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Jared Isaacman proves in an op-ed today why Trump dumped him

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman has now proven he was
the wrong man for NASA administrator

In an op-ed posted today by Jared Isaacman and Newt Gingrich, the two men pushed the idea that NASA should lead a new “mini-Manhattan Project” to develop “nuclear-electric-powered spaceships” in order to conquer the heavens.

The President’s budget calls for an eventual pivot away from NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS)—leaving the heavy-lift rocket business to a capable commercial industry. That pivot should be toward something no other agency, organization, or company is capable of accomplishing: building a fleet of nuclear-electric-powered spaceships and extending America’s reach in the ultimate high ground of space.

The NASA centers, workforce, and contractors that manage, assemble, and test SLS are suited to take on this inspiring and necessary challenge. NASA Center at Michoud, for example, built landing craft during WWII, the Saturn V during the space race, the Space Shuttle, and the SLS. It is now waiting for the next logical evolution to ensure the competitiveness of our national space capabilities.

Oy. What piffle. First of all, except for SLS, all the NASA achievements listed above are from almost a half century ago. No one at NASA today built WWII landing craft, the Saturn-5, or the Space Shuttle. And claiming that the more recent SLS is an accomplishment to be proud of is like saying my zits make me handsome.

Second, it has become patently obvious in the last three decades that NASA can’t build anything at all. It acts as a jobs program, funneling cash to big contractors while siphoning a large percentage (generally around 50%) to maintain NASA’s large and generally unproductive staffs and centers.

For Isaacman to advocate this big government project — run by NASA — proves Trump was right to dump him as NASA administrator. As much as he is a businessman and an entrepreneur worth billions, he proves with this op-ed that he is still wedded to the idea of big budget, big government-run programs. Both he and Gingrich seem completely unaware of the government’s endless failures, not just at NASA but across the board.

Had Isaacman become NASA administrator I now firmly believe he would have not made the right decisions. Instead of fostering a private industry capable of doing anything it wanted to do, he would have worked to empower the agency and weaken private enterprise.

It does appear the American space industry dodged a bullet here. Thank you President Trump.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

41 comments

  • F

    NASA has become more interested in skyrocketing budgets than it is in the sky and rockets.

  • Chuck

    Boy, do we ever agree on this one!

    If Jared and Newt want nuclear-powered spaceships, the best move would be to set up a SMALL government body to manage the radioactives, and pass out contracts for the engines.

    Probably better yet, just give it to DoD. Put a test engine on an X-37.

  • Shallow Minded Reader

    Hear Hear! The american taxpayer and private space just dodged another Deep State bullet.

  • Max

    The theme appears to be centered around nuclear power (in which “I strongly agree” that it’s necessity, even vital for a future in space) in which they claim they’re the only ones who can provide it, and the leader ship. Quote;

    “Our competitors are not waiting. China and Russia are investing heavily in nuclear space technologies. If America wants to lead, NASA must take on the hard problems again and do the near-impossible. It must urgently deliver the systems only it can build—leaving routine operations such as Earth-to-orbit delivery to the healthy commercial launch industry”

    Again promising what it can’t deliver.
    That last bit makes me laugh, NASA cannot even provide “routine operations” of earth to orbit! how can we rely on them to “urgently deliver the systems only it can build” when it can’t even provide the simplest functions? Why is it so urgent? What is changed in the last 60 years?
    (much of the nuclear technology it wants to develop have been researched and prototypes made before the 70s)

    Is it because a potential enemies may control the Highground? Something that other top down administrations have been working towards for that same 60 years? (Proving not very efficient.)

    Russia is swimming in oil for power, but builds nuclear powered ships to provide power for cities from the ocean port. More ships being built for various island nations who need Power for their own industry, and for the Arabic peninsula for desalinization.
    China is rapidly expanding its nuclear power capacity, with 58 operational reactors and 27 more under construction as of 2024. The country plans to build a total of 150 new reactors by 2035. 500 Gigawatts by 2050. (no more smog over Beijing China, in which smog floats over the Pacific providing California with 75% of its pollution)

    United States is building… Two?

    The only thing that could possibly turn this trend around is private industry…
    Unleash the leviathan.

