 |
General » The History and Future of Private Space Exploration
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
From Marginal Revolution (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/the-history-and-future-of-private-space-exploration.html): "In The Rational Optimist Matt Ridley asks: 'Can you doubt that if NASA had not existed some rich man would by now have spent his fortune on a man-on-the-moon programme for the prestige alone?' In fact, we have some pretty good historical data on this issue. Bearing in mind that observatories are an early form of space exploration, Alex MacDonald, a NASA research economist, notes: 'For the majority of its history, space exploration in America has been funded privately. The trend of wealthy individuals, such as Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Robert Bigelow, and Elon Musk, devoting some of their resources to the exploration of space is not an emerging one, it is the long-run, dominant trend which is now re-emerging.' Private spending on space exploration is even more impressive when we scale by personal wealth. '..rather than scaling the expenditure as a share of the total resources of the U.S. economy, the expenditure can be scaled as a share of the resources of the individuals who undertook the projects. James Lick was the richest man in California and the Lick Observatory expenditure represented 17.5% of his entire estate. The equivalent share of the wealth of the richest man in California today, Larry Ellison, is $3.9 billion dollars, approximately four times higher than the GDP equivalent share.' Private space exploration and commercialization are likely to increase substantially in this century and, perhaps surprisingly, President Obama is pushing NASA in this direction. Here, for example, is a headline you don't see very often, "Obama defends privatization of space travel." What is really going on is contracting-out rather than privatization per se and as such there is significant room for abuse. Nevertheless, if done carefully, I think Obama's efforts to encourage private efforts in space are a step in the right direction. What would be much more welcome and useful, however, would be a titling system for establishing property rights in space (see also here). Homesteading the highest frontier is our best bet for moving humanity off planet. |
|---|---|
|
AndrewWilkowFan 1 year, 6 months ago |
The only problem I have is that I don't believe private industry has what it takes financially to put a man on mars. |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
Well, assuming that's something that's worth doing in the near future, the point of the article was actually that private industry actually does have more of "what it takes" (ie: money) to do it. It was pointing out that most of the funding for space exploration and research has actually been private, contrary to popular belief. The amount of public funding that goes to public organizations (NASA) for space exploration is abysmally small. If you look at the breakdown of philanthropically activity in the US alone, that budget is dwarfed on an annual basis. It's just that most people believe there are things more important to work on right now than getting a man to mars (medical research, etc.) and I can't say I don't agree with them to a large degree. But in any case, the point of the article was that the largest financial thrust for space-related research is already private...we just never think of it that way. |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
It looked at money spent on observatories (for instance) - bolded = privately funded: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/.a/6a00d8341c66b253ef0134856ecafa970c-pi |
|
AndrewWilkowFan 1 year, 6 months ago |
Good research, but building an observatory is technically easier than building the craft, support system, and logistics of sending a person to the moon or mars. I do think NASA has lost its focused on exploration. It'll be hard to see a private company or person fund a moon or mars trip. How much money do you believe it'll take to send a person to the moon? |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
I'm not exactly sure what point you're making as to the technological ease of building an observatory as opposed to a vehicle. Is it your contention that the only people smart enough to do this work at NASA? Even if that is the case (which I think is NOT the case), exactly why couldn't these people be privately funded? Is there something magical about "public" money that attracts all the eggheads? I would think, if you're a conservative, you'd make some of the same economical arguments against nationalizing space travel that you would against nationalizing the car or plane industry. Who do you think would do it more efficiently? Which method would you believe to spur more innovation? If the government had a monopoly on car research and production, would you argue that since they currently have the best and brightest in the field working for them that the industry itself couldn't function privately? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your point here. As far as how much money you think it would take to get to the moon, how much do YOU believe it would take? Do you actually know how small NASA's budget is? They're able to put vehicles into space for a considerably small amount of money. They've historically been running on around 15 billion dollars (current-constant) on average. I know that sounds like a lot of money, but in comparison to other organizations (public, private, or philanthropic) it's a drop in the bucket. Hell, Apple took in more money last year than NASA. I'm not saying the public funding doesn't help, I'm just saying to act like it's impossible is ludicrous. And we're not even addressing if it's a good way to spend our money. I'm no supporter of welfare, but if cutting $15 billion from government spending at NASA can hold off a little increased taxation to fund the plethora of social programs we have, i'd rather it get spent on something like that. |
