and what are they doing? that's regular commerce, payload delivery, routine stuff--almost nothing manned. call us when one of them decides to send a probe to mars.
short-term profit is not a good driver of space travel.
The space program is still around, and a considerable portion has been outsourced to the areospace / military industrial complex. I think that the bigger trend to note is that private companies are starting to enter space exploration independently from NASA.
SpaceX is doing some really cool stuff. There's also several x-prizes related to commercial space exploration. This isn't to say that there aren't larger philosophical and legal issues regarding commercial space exploration. For example, how would lunar Helium-3 and water claims work... if a corporation discovers some random isotope or (holy shit) microbial life - how would intellectual property and patent law work?
I would say that the motivations for exploration are very different. You have huge differences between the research community (NASA) and the private sector (Musk & the rest of the minted Pay-Pal Libertarians) that stem back to the socieoeconomic bickering prevalent in our political discourse. There are also risk and cost factors that weigh in the farther you get away from home, some of which a personal fortune may not wish to subsidize.
Regardless, I think the key message here is, "Stop moping about how bad 20th century models are broken and start building 21st century models to replace them." To which I am in complete agreement. The question remains, 'What are our motives?" On that, I don't think there are easy answers.
Comments
short-term profit is not a good driver of space travel.
SpaceX is doing some really cool stuff. There's also several x-prizes related to commercial space exploration. This isn't to say that there aren't larger philosophical and legal issues regarding commercial space exploration. For example, how would lunar Helium-3 and water claims work... if a corporation discovers some random isotope or (holy shit) microbial life - how would intellectual property and patent law work?
I would say that the motivations for exploration are very different. You have huge differences between the research community (NASA) and the private sector (Musk & the rest of the minted Pay-Pal Libertarians) that stem back to the socieoeconomic bickering prevalent in our political discourse. There are also risk and cost factors that weigh in the farther you get away from home, some of which a personal fortune may not wish to subsidize.
Regardless, I think the key message here is, "Stop moping about how bad 20th century models are broken and start building 21st century models to replace them." To which I am in complete agreement. The question remains, 'What are our motives?" On that, I don't think there are easy answers.
Especially if you're a fundamentalist of sorts.