    And permanently stop more politicians like Hillary Clinton from selling our nuclear stock pile as thin as it is. (The same for the strategic oil supply that Biden sold to China)

    Doesn’t the Russian submarine Kursk, on the bottom of the ocean, have a brand new reactor? It would sure be newsworthy if it suddenly was to end up in orbit powering vital systems…
    Not realistic I know, more likely it would be integrated into an old cruise ship parked in a South Pacific atoll launch complex for a James Bond villain… that probably looks like Jeff Bezos.
    As a sidenote, turkey now has it’s own super sonic missiles. Soon to be available on the market along with the AI attack drones.
    The world is changing.
    The race for the Highground for military reasons might be the true point of this article without being blatant. That would not be good for the space race. Nothing is more dangerous then leaders of country’s feeling like they’re losing control and power… especially to upstart billionaires.
    But then a cognitive functioning AI maybe the true threat we will never see coming. How do you fight that?
    “Skynet is online”

  • pzatchok

    They tested a nuclear rocket years ago. Nuclear core heating fuel directly.

    It was unmaintainable. The heat broke down the core and they could not find a way to replace the material while in space.

  • David Eastman

    pzatchok: I don’t know if you intend it this way, but that comment of yours reads as “We tried before. It was hard, there were problems, so clearly the whole technology should be given up on and we should never try again.”

    Yes, if I was funding or otherwise relying on a new program to develop actual nuclear reactors and engines in space, I’d like to know that they’ve looked at the previous attempts, studied the problems, and have an approach to deal with that in mind from the start. But I’m not going to just assume it’s a complete waste of time and money because someone else failed at it years ago.

  • Lynn

    Disappointing that Newt wouldn’t know better.

  • Mike Borgelt

    pzatchok, nuclear thermal engines were rather better than you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
    They were pretty much ready to fly when cancelled.

  • Ronaldus Magnus

    “”
    Oy. What piffle.””

    Piffle!

    I haven’t thought of that word in quite some time! It describes to a tee so much.

    The memes write themselves:

    Head Piffler
    Piffler In Chief

  • Curtis

    It’s like the motto of every government agency and lab is that of the House of Orange. They never actually produce anything new unless they are held at gunpoint and given 10-15 years to adjust to the novel concept of actually producing something new. I hope the next choice is more attuned to actual results and pushes industry to develop the means and methods.

  • wayne

    “Nuclear Propulsion in Space” (1968)
    https://youtu.be/eDNX65d-FBY
    23:48

  • GWB

    Max
    August 14, 2025 at 7:29 pm

    The only thing that could possibly turn this trend around is private industry…

    Primarily driven by getting gov’t out of the way. Which seems to be where Trump is going.

  • wayne

    Phoebus-2A:
    Los Alamos 4000-Megawatt Nuclear Rocket Engine
    https://youtu.be/LjU9kP_zd70
    11:45

  • I wouldn’t judge Issacman’s planning on just this op-ed. How much of it was political enough to keep people happy? Jared’s interview on Glenn Beck’s show I found to be much more informative. Newt has never really been a space guy unless it was politically expedient to be so. I suspect that is happening here.

    https://youtu.be/v-qvKZtCMcw?si=H4JfuXvm80-KJSmS

  • wayne

    Kiwi TNT (Transient Nuclear Test)
    January 12, 1965
    https://youtu.be/4zSCdYu2Ps8
    28:12

    The first generation of Rover rocket engines were dubbed Kiwis. These were never intended to fly, hence the name. The culminating test of the Kiwi series was called Kiwi TNT (Transient Nuclear Test).
    In this test, a Kiwi rocket was intentionally exploded at the Nevada Test Site.

  • Richard M

    For Isaacman to advocate this big government project — run by NASA — proves Trump was right to dump him as NASA administrator.

    Well….I think this might show why Trump’s decision could have a positive *outcome*, but I don’t think it had anything to do with why Trump dumped him as nominee. I find it hard to believe Trump even knew about his views on NASA doing nuclear propulsion, let alone cared about them! On all evidence available so far (and I admit, the full story has yet to be told publicly), it seems to have been just a casualty of the intramural scrum between Sergio Gor and Elon Musk, in which Isaacman had zero prior personal or political relationship with Trump to fall back on for protection. Trump has done some libertarian policy things as president, but he is not an instinctual libertarian in a broad sense. His Jacksonianism makes him as vulnerable to “national greatness” initiatives (especially if he can get his name on them!) as the fun of blowing up things inside the Beltway if you get the right person in the room with him at the right time…

    The idea of NASA undertaking research on things “no other agency, organization, or company is capable of accomplishing” has something to be said for it; it’s even truest to NASA’s original charter, after all. That nuclear propulsion, at leats of this sort, is not likely to have the value for near or medium term human space flight that Jared Isaacman hopes, or that NASA as an agency in its present condition may be too calcified to even undertake it are seperate questions….ones which one wishes Jared Isaacman had thought more about. (Small scale nuclear reactors like Kilopower for off-planet use, on the other hand, seem like something we could actually use near-term on the Moon or Mars.)