|
AndrewWilkowFan 1 year, 6 months ago |
Fortunately, a majority of the technology created to get to the moon was funded by government. The east part was done by that. Without that and the push to beat the Russians, what is the gain for a private company to go to the moon? My point has been that unless there's an gain for private companies to go to the moon or mars, there isn't much of a push for them to fund that. There is a demand to put objects into orbit and to lessen the time to travel from part of the earth to another. That's why you see the private industry investing in that. Tourism is the only reason to go to mars or the moon. Until it's profitable to send folks that far, you're not going to see that anytime soon. Cost say 1 billion to go to the moon and they're only willing to pay $10 million? The next step is space hotels above earth. You see that done by a private company, then you'll see advancement. It's too slow. I think NASA taking tax payer money could do it faster. |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
So your view is that, since the public obviously isn't really demanding space travel of this sort just yet (in many ways because of the limitations of current mechanical technology) that we should force money from them at gunpoint to fund it? I understand the Cold War nostalgia that is part in parcel to our space program...but aren't you just pointing out EXACTLY why we shouldn't be spending money on this? Exactly what are people gaining right now from trying to put a man on mars or even the moon again? If it was so in demand, it WOULD be a profitable venture. But it's not. And I'd guess that would be due to, in large part, the fact that this is pretty low on the priority list of most people. I understand that you know that government taking money from people to tackle a low-priority project could achieve it faster than leaving it to individuals. But that's exactly the point. Every dollar you steal from the public to put a man on another planet (whatever immediate benefit you believe that would somehow bestow upon is) is one dollar less that we (as individuals) can privately spend on projects/products that WE HAVE OBVIOUSLY DECIDED (through the market place) are more important. Once again, I've never understood the inconsistency of conservatives on this issue. Is this in the platform somewhere? "We despise socialism in all forms...oh...except for space travel." Just hearing the idea - that government cannot only approximate the public's needs and wants more, but can also do it more quickly and efficiently - on this site has me scratching my head a little. Because these are the exact same arguments liberals make about government involvement in every other sector of the economy. I think conservatives need to check their emotional attachment to NASA at the door for a second and just think it through. |
|
boneman 1 year, 6 months ago |
I personally loved the space program and it was an amazing achievement, but the reality is we dont have the money. In the sixties we didn't have an unsustainable deficit on top of out of control spending. If we get back to being fiscally responsible to the point of having a surplus we can talk about possibly funding a space program. |
|
AndrewWilkowFan 1 year, 6 months ago |
NASA is the only federal program that I think has gained the most back in the way of technology and human achievement for all the money dumped into it by federal taxes. At this current time, it costs more and demands higher expertise in order for a private company to go to the moon or beyond. There has to be a technology change of putting stuff into orbit that's cheaper in order for companies to look to that type of space travel. As an engineer working on similar projects, I can understand the threshold needed for a private company to do it. Right now, I don't see it. |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
I still don't understand why you believe money and expertise are an issue here. NASA is looking at a 15 billion dollar budget in a 15 trillion dollar economy...alright. As far as expertise, is the conjecture that engineers don't or wouldn't work for private companies? Would they just disappear if it was privatized? Again (and I do technical development for a private company, albeit a different kind) I just love the socialist argument for NASA coming from conservatives. It's amazing to hear every time. Every other (arguably more important and sometimes even more DIFFICULT) facet of various sectors of the economy are better left in private hands...except for this one tiny sliver of the economy that the government is apparently more adept at handling. Just stunning. And, again, this doesn't even address if throwing money at it SHOULD take priority over other things. Let's even take the premise that there's no long-term profit whatsoever from investing in researching these kinds of technologies (which is laughable); if it was really something people wanted to spend money on (if it was a top priority) why wouldn't you let people donate towards it voluntarily? I'd venture to guess that money donated for medical research (in aggregate) far out-paces money donated towards private space travel. It's not because that money doesn't exist. It's because people have decided that there are currently higher priorities. If the government is going to steal from people, the least it could do is approximate our priorities. If I had the power to scrap NASA to throw that money at diabetes or cancer research every year, you can bet I'd do it in a heartbeat. And i'd hope that any other rational human being would as well. I'm just as much for science and technology as the next guy (it's my field). But if someone is against taking other peoples' money to give some sick kid healthcare, I'd hope like hell they'd be even more against fleecing the American public for billions of dollars every year in the hopes of sticking a human being on the moon again. |
