This week, the Biden administration announced the cancellation of the $450 million VIPER moon rover built by NASA over the last five years due to “budget concerns”.
The cancellation of the already constructed rover represents not only a failure in vision or any long term thinking that may have given the decaying republic any viability, but also a failure in understanding the basics of economic value at a time when Russia and China are accelerating a permanent lunar base and lunar mining initiative which will certain become a geopolitical game changer for generations.
When Kennedy hinged the US economy to the boundlessness of space, the martyred president had an understanding that humanity’s moral foundations were hinged upon our capacity to generate ever increasing rates of scientific and technological progress which could only be done by leaping over the limits of growth by encouraging new discoveries along the way.
Without this optimistic approach to solving problems and long term thinking, then it were inevitable that the trappings of Malthusian ‘prophets of doom’ would always dominate society as we became addicted to obsolete technologies, obsolete (and monopolized) finite resources and as scarcity would inevitably increase over time.
The efforts by Donald Trump throughout his first term in office to revive America’s lost space-faring traditions based upon a collaborative policy with Russia and China were contingent upon the ability to revive NASA as a driving force of scientific excellence and NASA’s lunar rover was a major keystone in that success.
When the project was cancelled, $450 million had already been spent on this advanced rover which would have been integral for locating water resources on the moon which would have been invaluable for the long term survival of our species, while also driving incalculable new rates of profit by playing a role in the future lunar industrial economy alongside Russia, China and allies of the BRICS that will certainly open up that horizon in short order.
With the plans to carve up the rover to sell for parts, NASA says that they will save $86 million dollars (which is only a fraction of the $1 billion which NASA has been told to cut for budgetary reasons).
When it comes to bailing out Wall Street banks, or funding regime change wars in the Middle East or proxy wars with Russia it appears hundreds of billions of dollars can be found seemlessly, but when something tied to the welfare of humankind should need funding, then austerity becomes the only game in town.
The Battle Over Two Worldviews
In spite of this evil agenda, solutions do exist. These solutions require a return to an understanding of good debt (anti-inflationary/self extinguishing debt) versus bad debt (hyper-inflationary/cancerous debt).
Where one is tied to processes in the real world that improves lives of people and raises material, intellectual and spiritual standards of all, the other is tied to enslavement of people, destruction of quality of life (materially, intellectually and spiritually. One is desired by masters for their slaves and the other by free citizens. One can only spread by inducing cultures to live in the ephemeral “now” while abandoning abstract notions of “past”, “future” or “morality” while the other is tied to the debt and respect we must pay to past generations and those yet unborn alike. Many great statesmen understood this schism in paradigms as the “American vs British systems”.
In American history, it was once much better understood as certain debts had to be created in order to overcome real (vs. artificially engineered) crises. Examples of such real crises involved the costly American Revolution, whose debts were finally paid off via the application of national banking and industrial growth measures of the 1790s-1820s which transformed a low productivity agrarian society into an industrial force that challenged the economic might of the British empire, and quadrupled America’s population in merely a two generations.
The Case of Lincoln
Due to the South’s resistance to industrial development and national banking, the unbearable tension within America became the basis for the 1861-1865 Civil War.
Following the earlier example of Hamilton, Clay and John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln saved the union via the creation of constitutional greenbacks as a form of federal credit issued via the Treasury and tied to the actual needs of the people. These needs extended beyond the war and into the construction of the greatest mega-project of the time- the Trans Continental Railway (1863-1869). Lincoln’s allies such as Senator Sumner, Henry Carey and William Seward fought desperately to continue Lincoln’s vision of extending the use of greenbacks beyond the Civil War to industrialise and fully liberate the south and also other nations globally.
These efforts were sabotaged by Proto-Deep State agents in America which eliminated the greenbacks, re-empowered the slave power and established the “Specie resumption Act” of 1871 that chained American progress to a worshipping of gold and led into the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve.
The Case of FDR
President Franklin Roosevelt is another patriot often criticised harshly for creating much debt during the New Deal, but unlike the debt created during 1929-1933 under Hoover which merely bailed out failing banks with no real world job creation or growth of the real economy, FDR’s revolution was very different. Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority transformed the southeastern states from rural backwater hillbilly patches where illiteracy averaged 80% in 1933 to a scientific and engineering hub by 1945 (which saw illiteracy drop to 12%) is but one of the thousands of trans-formative projects which “debt” created under real American System leadership.
Breaking America out of the depression involved a life or death war with central bankers which saw FDR face assassination attempts, military coups, and sabotage from the deep state during his entire 12 year presidency which I outlined in depth in my recent paper How to Crush a Bankers’ Dictatorship.
The Case of JFK
John F. Kennedy also created debts but following the role model of Franklin Roosevelt, those debts were tied incredible mega-projects in energy, water, transport and especially space exploration (NASA’s budget reached nearly 4% of US GDP at its peak before the slashing self-sabotage began in 1966).
Recent reports have proven that for every $1 spent on NASA in order to put a man on the moon, over $10 were returned to the American economy in the form of spin-off technologies, inventions and jobs touching on every aspect of society- health, engineering, computing, chemistry, energy, and more.
In all cases above (Lincoln, FDR and JFK), the use of national productive credit was the key to success. All of these leaders circumvented the influence of the City of London agents in America (aka: Wall Street) in their own way. While FDR and JFK fought to break the monopoly over credit established by the Federal Reserve in 1913 via FDR’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation that acted like a National Bank, and JFK’s efforts to create industrial investment tax credits and a silver-backed treasury issued currency outside of Federal Reserve Control.
