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Originally Posted by August
However I do think it's time to turn space over to private and commercial interests. We need reasons to go into space beyond just for the advancement of scientific knowledge or backing up human populations.
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The problem is that you'll have a hard time finding a private sector company that can turn a profit in the manned space flight business yet, or even unmanned exploration. If there was a decent chance at making money, some company would have branched out into it already.
NASA doesn't need to show a profit. Even so, we have seen a return on our investment in space programs. Various materials have been developed and marketed, various inventions designed for the space programs have been turned into useful devices here on earth. This is research that would not have been carried out without the space race. No private company would have had the funding or the motivation for such research.
The Apollo landings were nothing more than a pissing contest between the US and the Soviets. That doesn't mean that there was no benefit to it.
Don't get me wrong. I fully support private industry taking over more of the aerospace industry and research. There are some things that are just not going to be profitable for a company yet. Let NASA do the research and non-profitable work. Let the private industry have access to the research and turn it into something they can make money on.