    Still, if Jared had actually been able to kill off SLS and Orion after Artemis III, I think I might live with things like this. I am not saying he *would* have, but I think he had a better shot at selling that on the Hill than Sean Duffy has.

  • Saville

    The article was pushing Nuclear Electric not Nuclear Thermal. So I don’t believe that the the limitations pzatchock mentions aren’t relevant.

    NASA would be good for testing various bits and pieces and ideas of the NEP concept (and/or NTP).

    But the whole program? A “Manhattan” project? Nah. NASA is fer too sclerotic these days. NASA isn’t inthe business, nor is it designed, to generate fleets of anything.

    If/when NEP/NPT is viable and needed business will make it happen. But of there are things to be researched NASA can compete for research grants.

  • Nuclear thermal is fine, but don’t forget Old Bang Bang, the original Orion concept. That one actually flew a test using conventional explosives. Cheers –

  • Richard M: I think you are looking too much at the trees and not the forest. My conclusion here about Trump’s decision to dump Isaacman is not based on this particular nuclear rocket engine proposal (which of course didn’t exist back then), but on my sense of Trump’s ability to judge people. I think Trump took a long measure of Isaacman overall in June, including listening to the opposition to him from others in the administration, and decided Isaacman couldn’t be trusted. And we now know Trump was right.

    To me, it doesn’t matter what else Isaacman has said. To willingly put his name to this absurd op-ed indicates both utter ignorance about NASA’s failures as well as an eagerness to feed the swamp pork, either naively or corruptly.

    We don’t want these kinds of people running things in Washington.

  • wayne

    George Harrison
    “Got My Mind Set On You” (Version II)
    https://youtu.be/_71w4UA2Oxo
    (3:51)

    “But it’s gonna take money, a whole lotta spendin’ money,
    It’s gonna take plenty of money, to do it right, child.
    It’s gonna take time, whole lot of precious time,
    It’s gonna take patience and time, mmm,
    To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it
    To do it right, child…”

  • Richard M

    Hello Bob,

    I could feel more confidence in the reality of the assessment you think happened if there weren’t so many other contradictory signals from the Trump White House. Starting with the fact that he actually had staff looking into ways to get out of SpaceX federal contracts (and, discovering that there weren’t any alternatives), apparently out of pique at Elon Musk as part of Trump’s ongoing feud with him.

    The regulatory revisions you pointed to in your post several hours ago are a contrary data point, to be sure, the sort of thing we all want to see more of! But I am still skeptical that Trump actually has any crusade against Big Government NASA programs. I think the effort to zero out SLS and Orion was wholly the initiative of Russ Vought, and there does not seem to be any real juice elsewhere to sustain that effort in the White House in the face of congressional efforts to keep this pork flowing.

    I hate to attempt an exercise in discerning true authorship but the op-ed feels a lot like a Gingrich piece. That doesn’t absolve Isaacman from responsibility of signing on to it, if that is all he did. I think Joe has a point up above, though, that notwithstanding this, Isaacman *could* have been an overall positive force in pushing US space policy in the kind of commercial direction we all want to see more of, if not as far as perhaps a lot of us would like. We’ll never know now, of course. But right now, we sure don’t have Jared in there, but we also don’t have anything more than a very part-time Sean Duffy in place, and the result is that Ted Cruz and friends are piling back all the worst pieces of pork back into the budget (but not most of the science missions that actually have some value!), apparently with no administration pushback.

  • Richard M wrote, “I hate to attempt an exercise in discerning true authorship but the op-ed feels a lot like a Gingrich piece.”

    To me, this op-ed appeared more like something written by a lobbyist ghost writer, something that goes on routinely in DC. I myself have been approached several times by such pondscum, asking if they could write an op-ed under my name, get it published, and send me the check. I laughed in their face.

    If so, it also speaks badly of Isaacman, that he would participate in such a thing.

    As for Trump, he has always been opposed the government regulation, but followed through very inconsistently. In his first administration he trimmed EPA’s staffing very aggressively, but did little elsewhere. He did however forbid the federal bureaucracy from imposing any new regulations during that first term, and tasked it to move fast in issuing licenses and approvals.

