclear holocaust seems entirely possible, with America and China already preparing for a fight over Taiwan. America, apparently, cannot let Taiwan go because they depend on Taiwanese chip plans for their electronics. For the Chinese, of course, grabbing control of the worlds main chip fabrication plants is no doubt an incentive for bringing the conflict on.