The China/Russia Alliance Revives the Forgotten American System
The principles of this lost practice of national political economy which are no longer permitted to be taught or practised in modern western universities can be found clearly set out in the writings of Alexander Hamilton’s collected works, and especially his historic reports to Congress of 1790-1971 (Report on a National Bank and Public Credit, Report on Manufactures, and Report on a Mint ).
All of these reports should be studied seriously during today’s systemic crisis as the principles they set out are not only in total opposition with the false “left” Keynesian vs “right” Austrian school arguments constructed by the Fabian Society in the 20th century, but are remarkably in alignment with the best practices of thinking and behaviour of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and broader multi polar alliance which is humanity’s last and best hope to break from the future-less system of oligarchy once and for all.
Whether or not Trump has the capability to revive the bold plan for a US-Russia-China open system cooperative vision based on space exploration or not remains to be seen.
Excellent article and right on target!!
Nixon cancelled the Moon program which was supposed to continue with establishment of a permanent base on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars. Instead he embraced the Banker creeps demands for endless war. Much more costly, but ZERO benefit to humanity. Wars of conquest. And he shutdown the highly successful Molten Salt Reactor program an Oak Ridge lab, fired the Nuclear genius Alvin Weinberg, and ordered all documents destroyed. Fortunately scientists hid the documents in a Church basement which 40yrs later were uncovered by Kirk Sorenson.
Followed by Clinton shutting down the highly successful Integral Fast Reactor project with Pyroprocessing of Spent Nuclear Fuel. And imposed a gag order on the scientists working on it.
And then damaged NASA with porkbarrel spending projects, $150B on the ISS which has done very little in science advancement. $196B for the Space Shuttle program that also did very little. Offered a very expensive ride to LEO which had to be complemented by Russian Soyuz launches, which did the same job but much less expensive. And the ITER $65B Boondoggle, which has just been delayed for another 10yrs. Fusion was progressing nicely until that scam drained most of the funds & talent.
For that much expenditure, we could have permanently manned scientific research stations on the Moon & Mars right now, and likely would have already found extant life on Mars, which almost certainly exists:
We know almost 100% certain that there are living organisms on Mars, right now. The Viking landers themselves virtually proved it, and the excuses NASA came up with to deny that have been debunked. And there is multiple tracks of compelling evidence that confirm that. But NASA, ever since the Viking landers has essentially banned any further direct testing for life on Mars. And even makes sure it doesn't send rovers where there may be extant life. SOMETHING STINKS AT NASA.
Jan Spacek - 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn7wTKIvYAM
How to Search for Life on Mars. First, stop refusing to look. Robert Zubrin, Steven Benner, Jan Špaček:
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-to-search-for-life-on-mars
Steven Benner - The Case for Extant Life on Mars - 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMgIOVXQ_sI
10 Indicators that Mars Might Harbor Life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqf9JloNrts
Will the SpaceX Starship crew find life on Mars? An exclusive interview with Dr. Gilbert Levin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWMdrNpF_nY
Dr. Gilbert Levin, the only surviving Principal Investigator of the 1976 NASA Viking Lander biology team, presents his startling and overwhelming proof for life on Mars.
And now NASA is pushing an absolutely nutty boondoggle sample return mission from Mars. Pure insanity:
Rethink the Mars Program. It’s time to consider alternatives to sample return, Robert Zubrin:
https://spacenews.com/rethink-the-mars-program/
Robert Zubrin is right about the NASA Mars Sample Return Mission! Here's why! The Angry Astronaut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXK1V67VCec
"....A recent review of the plan of its flagship Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission pegged its cost at $10 billion, a price tag that threatens to preclude funding any other exploration missions to the Red Planet for the next decade and a half. ...
"...For the same $10 billion now projected to be spent on the MSR mission over the next 15 years, we could send 20 missions averaging $500 million each in cost. These could include landers, rovers, orbiters, drillers, highly capable helicopters, and possibly balloons or other more novel exploration vehicles as well. Instead of being limited to one exploration site, these could be targeted to 20 sites and carry a vast array of new instruments provided by hundreds of teams of investigators from around the world.
"...Furthermore, the 0.32 estimate for the probability of MSR mission success only includes technical risk. It ignores programmatic risk, which in the case of the ESA orbiter is extremely high...In short, the MSR program of record is extremely high risk. It could very well not produce any science at all... In contrast, the success of the varied program is virtually guaranteed. With 20 independent missions, each with a success probability of 0.8, the odds are that at least 16 of the 20 will succeed – most probably more, since later missions can take advantage of lessons learned on earlier flights. .."
This is the same NASA that claimed it would cost $100B to develop a new heavy lift rocket in the 1990s and take at least 15yrs. And that's a fully disposable rocket. So Musk develops a heavy lift rocket in 4yrs for $5B that lifts over double as much and get this, is also fully reusable.
His SpaceX Falcon 9 now has launch costs now of $1500/kg vs Big Aerospace @ $11,500 to $64,500/kg to LEO. And the Starship pushing those costs down to $100/kg. Meanwhile our illustrious Congress funnels over $24B to the SLS, which so far has got one rocket off the ground at a cost to taxpayers of $4B per launch. Which is about what the Starship program will cost for reusable rockets in 1/4 the development time. Combined with the Orion capsule has cost over $50B and 17yrs with still only one load carried by the Orion (now broke down at the ISS). SpaceX Dragon has carried 11 manned and 9 cargo missions to the ISS already at a cost of $1.7B and 6yrs development time.
No one ever walked on the moon, and no one will ever mine the moon. We have all we need here on Earth.