[speaker001:] well I guess uh start off by saying that I am very much in favor of space travel but I think we're going about it all wrong
[speaker002:] okay with that
[speaker001:] what are your thoughts
[speaker002:] uh I'd like you to expound on that a little bit but uh I am very much in favor of it too and I think that we need to take the approach that so much technology is advanced out of the uh space program that it's amazing to me that we don't put more money into it
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] well I am uh kind of disappointed by the way things have been going uh basically we've been out this at this for what about thirty five years
[speaker002:] uh well yeah well it depends on what you're saying yeah that I guess
[speaker001:] from the first experimental well first experimental vanguard type stuff uh I think that was called the first uh the modified B twos and things like that
[speaker002:] um-hum okay
[speaker001:] that was late fifties I believe so
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and um if you look at the progress that was made at the turn of the century in aviation in a period of thirty five years
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] in my assessment it was spectacularly better
[speaker002:] well there's no doubt about that
[speaker001:] and um I don't think that's because the complexity of the task I think that's because it's being handled by bureaucracy now
[speaker002:] well you so you're saying you thought uh that well that that implies to me that you would you should've felt like it should've been uh turned over to a commercial market
[speaker001:] well I'm excited about these fellows who are experimenting commercially I'm excited about uh the commercial end of satellite operations um there seems to be some spectacular progress happening there and uh
[speaker002:] well I think that uh satellites now that is a that is a market where there's a a valid reason for commercial uh when it comes to research I'm not sure I agree with that
[speaker001:] well what would be what would be the reasons for prohibiting commercial research
[speaker002:] oh no reasons I just don't think that uh a commercial organization could successfully uh uh make it profitable for them uh I mean and besides the fact it it also would be extremely limiting as to which research it'd be be whichever one happened to bring in the dollar
[speaker001:] well they have some organizations out there with some fairly deep pockets and uh I think that
[speaker002:] but US is notorious for not spending any money on research uh our commercial market uh our commercial percentages are much lower than uh most most of the other major countries as compared to Japan compared to Germany compared to uh most of the Scandinavian countries
[speaker001:] yeah well maybe
[speaker002:] the amount of money uh put towards research is is minuscule and had minuscule and has been decreasing over the last few years that so I'm not so sure that that would be
[speaker001:] well you go ahead
[speaker002:] I I I agree that the bureaucracy in most cases is something which it should be avoided and we have we have entirely too much government and bureaucracy and it and it seeps over in a lot of different ways
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] now uh in space I don't think you could do it any other way uh well I'd say fact my opinion is what we ought to do is we ought to get all these all the countries involved in these things and in fact
[speaker001:] um go ahead
[speaker002:] oh well because I mean we have um resources across the world I mean I I we're coming out to a global global economy anyways
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so why aren't we using the Japanese technology why aren't we using the European technology why aren't see
[speaker001:] well
[speaker002:] see space travel is a world issue it's not a US issue and and our our our kind of elitism attitude we had in the sixties about US uh love it or leave it and you know actually we still have it but that whole
[speaker001:] it's not as effective now as it was then
[speaker002:] right um that the the the concept of beating the other uh countries I think is somewhat
[speaker001:] it may be obsolete
[speaker002:] yeah it's somewhat obsolete and I think
[speaker001:] yeah yeah you know I uh what do you call it um I think it's important that it happened I think that ultimately it will happen um I think that the way things are going on now may be an impediment and that by that I mean you know I don't know about I'm not going to speculate about research across the board but let's suppose um you were the executive of a company that could possibly have benefit from some space research
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] and you're three or four competitors and you're debating whether to um throw a couple of billion dollars into it over the next twenty years
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] but it's going to be a real long term uh play or whether you're just going to sit back and watch television and um when you look when you see that your primary competitor is um a government with very deep pockets that's going to give the fruits to your competitors the obvious correct decision is to sit back and wait for them to give it to everybody rather than doing it yourself so I think the government getting involved in that tends to reduce the amount of uh private uh effort put into it uh with regard to myself personally I think that if ever if I ever in my lifetime do stand on the surface of the moon it's going to be uh on a ship with a Japanese flag
[speaker002:] I would say that I have absolutely no