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The question every time space exploration comes up is whether the money and effort is better spent in space or on more terrestrial problems. With government-sp

The question every time space exploration comes up is whether the money and effort is better spent in space or on more terrestrial problems. With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research and development that resulted in spinoffs that are useful on land. With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret. Also, when it comes to 'hard problems', physics is pretty predictable. Humanity has all kinds of social problems, which I'd argue are harder than these tech problems. For example, we'd have the capacity to eliminate hunger if it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
>>With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret. Much of what is developed is in the public domain. Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out. The satellite of industries that develops to support space flight is also not affected by whether the fights they're supporting are private vs government, and neither are the skills developed by the engineers working these projects. Private also has one distinct advantage: it can be self-sustaining, in being managed by an owner with a strong stake in the venture as a business unit.
- aylmao 5y ago
  > Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out. I'd argue this is, if we're talking about practicality, is just crumbs though. For example, scratch-resistant lenses were developed at NASA. Proving that it could be done wasn't the important factor that brought it to everyone's homes. What brought it to everyone's homes was the fact that NASA licensed As another example, single-crystal silicon solar cells were first developed after NASA sponsored a 28-member coalition to develop an unmanned, high altitude aircraft. Private companies don't create coalitions like this and are much less likely to license or waive patents. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#Scratch-resistant_lenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#Scra...
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    Proving it can be done is important in its own right: it invites competition. And proving it can be done is aside from proving how it can be done. Once the general principle is proven out, competitors find ways to apply it that avoid infringing on the patent. The process of discovering the how involves expensive trial and error, that a large private sector can greatly accelerate. I agree that publicly funded technology initiatives have their own strengths, but private technology provide far more than crumbs. Much of an industry's development is in the form of mundane, that is too unremarkable to be patented or held in secret, and for that, it makes no difference what the source of the funding is.
Chris2048 5y ago
> With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research And you (the public) pay for it. With the Musk's of the world paying, the gov has more money for social causes. If the public can't consistently support these kind of projects without constantly threatening their budgets, maybe they are better in the hands of private benefactors that value them. > it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that How can they help? There's enough money to eliminate hunger and keep billionaires. Hunger isn't just about who has money, it's about who could have money and maintain it.
deleted 5y ago
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HideousKojima 5y ago
>For example, we'd have the capacity to eliminate hunger if it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that. Hunger is basically a non-issue in all developed nations. See all the gray and purple nations on this map. In the US, for example, deaths from malnutrition are ~,1% of all deaths annually. Any money the billionaires might put into it would be better spent on traffic safety, reducing cardiovascular diseases, or researching cancer, and those are all by several orders of magnitude. https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrit... Also, aid sent to the countries that do have hunger problems (like much of sub-Saharan Africa) has simply crashed their agricultural economy, making the issue even worse. Local farmers can't really compete with free, after all.
- afavour 5y ago
  So to paraphrase: doesn’t matter for developed nations, we don’t have an answer for undeveloped ones. …doesn’t that suggest it would be worth a billionaire trying to find an answer for the latter? A way to help local farmers feed their population? It seems like an interesting problem space to me. Certainly more interesting than replicating space flights NASA already did decades ago.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    SpaceX at least is not just replicating NASA feats.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

>>With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret. Much of what is developed is in the public domain. Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out. The satellite of industries that develops to support space flight is also not affected by whether the fights they're supporting are private vs government, and neither are the skills developed by the engineers working these projects. Private also has one distinct advantage: it can be self-sustaining, in being managed by an owner with a strong stake in the venture as a business unit.

aylmao 5y ago
> Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out. I'd argue this is, if we're talking about practicality, is just crumbs though. For example, scratch-resistant lenses were developed at NASA. Proving that it could be done wasn't the important factor that brought it to everyone's homes. What brought it to everyone's homes was the fact that NASA licensed As another example, single-crystal silicon solar cells were first developed after NASA sponsored a 28-member coalition to develop an unmanned, high altitude aircraft. Private companies don't create coalitions like this and are much less likely to license or waive patents. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#Scratch-resistant_lenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#Scra...
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Proving it can be done is important in its own right: it invites competition. And proving it can be done is aside from proving how it can be done. Once the general principle is proven out, competitors find ways to apply it that avoid infringing on the patent. The process of discovering the how involves expensive trial and error, that a large private sector can greatly accelerate. I agree that publicly funded technology initiatives have their own strengths, but private technology provide far more than crumbs. Much of an industry's development is in the form of mundane, that is too unremarkable to be patented or held in secret, and for that, it makes no difference what the source of the funding is.

Chris2048 5y ago

> With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research And you (the public) pay for it. With the Musk's of the world paying, the gov has more money for social causes. If the public can't consistently support these kind of projects without constantly threatening their budgets, maybe they are better in the hands of private benefactors that value them. > it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that How can they help? There's enough money to eliminate hunger and keep billionaires. Hunger isn't just about who has money, it's about who could have money and maintain it.

deleted 5y ago

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HideousKojima 5y ago

>For example, we'd have the capacity to eliminate hunger if it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that. Hunger is basically a non-issue in all developed nations. See all the gray and purple nations on this map. In the US, for example, deaths from malnutrition are ~,1% of all deaths annually. Any money the billionaires might put into it would be better spent on traffic safety, reducing cardiovascular diseases, or researching cancer, and those are all by several orders of magnitude. https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrit... Also, aid sent to the countries that do have hunger problems (like much of sub-Saharan Africa) has simply crashed their agricultural economy, making the issue even worse. Local farmers can't really compete with free, after all.

afavour 5y ago
So to paraphrase: doesn’t matter for developed nations, we don’t have an answer for undeveloped ones. …doesn’t that suggest it would be worth a billionaire trying to find an answer for the latter? A way to help local farmers feed their population? It seems like an interesting problem space to me. Certainly more interesting than replicating space flights NASA already did decades ago.
- DennisP 5y ago
  SpaceX at least is not just replicating NASA feats.