[extropy-chat] SPACE: Shuttle will never fly...

[Technotranscendence]

On Friday, February 20, 2004 11:17 AM Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
wrote:
>> Not as crazy as you think.  Other space
>> agencies sell such, e.g., RSA actually
>> does TV ads on the ISS.  It's funny how
>> NASA is so rabidly against getting money
>> from such sources.  Probably institutionalized
>> elitism at work.
>
> Yeah, though imagine the howls from the
> anti-free market types if Columbia had had
> such ads. They'd be screaming that
> Halliburton money influenced NASAs
> decisions on reentering, blah blah blah...

Probably.  The simple solution, is to privatize NASA and get rid of
government contracting all together.  Barring that, since NASA seems to
be a den of anti-free market types*, just making the ad vetting process
completely transparent.  (Part of the problem with Halliburton and VP
Cheney is a lot of this stuff happens behind closed doors, so it just
looks improper.)

Russia did fly a rocket with the Pizza Hut logo on it a few years ago.
I'm not sure how their process went to get that ad there -- or that it
would fly with the NASA bureaucracy.

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorks.html

*  I haven't heard anyone at NASA try to keep commercialization out of
space because it would look improper.  I think they believe that
non-NASA people and projects in space are just to be tolerated not
encouraged.  Look at how the Agency fought tooth and nail against Dennis
Tito.  (They should be severely and brutally punished for that.)