[2385] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: All-for-One!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Bowery)
Sat Feb 22 14:06:02 1992
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
Date: 22 Feb 92 16:29:21 GMT
Nick Szabo writes:
>Meanwhile, expanding Spacewatch to a 6-telescope network covering
>the entire sky in the optical would cost a quite reasonable $70
>million. We need to start strongly supporting small projects like these.
This is the kind of pure science that the government should
spend its money on.
However, when we finally get around to setting up property rights
in space, I think one of the first things we should do is terminate
public funding for asteroid searches and instead let people
claim any asteroids they find as their property.
A lot of people are upset that the government terminated CRAF,
since it was the only mission that would have gathered information
on an important space resource. With all the emphasis on
space resources these days, cancelling CRAF is absurd.
HOWEVER, people who are thinking seriously about getting into
the asteroid mining business are also thinking about the
advantage of flying private prospecting probes and keeping
the data proprietary. So CRAF and even the enormously
effective work of Tom Gerhls could be cancelled if property
rights were made legitimate. Tom would then become a millionaire
many times over as a private asteroid hunter, which is what I
think he deserves. I would be the first to invest in his
company.