    In his second term however he is taking no prisoners, across the board. He is moving hard to shut down this out-of-control bureaucracy by eliminating much of it. And that includes NASA and SLS/Orion. Voight might be his pitbull in this matter, but Voight is only doing what Trump wants done.

  • Lee S

    @ Bob, and anyone else with an insight into the current restructuring of NASA.

    I totally understand your breakdown of Isaacman getting the boot. I absolutely agree with NASA also getting the boot for manned space flight… But much ( admittedly left leaning sources ) of what I am listening to or reading are discussing the cancelling of many of the current science missions, and removal of funding from much of science research in the US in general.

    I completely understand that the US shouldn’t pay for everything… But I think that the largest economy in the world holds a great light in leading science research… By cutting back this light gets dimmer…

    How do you guys feel?

  • Lee S: I refer you to an essay I wrote fourteen years ago, which despite its age remains as topical and up-to-date on these issues as if I had written it today:

    NASA, the federal budget, and common sense

  • Jeff Wright

    Trump isn’t into the weeds enough to worry as to what Jared would do.
    Duffy is pro-nuclear as well–no difference, except Duffy is looking at ground based power plants.

    There have been advances in atomic power:
    https://techxplore.com/news/2025-08-effort-boost-nuclear-fuel.html
    https://phys.org/news/2025-08-graphite-pore-size-clues-nuclear.html

    I *want* NASA to have more Rickovers, less Proxmires.

  • sippin_bourbon

    What commercial space companies have expressed an interest in pursuing this kind of work?
    And have access to the nuclear material needed to create this kind of propulsion system?
    And are 100% American owned (ITAR)?
    And have the budget to sink into this R&D?
    And the facilities to do it?
    And are willing to gamble that if the POTUS Admin changes over in 2028, that the program will still be funded ( this assumes massive Gov grants, because they would already be doing it already otherwise)?

  • Doubting Thomas

    Jeff – Having lived and worked through Rickover, I’d like to have less of the Kindly Old Gentleman (KOG) as we called him in the nuclear navy. He got things going but in the end some of our lack of industrial base today can be traced back to some of Rickover’s decisions in the 70″s.

    Regarding Issacman and Gingrich discussion – I thought that Newt was a fan of the Bob Zubrin idea of super X prizes.

    All my books packed away temporarily, so can’t find reference but in one of his Mars books, Zubrin proposed a series of X prizes starting in the 100’s of $K and proceeding to $5 (?) Billion for repeatable manned Mars Mission.

    As multiple people here have pointed out, such an approach is not good for big government graft and featherbedding, so not much interest in the permanent government class,

  • Edward

    From the Isaacman/Gingrich essay:

    Like the railroads that once opened the American frontier, nuclear propulsion is an efficient means of accelerating mass through deep space.

    OK. That much is true. However, railroads opened the American frontier by the railroad companies opening the frontier. They built the locomotives and rolling stock, they built the rails, and they built the various facilities to run and maintain their own railroads. The closest the government came to building any railroads was when they funded the Transcontinental Railroad (TR).

    Government funding in space has also happened in a similar way with the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program (turned into the successful ongoing Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program), Commercial Crew Program (CCP), Commercial Lunar Payloads Services (CLPS), Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program, and the Human Landing System (HLS) for landing the first woman and the first person of color — no wait, it is now — landing Ted Cruz’s daughters on the moon.

    In all these cases, it was the government funding private commercial companies to do the government’s bidding, yet the commercial companies retained the ownership and operations of their hardware, software, and processes. TR, COTS, and CRS, and CCP were all successful, and CLPS has already turned out one successful lander.

    Forget a mini-Manhattan Project. If NASA thinks the time is right, it should fund four companies to pull this off in the same way that they did COTS and CCP.

    Is the time right? What would nuclear propulsion be used for, and are we ready to do that, yet? Is nuclear propulsion going to turn into another SLS, a rocket without a mission?

    I am convinced that NASA should transform itself into a valuable resource for spacefaring companies, like the old NACA was, rather than be the leader of America’s space endeavors. Our commercial space companies have more imagination and more funding than NASA can generate, so it should be our commercial space companies doing the innovation, even if that innovation needs a little help from NASA facilities or heritage NASA knowledge. Funding to do NASA’s exploration, as with the CLPS program, is a good way for the government to get done what it wants done, similar to the Transcontinental Railroad.

