Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999
First to Make a Buck on Mars Should Own It
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
>"By landing on Mars, living there some period
>(a year may be too *long*), he does demonstrate
>the capacity to make the whole planet a value." (HB)
Tore Boeckmann:
>If the explorer in question could establish the
>*profitability* of Mars travel, at least
>as a potential that was not purely theoretical,
>I would have less trouble in seeing the light.
Several items come to mind while considering the Mars ownership
issue.
1) Isn't the "capacity to make the whole planet a value"
implicit in the fact that the explorer would have to use the
planet (or at least parts of it) to sustain his life? That's
certainly what value means in the objective sense. This is
assuming he didn't take enough stuff up there with him to keep
him alive the whole time in the first place, which would be
"cheating" as far as the value of Mars is concerned, since Mars
wouldn't in fact be the value (the stuff he took with him would
be the value, not Mars). After all, it will probably take a year
to get there, and a year to get back. If he had a spaceship
large enough to take two years worth of stuff with him, why not
take an extra year's worth (or choose an appropriate
"homesteading" duration), land on Mars, and kick back until he
had to take off? I'm assuming this is not what Harry Binswanger
is talking about, since if the stuff of Mars is *not* being used
to sustain the explorer's life, the concept "value" is not being
used correctly in this application.
2) Concerning Tore Boeckmann's profitability of Mars as a
limiting factor, merely by utilizing the stuff of Mars to
sustain his life, the explorer *would* be making a profit, even
if he doesn't make a dime. For one thing, there's no one to
trade with up there, and for another, he won't be able to bring
much of Mars back with him when he returns (I'm not sure he
could bring back billions of dollars worth of Martian rocks, for
instance). The profitability could be measured in terms of what
Miss Rand calls a "teleological measurement," whereby the time
(or effort) one puts into utilizing something, brings more time
(or energy) to the utilizer. To give a simple and contextual
example of this principle: He spends four hours setting up an
oxygen extractor, which takes Martian dirt, runs it through a
chemical process, and gives off oxygen as a product. After
several hours of operation, this extractor gives him a day's
worth of oxygen -- i.e. he's made a profit.
3) If monetary profitability in the usage of an item is the key
to ownership, wouldn't someone who sent a rover to Mars be able
to make money *off of Mars* by selling the pictures and other
data? After all, Sojourner's pictures got over 100 million hits
on the NASA web site shortly after it landed. Had NASA charged
an admission fee, they would have made a lot of money! If a
private individual did this, would he then own Mars by proving
its profitability?
As an aside, I think any private exploration of Mars should
include making money by selling documentaries. The possibilities
are almost endless along these lines when one considers Jacques
Cousteau financing his expeditions via documentaries, and
likewise with the Discovery Channel making expeditions and
selling advertisements during their airing.
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 01:36:52 -0400 (EDT)
Ayn Rand on Mars
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
>From: Richard Salsman
>
>Only statists will go to Mars - riding, as always,
>on the backs of scientists and businessmen who
>find no value there themselves. Let the profit
>motive - not NASA budgets - determine what's of
>value on Mars. I suspect the investments there would
>pay off as well as have investments in China.
Scientists would most certainly find value there, and
businessmen could. Ten years ago, who would have thought money
could be made by connecting computers together? Granted, we
probably won't know the feasibility until someone tries, but
some people in this forum have come up with good ideas on how to
make money from Mars exploration and exploitation, and we've
only scratched the surface. I'm sure if someone was really
serious about such an endeavor, he could come up with even
better ideas. I think the only thing standing in the way of such
enterprises is the dubious nature of space treaties and such.
And it is specifically statism that prevents investments in
China from paying off (the Chinese people, even with centuries
of being yoked by mysticism, would soon learn to make a buck if
they were free to do so).
Let me ask you this: Assuming it was fully legal (as recognized
by the USA) for individuals to go to Mars in the attempt to make
money (as part of the motivation), with fully recognized
property rights, and a company set themselves the goal of doing
just that, sold stock for $20 per share that skyrocketed up to
$250 per share within six months -- would you consider that to
be a bubble?
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 04:58:21 -0500
Space Exploration
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
>Let some of its lifeblood go to the support of
>achievement and the progress of science. The
>American flag on the moon or on Mars, or on Jupiter
>will, at least, be a worthy monument to what had
>once been a great country." From "Apollo 11,"
>The Objectivist, Sept. 1969> [Ayn Rand]
The mention of Jupiter reminded me of something I watched this
weekend. It was the "Great Books" series as presented on The
Learning Channel. While I don't agree that all of the books they
reviewed are great, at least not by a rational standard, I did
enjoy the intellectual state of mind they put me in.
Two of the books were Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" and
Galileo's "Dialogue." I think both were handled well, and they
made an interesting tie-in.
Near the end of the presentation of Galileo's "Dialogue," the
one that got the great observer in trouble with the Vatican
because he presented the view that the Earth was not the center
of the universe, they showed Galileo down on his knees begging a
high Church assembly for mercy and forgiveness for attempting to
overthrow God's Word. Music began to play -- that exultant sound
supposedly reserved for worshipping God, but actually presents
the abstraction "reverence."
They then switched to one of the Vatican's chief scientists who
was also a priest, who said that the Church had to decide what
to do about the ever advancing evidence that Darwin's idea of
evolution was correct. He claimed there was no "magic moment"
when man came to be, that he was evolving all the time, and the
idea that man came from lower life forms contained a greater
magic and was therefore the greater science.
Upon the screen appeared a computer image of the spacecraft
Galileo moving past Jupiter and its moons, with that reverent
music playing. When it came to Europa, the voice-over said:
Discovered in 1610 by Galileo, the spacecraft Galileo found
evidence for the basic building blocks of life on Europa.
The spacecraft continued onwards, ever deeper into space, and
that music played right along with it.
That moment was indeed a moment of reverence for me, in spite of
the fact that they also had a huge, backlit cross at the top of
the screen. I had taped the episode, so I watched that scene
many times.
It took us 300 years to be able to get to Jupiter, and many men
paid a great price to make it possible. Galileo showed that not
only this Earth, but the Heavens, too, could be understood by
man -- and for that, he was supposed to beg for mercy and
forgiveness.
Let the Vatican's pseudo-scientists claim that Darwin and
Galileo where delving in magic -- some of us know what was
really involved, and what to worship.
I, for one, will not grant them either mercy or forgiveness,
when life is discovered on another planet and their world view
comes crashing down.
