Another two artists who are really hip to inllectual property rights and the digital age of sharing that use it to their advantage are David Bowie and Tori Amos. Bowie a few years back was doing a challenge on his site of re-mixing his music – I don’t recall what exactly the end result was, but he’s one of those people who really grasps the medium as well. Both have been known to talk about how their music’s used in youtube vids, and about bootlegs (Tori always mentions it in her shows about how bootlegs from one shows end up on the web) and working with the fans, not against them.

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I’m sure the idea of a collaboratively-built encyclopedia or a collaboratively-built operating system, database, image-processing package, et cetera, would have also seemed pretty pie-in-the-sky.

Sorry, too pie-in-the-sky for me.

In case you’re wondering, Gimlet ended up being rebuilt by the aliens using a Phusis Tank and a Chrome Endoskeleton. Terminator Gimlet lasted about as long as the regular kind.

God, how I hate him.

BTW, did anyone read “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society”:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470050101?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0470050101

I didn’t, but it sounds like it’s on topic.

“In March 1966, NASA told Congress the “run-out cost” of the Apollo program to put men on the moon would be an estimated $22.718 Billion for the 13-year program which eventually accomplished six successful missions between July 1969 and December 1972.

According to Steve Garber, the NASA History website curator, the final cost of project Apollo was between $20 and $25.4 billion in 1969 dollars (or approximately $135 billion in 2005 dollars).”

and

“From 1964 until 1973, a total of US$6.5 billion was appropriated for the Saturn V, with the maximum being in 1966 with US$1.2 billion. Allowing for inflation this is equivalent to roughly $32-45 billion in 2007 money. This works out at an amortised cost of $2.4-3.5 billion per launch.

One of the main reasons for the cancellation of the Apollo program was the cost. In 1966, NASA received its highest budget of US$4.5 billion, about 0.5 percent of the GDP of the United States at that time.”

and take it from there. 0.5% of today’s US GDP would amount to, uhmmm, about $70 billion. Pre-Meltdown, that was serious money, and some people would actually have thrown a hissy fit about spending it on an elaborate government photo op. Today, it’s small change. Can’t prop up even a single failed bank with $70 billion. Or invade Liechtenstein, that would cost more than that. So, I’d say it’s absolutely doable to reanimate NASA.

Of course, you couldn’t get a Saturn V launch for $3 billion (current dollars) any more:
“The three stages of the Saturn V were developed by various NASA contractors, but following a sequence of mergers and takeovers all of them are now owned by Boeing.”

So, make it 15 years and $300 billion for the final launch. Now the only problem is, you’d need somebody to beat to the moon. The Russians are out of the game for the foreseeable future, leaving only the Chinese. Would they play along? What does our eminent sinologist say?