    It is these models that will open up space, not NASA’s leadership, just as it was a similar model that kept America leading the aviation industry with NACA assistance, not with NACA leadership.
    __________________
    Lee S,
    You wrote: “I completely understand that the US shouldn’t pay for everything… But I think that the largest economy in the world holds a great light in leading science research… By cutting back this light gets dimmer… How do you guys feel?

    I think the quantity of research is not the real question, but it is the quality that matters. Right now, we have a lot of science papers being written, and we have a lot of them being retracted due to poor workmanship. We have a “publish or perish” environment, which means that our scientists are encouraged to publish anything in order to keep their jobs, and if that “anything” turns out to be rubbish, then at least they still have their jobs.

    This topic is timely. A couple of days ago I read the following essay on the quality vs. the quantity of science:
    https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/57783/

    This is the price to pay when one is dedicated to the proposition More Science Is Better.

    When health research is poorly done, it can kill millions before it is corrected. When climate research is poorly done, trillions of dollars can be squandered chasing phantoms.

  • Edward: Just for clarity, the government didn’t even fund the transcontinental railroad. All it did was promise land to the railroad companies for every foot of track they laid, along the right of way.

    All the railroads in the 19th century were built with private funds. The government was hardly involved at all, except in cases where a little blackmail (using threatened legislation) could get politicians some convenient kickbacks.

  • wayne

    Mr. Z.,
    Sorta depends on the operative word “fund,” as applied to the transcontinental railroads.

    – Land grants start with a simple 200-foot right-of-way on each side of the track.
    – Upon completion of any consecutive 40-mile portion; the railroad is given “every alternative odd Section of land amounting to 5 Sections on each side of the track, for 10 Sections total per mile.”
    (640 acres per Section, or 6,400 acres per mile)
    –“All mineral rights on those Sections remain with the Federal government, but the railroad owns all timber rights.”
    –All land acquired in this manner not sold within 3 years after completion of the total & complete route, “shall be subject to settlement and preemption, like other public lands, at a price not exceeding one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.”
    -Upon completion of any consecutive 40-mile segment, the railroad shall receive loans denominated in 30-year US Government Treasury Bonds, payable at 6% per year, and paid out to the railroad at the rate of $16,000 per mile for flat prairie-land construction, $32,000 per mile for hilly terrain, and $48,000 per mile in the mountains.

    Pacific Railway Act of 1862
    https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/pacific-railway-act

  • wayne

    “Thomas Durant’s Final Speech”
    https://youtu.be/o30_t_p7bTY
    4:53

    “1,776 miles of iron track, that is what I delivered. Track upon which thousands of wheels will now revolve, carrying on their axles the wealth of half the world. Drawn by the iron horse, announcing to the world with its piercing scream that we are a great people who can accomplish great things.
    Yet the American people, driven by their cowardly representatives in Washington are in need of a villain. So, here I sit, elected by you, to play my part. The part of the scapegoat, the patsy, sent into the Wilderness so that men sitting in this room can lay their sins upon my back, and claim they themselves are clean. Men enjoying immunity while enriching themselves on the backs of those who sacrificed everything, to make manifest America’s destiny. Blood has been spilled, lives have been lost, men have been ruined. I saw it, and I survived. I will not return from the wild
    having made America’s dream a reality, only to have 6 bureaucrats in starched collars judge the manner
    in which I realized that dream. Put me on trial, lock me in prison, erase me from the record. For history is written in pencil, and the truth is carved in steel across this Nation.
    And one truth above all others; without me and men like me, your glorious railroad could never have been built.”

  • John

    Everybody calm down, the US is not building a nuclear powered spaceship even if it wanted to. Uncle Sam can print all the money in the world, but we barely have the industrial base and skilled workforce to build and maintain things like (regular) ships, submarines, and aircraft. Besides, the big beautiful debt as a percentage of GDP is already at a level commensurate of having fought and won a world war. I know we’re giddy from the spectacular successes of SLS, but jet’s just try and keep the currency viable and the union together, shall we?

  • Jeff Wright

    To Doubting Thomas.

    Rickover was proof that sometimes the world needs its monsters.

    The United States to this day hasn’t had a space advocate of similar intensity.

    Ironically, some of the railroad barons are why the American Government owns so much land out west.

    Being rich (like John Kerry) they didn’t want to see things “despoiled.”

