commercialization of space

[Don]

I noticed Obama's been going with this thing about transforming NASA into some kind of entity that sponsors commerical spaceflights, presumably because capitalism is supposed to be better than government telling people what to do. But capitalism only works if there's some kind of economic motive. As far as I can tell there's not much value out of flying people to orbit or anywhere remotely reachable in the solar system. It's not like we're going to the moon to mine Gundamium that can make super mechs, and if that was the case the government would've done it themselves already. In fact it seems like the only good use for space is to shoot lasers from orbit at things.

Lord British paid some ridiculous amount of money ($50 million?) to the Russians for a ride on the Soyuz to the International Space Station, and now people are supposed to be able to fly people to low orbit for $200K? Yes I know they're flying to a far lower spot but something still doesn't seem quite right.

I'm guessing space exploaration is prohibitively expensive so this country can't really afford it right now, which makes sense, and in that case they need to stop pretending capitalism is going to somehow solve the problem too and stop wasting money on that. I realize it's possible that there's some really smart people out there that just needs a bit more funding to do their stuff, but most of these space commercial ventures sounds about as realistic as the plot for the generic sci-fi anything. If it is really that easy, I'm sure there's got to be someone willing to spend money into this kind of stuff for venture capital. After all people have funded far more stupid things than commercialization of space, so it shouldn't be hard to find someone to support you.

[SineSwiper]

Well, I think it's more of a matter of different motivations. With the government, NASA's funding is slowing drifting, because that kind of motivation is based on people's interests, and people just aren't as thrilled with going up into space any more. Plus we were competing with Cold War Russia back then, and we're not really competing with much anybody now. (Most of the contests have been achieved.)

Capitalism is motivated by money. Sure, there is the big question of "what is there of financial interest?", but you can't completely answer that without actually spending several years trying to answer it. Yes, many people will throw money into companies, and many companies will fail. But, the risk to try new things out is something capitalism does well; not so much with governments.

Two different interests, two different questions, and two different answers. We just need to explore the other angle.

[Zeus]

Garriot's $30M fee was actually covered by sponsors for whom he did experiments while on his trip.

[Don]

If you can't answer 'what is the finanical interest?' then commericalizing it is not meaningful. If you're only exploring space for the advancement of humanity for no foreseeable financial gain, that's not what capitalism is about. Governments are usually pretty good at these kind of stuff, at least better than capitalism.

I assume the idea is supposed to go like this: If NASA pays you a billion to make a rocket to haul stuff to say, the International Space Station, someone's going to try to make that $1 billion and make rockets or whatever, and this is where capitalism comes in. However this doesn't answer the fact that what if you cannot do this for $1 billion no matter what. What if it takes $3 billion to make a rocket that's capable of achieving orbital lift? Well you can say here paying $1 billion helps to subsidize research that otherwise would have never happened, but what is that company going to do with a rocket that can haul stuff to ISS to get the other $2 billion they spent? There's certainly nothing of value to haul back at orbit. There's also similarly nothing worth hauling back in the reachable distance in the Solar System. In Gundam the Moon was heavily contested because that's the only place you can mine Gundamium to make the mechs of the series's name. Well we sure don't have any Gundamium or Tri-lithium crystal or whatever exotic material that we can bring back from outer space.

I guess you can try space tourism but you got to haul a lot of people at say $200K (rates Virgin Galactic is charging) to get your $2 billion back. Maybe the government will pay you $2B for continous service to the ISS? But I thought we got to where we are because the government can't just afford to spend $3 billion to haul stuff to ISS? There seems to be an assumption that a commerical entity can magically do it for way cheaper. Yes government can be ineffective due to bureaucracy but just because you got rid of bureaucracy doesn't mean you can now suddenly make scientific miracles. To me it seems like the government is saying we can't possibly figure out how to get to space with only this much budget, but capitalism is magical so if it's competitive people will be able to magically figure out how to accomplish what we can't do for the same amount. I was reading DARPA saying for significant advancements in space exploration they're now funding stuff that basically sounds like science-fiction. Well there's a reason why science-fiction is... fiction. Sure I can tell you my hyper drive will get you to the moon for $1000, but that doesn't mean I can actually do it.

[SineSwiper]

Sure, there is the big question of "what is there of financial interest?", but you can't completely answer that without actually spending several years trying to answer it.

[Imakeholesinu]

Someone should get to the moon again and harvest it for renewable energy like they did in "Moon" and...

Spoiler: show

just clone sam rockwell over and over and over again.

ADMIN EDIT: We have a spoiler tag for a reason...

[SineSwiper]

Excellent movie, btw. Everybody should watch that one.