Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ibmpa!szabonj
From: szabonj@ibmpa.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Japanese MIR?
Message-ID: <3334@ibmpa.UUCP>
Date: 16 Dec 89 22:35:33 GMT
References: <31536@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: szabonj@ibmpa.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Organization: IBM AWD, Palo Alto
Lines: 46

In article <31536@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes:
>
>o From: clarinews@clarinet.com (United Press International)
>o Subject: UPI NEWS AT A GLANCE
>o Date: 13 Dec 89 16:08:45 GMT
>o (this is from biz.clarinet.sample, so I guess I can include it:)
>o 
>o 
>o 	TOKYO -- A Japanese firm has bought Moscow's only surplus Mir space
>o station and an experimental science module for $10 million to help
>o promote Japan's space industry, the company's president said Wednesday.
>o 
>
>Say what?  I figure the price may be off by a few orders of magnitude,
>but what's this really supposed to mean?
>


No, the $10 million figure is correct.  That is about how much a Mir is really
worth.  Granted, the entire Mir project probably cost the Sovs three orders
of magnitude more than that, but every good engineer knows the difference
between work and energy, just as every good businessman knows the difference
between cost and revenues.  When you do things via socialism, a la the
Soviet Union or NASA, these kinds of ridiculous things happen.

For the Japanese, this is a trivial sum of money.  The station will continue
to be used as a tourist attraction in Nagoya, and secondarily to see
if they can learn anything to apply to their small investment in Freedom
(see my previous posting).

The Soviets gain some badly-needed hard currency.  In 2000, the U.S. may
well be selling Freedom modules to Japan for $30 million, to obtain
badly needed hard currency.  Come to think of it, we have some old Saturns
sitting around, maybe they would buy those.  Reduce the trade deficit a
bit.  Too bad about Skylab and Challenger.  They might have brought in
a few thousandths of a billion.   1/2 :-)


******** These opinions are not related to Big Blue's *********


-- 
---------------------------
Nick Szabo
szabonj@ibmpa.tcspa.ibm.com
uunet!ibmsupt!szabonj