    This may or may not be what the Pantaloon-clad Founders want –but I consider the securing of resources vital to this nation.

    That the railroad titans were private is irrelevant–they did damage similar to the EPA in blocking access.

    To me, FDR’s greatest failing was not doing away with parks during the war effort.

  • Lee S

    @Bob…. Well, you certainly had many points bang on the nail in that essay… Especial extra points for the SLS… Would I be wrong to suggest that the whole mess needs someone with knowledge of the NASA budget, and also the reality of the situation? SLS is chewing up literal billions for zero chance of return, and the science stuff that NASA does oh so very well is looking at cut backs. I know I have no dog in this fight, apart from my love of space science. It will be heartbreaking tho to see science cut back at the expense of pointless missions… I’m sure I’m not alone in this viewpoint, and I wish you guys a good outcome when the dust settles.

  • Steve Richter

    Would a private rocket company ever be allowed to build a nuclear powered space craft? Would they be blocked for national security, environmental approval or financial liability from damage of an accident? If a SpaceX would not be allowed to create and launch a nuclear powered rocket engine then NASA has to do it. If it is “law of physics” possible to have nuclear propulsion in space then please, have NASA make this their top priority.

  • Steve Richter

    Maybe Elon is waiting for the Mars colony to first be operational. The colony can then build nuclear based engines on Mars and launch them into orbit without concern of any mishaps.

  • Edward

    Robert Zimmerman,
    I agree that all the other rail lines were built without U.S. government assistance.

    There may have been some local incentives, however. Railroads had by the early 1860s been seen as very desirable. Denver Colorado, for example, was so desperate for the Transcontinental Railroad to go through that town that they started a war with the local Indian nation in order to make it necessary for the U.S. Army to have easy access to Denver, thus a railroad would be necessary, and the only one anywhere near there was the transcontinental one. It didn’t work, and the war was all for naught. That is how valuable railroads were seen, back then.

    Space commerce is beginning to be seen in a similar way. Many countries are beginning to create their own space programs. I think the real question is whether each country controls what happens in space or whether they allow their nation’s spacefaring companies to control their own space operations. Commercial control, free market capitalism, is a new concept in how we deal with space, and it is why SpaceX and Rocket Lab are doing so very well, and it is why so many U.S. companies are being founded to do business in space or to do business with companies that do business in space.

    As you have reported many times, Luxembourg has been encouraging space companies to do business there. Being landlocked, they hope to create a space economy through having space businesses do business and to operate there. They do not tell these companies how to do business, but they have established incentives for spacefaring companies to hire local Liechtenstein employees.

    Space is opening up, but how it does that is still up in the air. The Outer Space Treaty is an impediment to property rights, which is necessary to doing business in space.
    _______________
    wayne,
    Thomas Durant pulled off one of my all time favorite scams. The Union Pacific had announced that a maintenance facility would be built in a certain location. Durant had already bought the nearby land dirt cheap, and sold plots for a high price to people who wanted to build a permanent town for the facility. This land was valuable, unlike the land sold to make the mobile railhead town called Hell on Wheels ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_on_Wheels ). What a good profit that was, using insider information to make a bunch of money.

    Durant then made it known that the maintenance facility would actually be built a little farther down the line, so people sold their land at the first location, for fire-sale prices, and bought land at the other location for high prices. Durant also was the one selling that land, which he had bought cheap. That made it an even better scam.

    The Union Pacific reassured everyone that the first location was the real location, so everyone who still had money bought the land at the first location again, from Durant, who had purchased the land at those fire-sale prices. What an impressive hat trick scam!

    Thomas Durant not only saw people who had been ruined, he personally ruined some of them. He was not so innocent as he wanted people to believe in that video. He was the very villain that he thought American people needed. He could have been the hero he wanted to be without screwing everyone he could. But, he put his own greed above his reputation in history. I think the video showed how little he cared about history.

    The video is right. He made a great railroad that survives today as a great railroad. Not so many of America’s great railroads are still around.

  • wayne

    Thomas Durant Foreshadowing
    Hell of Wheels (Se 1 Ep 1)
    https://youtu.be/yAHL5oPXOD0
    2:59

    “One hundred years hence, when this railroad spans the continent, and America rises to be the greatest power the world has seen, I will be remembered as a caitiff, a malefactor, who only operated out of greed for personal gain.

    All true, all true, but remember this: without me and men like me, your glorious railroad would never be built.”

  • Cotour

    All true.

    It takes all kinds.

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