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This seems to be the problem with relying solely on the private sector space exploration. With shuttles there is opportunity for revenue, with revenue come inve
by orofino 15y ago
This seems to be the problem with relying solely on the private sector space exploration. With shuttles there is opportunity for revenue, with revenue come investors, with investors we can make progress. However, where is the revenue opportunity from either of these probes? Without a body that can be truly altruistic about projects and the benefit they'll provide, certain projects may never have/or my never again, become a reality.
This kind of news makes me truly excited about the future. We have concrete knowledge about so little in this universe, the future is ripe with possibility if we can just show a little foresight.
- jerf 15y agoNobody is proposing relying solely on the private sector for space exploration. But we'll be far better off harnessing market forces to make space access cheap then letting NASA just do the minimum stuff it can do with the suddenly-cheap tools it has access to then we will ever be trying to make the unaccountable jobs-program government space program provide the access. That has demonstrably failed. How many more probes would we have if we cut NASA's budget in half but they could just buy rocket space instead of building and maintaining the Shuttle and ISS at umpty bumbkin billion dollars each?