Space exploration is like selling off your stocks during a tech bubble: it's obvious it needs to happen sometime, but it's really hard to figure out when the ri

Space exploration is like selling off your stocks during a tech bubble: it's obvious it needs to happen sometime, but it's really hard to figure out when the right time is. Unfortunately, that means for-profit organizations underinvest. This is one of those cases where it really does make sense for government to encourage the sector with investment, although it seems like X-prize-type systems might work better than NASA-type systems.