NASA Fails, Private Sector Steps Into the Gap

So much time needs to be invested for us to colonize the galaxy that work should never be halted. But I agree limited amounts before trillions are invested. Not to mention political and economic woes on earth. The top need to figure out away for globalism to benefit the bottom as much as the top, and that is where the major bucks should be spent, to throw off the nationalistic tendencies arising everywhere currently. If nothing is done to address this problem, we could be headed straight for a 3rd world war. I saw a discovery show about people who were designing an underwater train that would run from New York to London. Using vacuum technology like the tubes at banks, the train could go like 3k miles per hour. Was a long time ago, so don't know if that figure is the exact one. They not only had to design the system, but the machinery for making such a thing. Stuff like that is what is needed currently.

I know hind sight is 20/20, but take for instance post 9/11 government expenditures. Israel deals with terrorism far worse than America. Israel has planes that one cannot access the cockpit from the passenger cabin. Had we took all the money spent on the wars, fighting a terrorist problem still alive and well, subsidize an entire new fleet of jets, not only could we have alleviated that from ever happening again permanently, we could have avoided all the pat down crap at airports, and companies could have kept their prices low. Working class Americans can't travel today, as a whole, half as much as they could in the past. Stagnant growth, wages, mixed with inflation has made not only global travel for a selected few, but even interstate travel has been decimated. In order for the bottom of nations to globalize, they must be able to travel globally. And only with a truly global earth can we tackle things like colonization of space with max resource potential.

 

I assume that some country will eventually find something valuable in space. It could be us or Russia, China, or maybe India. This will set off a race into space that will probably be the starting point for colonization.

 

Colonizing Mars is just not practical right now. What would we do there? How would we efficiently and quickly ship resources to Mars? At its shortest distance with current technology Mars is a 9 month flight, at its closest. Not to mention the amount of resouces it would take to construct a "dome" or whatever habitual is needed to sustain human life. Do you really think the private sector is going to do that? Hell no. Theres no profits they can gouge, at least not to the masses.

Im all for space exploration always have been, but I agree it was time to retire the space shuttle as it was grossly outdated and unreliable. Government put us on the moon, the private sector did no such thing. All they are doing is getting ready to off super wealthy a chance to maybe orbit the planet, for the low price of 20 million dollars probably.

 

The private sector has already stepped in --> http://www.spacex.com/

 

The private sector will be better off providing space exploration services, the state fails at almost everything it does.

 

The only thing I don't like about SpaceX is no shares It's completely privately own. I want to buy some.

 

That does not seem like a feasible goal unless there's some way around the laws of physics. Even if we do develop the life-extension and automated maintenance technologies that would be required to move human beings to different solar systems the slow way... the results could hardly be called "colonies", since there would be little meaningful communication or trade between the "colony" and Earth. Again, unless there are methods to twist the laws of physics that we don't know about.

Who would fight it? World wars are fought between wealthy states, not between the poor and the rich. Some sort of global civil war? Well, you're getting into Marx-style Revolutions as a global human event.

Sure, a vacuum tunnel between Europe and North America would have tremendous economic benefits for both... but it would also cost trillions of dollars and whomever ponied up the money would lose it. The economic benefits of such a creation would be distributed widely, difficult to concentrate in the hands of an investor--if they were trying to recover their losses, the fees for using such a tunnel would exceed its immediate value. By far.

That's the kind of megaproject that can only be funded by states/societies. Space elevators are also in that category of project--profoundly beneficial to everyone, but not profitable for any investing subgroup.

The problem with air travel is that it's really not a good option unless you really need to get somewhere very quickly. It's an inherently expensive sort of travel. It only works when states subsidize it, and then only when energy is cheap.

Wouldn't have been as much of a problem if we'd spent our infrastructure money on trains rather than airplanes. And, you know, if we stopped taxing rail travel to finance airline subsidies.

Well, one might suggest that colonization of space is required to build the economic strength required to fully and fairly globalize. On the other hand, a number of other technologies would be important there too--artificial intelligence, industrial robotics, more effective teaching methods, etc.

 

States succeed more often than fail. You merely misinterpret their goals.

 

All the recent talk about private sector involvement in space really refers to privately executed but (mostly) publicly funded endeavours. Indeed, it will be considerably cheaper and more effective without NASA bureaucracy and political BS holding us back. But it is also true that without public money, there will be no human spaceflight. It is not profitable, nor will it be in foreseeable future without heavy government subsidies.

 

Right. There's just no particular reason to go, other than habit.

I don't think "efficient" and "quickly" ever go hand in hand.

A colony on mars would either have to be built underground (how this would actually be constructed is a complete mystery--it's a huge jump from having a robot that digs a few inches of top-dust and one that excavates a cavern for human habitation) or confined to fairly cramped modular pressure vessels.

When it comes to expansive living spaces, the atmosphere of Venus would be a better target, because breathable air is a lifting gas and the pressures at high altitudes on Venus are 1 bar (and the temperature in that range is also human-habitable).

Well, they're doing a little more than that--but their money is probably going to be made on space tourism, yes.