Author Topic: The book "Selling Peace"  (Read 17418 times)

Offline Danderman

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Re: Selling Peace
« Reply #20 on: 10/12/2011 02:22 pm »
Regardless of what NASA did, it still wouldn't have mattered.  There was no future for MirCorp.  Just a bunch of sore losers trying to rewrite history and not make them look bad. 

Given that Space Adventures more or less executed the MirCorp business plan for space tourism, I don't agree.
 

No, the flaw in the plan was the use of Mir

You are suggesting that Energia could not have made money transporting space tourists to Mir at $20 million a pop?

 ???

no, you have to include Mir O&M.  That is where it is not the same as Space Adventures and there was no future.

As long as the Russian government required Energia to maintain Mir, the O&M costs to MirCorp were covered; Energia would have received distributions from MirCorp that would have paid its Mir-related costs.

What changed was that starting in 2000, the Russian government began backing away from keeping Mir in orbit, under pressure from the US.

Offline Bill White

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Re: The book "Selling Peace"
« Reply #21 on: 10/12/2011 02:34 pm »
My favorite anecdote from this book involved Jeffrey Manber using his Club Cosmos card (issued by a Moscow casino, IIRC) to bluff his way into a NASA meeting.
EML architectures should be seen as ratchet opportunities

Offline Bill White

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Re: Selling Peace
« Reply #22 on: 10/12/2011 02:38 pm »
Regardless of what NASA did, it still wouldn't have mattered.  There was no future for MirCorp.  Just a bunch of sore losers trying to rewrite history and not make them look bad. 

Given that Space Adventures more or less executed the MirCorp business plan for space tourism, I don't agree.
 

No, the flaw in the plan was the use of Mir

Bigelow is the obvious choice, going forward.
EML architectures should be seen as ratchet opportunities

Offline simonbp

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Re: Selling Peace
« Reply #23 on: 10/16/2011 11:22 pm »
There is a big difference between claiming that MirCorp failed because the chief was a crook, and stating that MirCorp failed because of their public statements.

Yeah, but it's a third thing to say that if they hadn't shot themselves in the foot attacking NASA that Anderson would still have found some way to tax-dodge himself or the company into prosecution, thus scaring off any and all investors...

Offline Danderman

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Friday, November 18: MirCorp film at NASM tonight
« Reply #24 on: 11/18/2011 12:38 pm »
http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=3326

Symposium
Moving Beyond Earth: Innovations in Space
Orphans of Apollo
Friday, November 18
8:00 pm
Lockheed Martin Imax Theater
National Mall Building   

Director Michael Potter presents his 2008 documentary, Orphans of Apollo, followed by a panel discussion. The film tells the extraordinary true story of MirCorp, a group of audacious space entrepreneurs who succeeded briefly in commandeering and operating the Russian space station Mir as a business venture, thereby launching the commercial space industry. To view the movie trailer, visit http://www.orphansofapollo.com/.

Moderator:
Roger Launius is a Senior Curator in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum.

Panelists:
• Michael Potter is the director of Paradigm Ventures, an international venture capital firm, and the director of Orphans of Apollo.
• Jeffrey Manber is the Managing Director of Nanoracks, a commercial fabricator of space-based microgravity experiments, and the former CEO of MirCorp.
• Alan Ladwig is NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Public Outreach.

This event is the kickoff activity for Moving Beyond Earth: Innovations in Space, a two-day symposium and family day event presented by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Division of Space History.


Offline Prober

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Re: The book "Selling Peace"
« Reply #25 on: 11/20/2011 06:15 am »
Tonight I found this video up on utube.  Looks like it was made in 1999 and put on utube this Sept.
 
Some of the same thoughts of Selling Peace are expanded.  I'm not sure of many of the claims are true, it is sad and some of the questions they ask are coming true.
 
Your thoughts?
 

 
 
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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." --Isoroku Yamamoto

Offline luke strawwalker

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Re: Selling Peace
« Reply #26 on: 12/09/2011 05:26 am »
Jim: Interestingly enough, Manber seems to share a similar attitude as you do. His work doesn't read as if he's rewriting history and he's distinctly pessimistic about MirCorp, both during and after the events described.

