By John Stossel July 29 2020
This week, American astronauts returned to earth. Their trip to the space station was the first manned launch from the U.S. in 10 years.
By NASA? No. Of course, not.
This space flight happened because government was not in charge.
An Obama administration committee had concluded that launching such a vehicle would take 12 years and cost $36 billion.
But this rocket was finished in half that time — for less than $1 billion (1/36th the predicted cost).
That’s because it was built by Elon Musk’s private company, Space X. He does things faster and cheaper because he spends his own money.
“This is the potential of free enterprise!” explains aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin in my newest video.
Of course, years ago, NASA did manage to send astronauts to the moon.
That succeeded, says Zubrin, “because it was purpose-driven. (America) wanted to astonish the world what free people could do.”
But in the 50 years since then, as transportation improved and computers got smaller and cheaper, NASA made little progress.
Fortunately, President Obama gave private companies permission to compete in space, saying, “We can’t keep doing the same old things as before.”
Competition then cut the cost of space travel to a fraction of what it was.
Why couldn’t NASA have done that?
Because after the moon landing, it became a typical government agency — overbudget and behind schedule. Zubrin says NASA’s purpose seemed to be to “supply money to various suppliers.”
Full Article/commentsGovernment didn’t invent affordable cars, airplanes, iPhones, etc. It took competing entrepreneurs, pursuing profit, to nurture them into the good things we have now.
Get rid of government monopolies.
For-profit competition brings us the best things in life
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