The_Nice_Guy wrote:It's still not as simple to think that the private market could have done as well as the government, especially just after Apollo. Many of the technologies used right now in Rutan's project had their origins in government projects, and some of these technologies were initiated solely for the purpose of waging war(like guidance systems for ICBMs).
You
still are not getting my point. I don't dispute that developing the initial technology was a task so expensive that probably only the government could have done it. Nevertheless, the continued expansion into space will only happen when it becomes profitable. And for that you need private enterprise to get involved. That doesn't require cutting the government out of space exploration entirely. Why do you seem to think that's what I am saying? Let's go back to the age of discovery that I referred to earlier. Even Columbus needed government funding to get his project started. He bugged Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain incessantly, and finally, the same year the reconquista was completed, they bankrolled him and he went. Couldn't have been done without the government - just like Mercury, and Apollo, etc.. And the exploreres and Conquistadors that followed - Cortes, Pizarro, et al. - were also supported by the Spanish crown. Even so, it was when merchants got involved, and started to set up profit making ventures that ensured the Spanish colonies wouldn't die out once they'd looted all the Aztec gold they could get their hands on.
The_Nice_Guy wrote:I am not convinced that private companies or any combination of investors back then could afford the sheer amount of funds to research the thousand-and-one possible engineering paths to space back then, even considering the immense profit. The replication of effort by different units could perhaps be as wasteful as the government's own efforts(probably not though).
And again, how does this negate the fact that we need to get private enterprise involved
in the future?
The_Nice_Guy wrote:Getting to space is a very big and incredibly expensive hump. Sadly enough, if the technologies and scientific expertise isn't readily available or cheap enough, the state is often the only agent capable of amssing enough funds(through coercive power) to push the whole thing through, for whatever reason you can think of, some of them silly as hell.
This will only remain true until we discover something that we can get out there that cannot be made or acquired here on earth. Private enterprise is already involved in space. Who do you think owns most of the satellites orbitting earth? We need to encourage private involvement in space and develop it. And people are already coming up with ideas for manufacturing certain things in microgravity, which means space, private business will handle that sort of thing too. As in the age of the discovery, the government will blaze the trail, and entrepreneurs will eventually come after them and find ways to make a profit.
I draw your attention to another historical example. The English crown also got into the race for land in the western hemisphere. Initially, it was hoped that the English would find civilizations in North America like the Spaniards had in south and central America. There was nothing like that up here, however. And because there was no ready source of loot, the English colonies were failing economically, and probably would have died out. The English crown would not have continued to pour money into a losing proposition indefinitely. The English colonies were probably headed for inevitable extinction. And then, certain people discovered tobacco. As a demand in Europe grew for it, entrepreneurs stepped up to meet that demand, and when tobacco began arriving in European ports, the economy of Virginia and other tobacco growing colonies began to take off. Soon it was going along like gangbusters. It's ironic that tobacco, which everybody is so down on today, more than anything else, is really what made the colonization of North America possible from an economic standpoint.
Earlier attempts at colonizing North America failed because they did not justify themselves economically. The Norse colony in Vinland failed because at that time there was nothing Europeans could get from North America that they couldn't get easier and cheaper closer to home. Tobacco existed, of course, as did potatoes, rubber, and lots of other things that the Americas would eventually supply, but no one in Europe knew about those things at the time, and there was thus no demand for them. A demand for tobacco was eventually created, but before that could happen, enterprising people had to go to America, and see what was there that could be made to profit them.
This is why we need to get private enterprise involved in space today. Doubtless there are things out there for which a demand can be made to exist, and space can turn a profit. We just don't know what they are yet, any more than merchants of Henry VIII's time knew that there was this stuff called tobacco in North America that could make them boatloads of money. We need to get private enterprise into space so that we can find what will pay and make it do so.
The_Nice_Guy wrote:Now that the technologies and science is there, and pretty cheap enough, the government can step out. But let's not forget the state made it possible first.
TWG
And again, I never disputed that for an instant. I even agree with you. What's your point?