Danderman: Thanks for the link, I'd recommend for other people to check the book out. Especially in light of the move towards commercial procurement services, which is really what Manber was pushing for a lot of the time. Did you know he owns Nanoracks? I only found out by visiting his website.

The book states that NASA did a variety of shady acts to work against MirCorp/Dennis Tito, from pressuring foreign companies to not operate with them to sabotaging the State department export license process. Normally I wouldn't give such claims much credibility, but after hearing some horror stories from the DIRECT team about NASA I'm more unsure.

I've read much the same thing in Greg Klerx book "Lost in Space"... Manber laid out much of the same issues regarding MirCorp and NASA doing everything they could to undercut and pressure companies any way they could to do NASA's bidding... and the VEHEMENT opposition and stunts Goldin pulled to try to prevent Tito's flight to ISS...

Also covered some of the stuff that transpired with the man-tended orbital manufacturing facility or whatever (became SpaceLab?) as well (the book is on the shelf behind the Christmas tree so I can't get to it right now to look the stuff up and get the direct quotes). 

Basically Klerkx lays out that NASA did pretty much everything they could to torpedo commercial activities throughout at least Goldin's tenure at the very least... including torpedoing DC-X in favor of X-33 despite much better promise and a much better results for the funding levels on DC-X versus the "past the bleeding edge of technology" X-33, which ultimately proved it's undoing...

As to the veracity of the claims... who knows... but it's certainly in more than this one book... :) 

Later!  OL JR :)
NO plan IS the plan...

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Offline Prober

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Re: Selling Peace
« Reply #27 on: 12/09/2011 02:23 pm »


I've read much the same thing in Greg Klerx book "Lost in Space"... Manber laid out much of the same issues regarding MirCorp and NASA doing everything they could to undercut and pressure companies any way they could to do NASA's bidding... and the VEHEMENT opposition and stunts Goldin pulled to try to prevent Tito's flight to ISS...

Also covered some of the stuff that transpired with the man-tended orbital manufacturing facility or whatever (became SpaceLab?) as well (the book is on the shelf behind the Christmas tree so I can't get to it right now to look the stuff up and get the direct quotes). 

Basically Klerkx lays out that NASA did pretty much everything they could to torpedo commercial activities throughout at least Goldin's tenure at the very least... including torpedoing DC-X in favor of X-33 despite much better promise and a much better results for the funding levels on DC-X versus the "past the bleeding edge of technology" X-33, which ultimately proved it's undoing...

As to the veracity of the claims... who knows... but it's certainly in more than this one book... :) 

Later!  OL JR :)

Sounds like another book to look up then.   Had watched one of the House Committee meetings recently, and this point on the DC-X was brought up.  Something in history that I wanted to confirm.

2017 - Everything Old is New Again.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." --Isoroku Yamamoto

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Selling Peace
« Reply #28 on: 12/09/2011 03:26 pm »
As to the veracity of the claims... who knows... but it's certainly in more than this one book... :) 

You might want to look at some of the reviews of Klerkx book. For instance:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/110/1

"The second problem is that Klerkx seems to be overreaching when he describes NASA as actively opposing private space efforts. There may indeed be cases where NASA has apparently attempted to interfere with private ventures, but it’s not clear this has always happened, nor if such interference is always intentional. Indeed, Klerkx has problems describing NASA in general. At one point he likens the agency to the Borg from Star Trek, calling it a “collective [that] is not only tight-knit… but of an almost religious solidarity in the service of a government, and ostensibly public, agenda for space.” Later in the book, though, he surveys the various departments and centers within the agency and concludes that “there is no ‘NASA’; or rather, there are multiple ‘NASA’s.” There’s an element of truth to both, of course—particularly the latter, as anyone familiar to the internecine battles among the field centers can attest—but this contradiction would appear to undermine the belief that NASA is consistently, actively, opposing private space ventures."

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