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Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
Scoff if you like, but it will be the private sector that defines and expands space exploration and exploitation, as it always has been.
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I agree that the future of exploitation does lie in the hands of the private sector. The business of exploration, however, will remain in the hands of governments for the foreseeable future. There is simply not enough return on the investment for an exploration mission to bring a private company into the game.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
Governments squander vast amounts of time and resources screwing around in space to discover the mysteries behind dead, useless rocks and stuff that is so damn far away that it will never be of any practical use.
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I happen to think finding out more about our universe and how it works is a worthy goal in itself.
There would be no private space industry if not for the government programs. The government programs have developed (or at least driven the development of) the needed technologies. Entry into the business is quite expensive, but the companies now getting into it have had an extremely large chunk of their R&D handed to them, instead of having to pay and take risks to develop it themselves.
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Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
Worthless as their efforts are, they can occasionally be co-opted for some kind of productive use, though the occasions are few and far between.
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http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
Yeah. Very little benefit to the world from government space programs.