|
boneman 1 year, 6 months ago |
Again, N O M O N E Y...... |
|
AndrewWilkowFan 1 year, 6 months ago |
As it stands now, I have yet to see a private company fully fund what it takes to put a person to the moon or mars. Selling photography and data is the cheapest thing private companies have had. Government stealing this and that doesn't negate the fact that it's still too expensive to go to the moon and mars. You cannot get the return back yet until the technology of breaking earth's orbit is made cheaper. I'm done talking here. I know too much about this and not going to spin my wheels here. |
|
boneman 1 year, 6 months ago |
Until there is some realistic profit potential private companies won't be in the space business |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
And once again, you both completely missed the point and ensuing question. There are PHILANTHROPIC (IE: not exclusively for profit) ventures that pull in more money than NASA VOLUNTARILY. The issue is not simply money. I know that maybe you two individuals feel it's OK to steal billions of dollars from the American people to fund your pet project. I've yet to hear why that money should be spent trying to put more people into space or on other planets (as opposed to the myriad of other causes it could go to). People are willing to freely (ie: without the government stealing it from them) throw A LOT more money towards medical research and advancements in other industries. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, people think there are things more important than lobbing a tin can full of human beings towards a celestial body at this point in time? Or is the conjecture that people are too stupid to willfully donate to my righteous cause, so I will take my funding forcefully? If people aren't willing to donate to it, or if there is no profit to be made from it (which is a correlative of market demand), then this should tell you something. We live in a world of scarce resources. The fact that people are less willing to use those resources willingly to fund and/or pay for it as a project and/or product isn't inconsequential. You need to have a better argument for doing what you suggest here. If I wanted to build a second moon my argument couldn't simply be that government is justified in taking money out of peoples' pockets to pay for it simply because there's no money in building a second moon. The fact that there's no money in building a second moon (at least in this point and time) should be a pretty big red flag. This shouldn't be a hard issue to work through economically...you guys do it well enough for other sectors of the economy. |
|
boneman 1 year, 6 months ago |
So, to answer your "maybe" I am not for "stealing billions" for a space program. My frame of reference is the space program of the sixties and the country was behind the program. Nobody back then felt they were being robbed to fund the program. It was extremely successful and produced many technological items that benefit us today. My point today is that we don't have an overwhelming support of the public as we did in the sixties AND we don't have the financial resources to do it. |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
I think you might be more right in saying that MOST people were behind it...not everyone. There were certainly detractors. If literally everyone approved of it, there'd be no issue. But to make a blanket statement that nobody felt they were being robbed at the time, that's simply disingenuous. It was certainly successful relatively speaking and we certainly did get a benefit from it. And likewise, if the government nationalized the car industry years ago, I'm sure they would have also produced many things that still benefit us today. That wouldn't mean that it was ethical, and that also wouldn't mean that private industry couldn't do it better. As far as current day, we certainly don't have the same level of support, but i'm not sure about the assertion about the financial resources...I don't think the space program was ever as expensive as you might think it was/is. The highest arcs of funding (in the 60's) gave us something like a $30-40 billion spread (in current dollars). With a nearly $4 budget, I don't think it would technically take much shuffling with other programs to make that doable. Granted, you'd think that being in a down economic time would give one pause to spend. But for all the mouthing the current and previous administration has taken part in regarding spending, i guess we could just call it stimulus and declare it an economic benefit. |
|
crossofcrimson 1 year, 6 months ago |
Sorry, that would be "$4 trillion budget"... |
|
boneman 1 year, 6 months ago |
I would say more than MOST, more like a vast overwhelming majority were for it. There are always detractors of anything. The space program and the car industry comparison is apples and oranges. There were no private "space programs". Nationalization of any private industry never works. |
|
boneman 1 year, 6 months ago |
And as long as the country keeps running ever increasing deficits, we can't afford a space program at this time. |
Post a Reply
Please login to post a reply.