Space Exploration: Private Sector Investment vs Public Sector Investment

Thanks for the topic jjx. ==Topic interpretation== The resolution uses the word "preferable." Random House defines "preferable" as "more desirable." [1] The easiest way to determine our preferences is to offer us a choice. Example: which do you prefer, an apple or an orange? You immediately imagine I have an apple in one hand and an orange in the other and you are being asked to choose the one you like better. So imagine the following scenario: you have $10 million to invest in space technologies. Do you think that money would go to better uses if: 1) you invested the money directly in a company you liked, 2) you invested your money with a VC firm, or 3) you donated your money to the government? If you answered 1 or 2, then you prefer private investment in space technologies. Fundamentally, when you invest your own money, you have a self-interest in making a good investment or you lose your money! The government has no such incentive since it is never held accountable for losing taxpayer money. The government invested in Solyndra, a company that makes solar panels for the International Space Station. Although the government had a report that said Solyndra would go bankrupt within a year, they still gave them half a billion dollars. The reason: a former Solyndra board member was working for the Energy Department and was aggressively pushing for the money. ==Rebuttal== R1) Critical to defense My opponent argues that NASA technology is critical to discovering new U.S. defense technologies. The first problem with this argument is it assumes that if you vote Con, NASA funding ceases to exist. If I ask you: which do you prefer – apples or oranges – and you answer oranges, do apples cease to exist? I'm not arguing we de-fund NASA; I am merely arguing that private financing is a preferable option, if you are given a choice. The second problem is that NASA DID NOT develop the Air Force's rockets. My opponent never provides a source for this. The Air Force uses the Delta IV rocket, which was developed by Boeing, a private company. In fact, the Augustine Commission did a study of NASA's Constellation Program, which was developing the Ares I rocket in order to replace the space shuttle program. The Augustine Commission concluded that NASA was unable to develop its own rocket and recommended that NASA model its space shuttle replacement on the Delta IV. [2] Today, the flow of expertise is from the Air Force and the private sector to NASA, not the other way around. The third problem: I don't doubt that my opponent's Aviation Week evidence says "space technology is critical to defense," but I DO doubt that it said "and NASA is critical to this process." Today, the military develops and maintains its own space technologies, including spy satellites, launch vehicles, and a prototype for a plane that can enter space (codenamed Blackstar). The ability to "shoot down satellites" most definitely did not come from NASA. The fourth problem: national defense spending is not "space exploration." The fifth problem: my opponent says if we break the contracts, companies would release technology to Russia, China, etc, but 1) we're not abolishing NASA here; 2) NASA doesn't have top secret defense contracts, and 3) defense contracts include non-disclosure agreements. It's treason for a private company to disclose top secret weapons designs to other countries, even if their contract has expired. R2) Safety My opponent argues that NASA is inherently safe and the private sector is inherently unsafe. The first problem with this argument is that the private sector actually has more motivation to keep people safe than the government does. If a private company routinely puts out an unsafe product, it will constantly be sued by customers injured by said product. However, the government has immunity from lawsuits. Private companies have accountability but the government does not. The U.S. government could not be sued for the 1986 Challenger disaster OR the 2003 Columbia disaster, even though both events resulted in the death of the entire crew of astronauts. The second problem is that the topic is not U.S. specific. Does anyone believe that U.S. private companies, like SpaceX, are less safe than Russia or Georgia (the country's) space program? This year, Russia's spaceship crashed during a routine resupply mission to the International Space Station. [3] Russia has permanently downed ALL space missions until it can identify what caused the crash. [4] In contrast, Space X, a private company, recently ran a successful flight of their Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule. [5] SpaceX flew all the way to the International Space Station and landed successfully. In fact, this means SpaceX has the ONLY spaceflight capability in the world. NASA's space shuttle was recently decommissioned. NASA's Constellation program, which was developing a replacement for the space shuttle, was cancelled by the Obama Administration after the Augustine Commission reported that the project was seriously behind schedule and overbudget. And now Russia, with the only remaining space capability, has had to down their space program after an unknown problem caused their spacecraft to explode. The third problem is that my opponent claims private companies would not help each other if one of them was stranded in space. This is just empirically not true. The fishermen on "The Most Dangerous Catch" have gone to GREAT lengths to rescue fellow fishermen, even though they are competing against these rival private fishing vessels. People empathize when their fellow workmen are in distress. R3) NASA creates jobs My opponent argues that NASA's budget is key to job creation. The first problem with this argument is that I am NOT advocating we eliminate NASA. The second problem with this argument is that NASA does not generate NEW jobs. The largely Republican House Budgetary Committee has shot down the last three proposals for new projects that NASA proposed. In contrast, the private sector DOES generate NEW jobs. The third problem is that MOST of NASA's budget does NOT go to "engineers," but rather to bureaucracy and equipment costs. According to NASA's own budget breakdown, $3 billion goes to "cross-agency support," i.e. bureaucracy; of their $6 billion "space operations" budget, $3.1 billion of it goes to decommissioning the Space Shuttle and $2.3 billion of it goes to maintaining the International Space Station; of their nearly $5 billion "science" budget, most of it goes to maintaining various telescopes. [6] Fourth: technically, there is more private sector money to be spent directly on jobs. A study of Aviation Week in 2001 found that $10 billion in venture capital was available each year in the space industry. In contrast, NASA's 2010 budget allocates only $39 million for grants to commercial spaceflight. In addition, money spent in the private sector has a higher rate of return. NASA did a study which found that its R&D spending had a rate of return of 10:1, whereas studies of the private sector find a return of 23:1. [7] Fifth: this argument ignores opportunity cost. We could generate far more money and jobs in this country if we took money out of NASA and invested it in the nation's crumbling infrastructure or in education. Not all jobs are "good jobs." Spending $3 billion a year for NASA to hire hundreds of bureaucrats to "communicate between agencies" is clearly a waste. Sixth: my opponent mentions that the Falcon 9 cost $1.9 billion to develop. That's funny because a NASA study found it would have cost twice as much if NASA had tried to develop the Falcon 9 on its own. [8] Since currently, all but $39 million of NASA's $18 billion budget goes to "itself," that's a lot of government money being spent inefficiently. 99.9% of what NASA does is invest in itself, i.e. investing in an agency with heaps of bureaucracy, that only does OLD projects, and that can't manage to do anything without going vastly overtime and overbudget. The economy doesn't need old jobs, it needs job GROWTH, which means NEW jobs. Since discretionary spending has been frozen, the House refuses to fund NEW projects, and the House FROZE NASA's exploration budget, the only people who can fund NEW projects are private investors. Only a vote Aff is an investment in our nation's FUTURE. [1] http://www.definitions.net... [2] http://www.nasa.gov... [3] http://www.space.com... [4] http://spaceports.blogspot.com... [5] http://www.universetoday.com... [6] http://www.nasa.gov... [7] http://www.fas.org... [8] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...