3 ms·
Yeah, the comparison to colonization doesn't really makes much sense to me. Using 16th century tech, you could expect to have a profitable trip pretty much ever
by epups 3y ago
Yeah, the comparison to colonization doesn't really makes much sense to me. Using 16th century tech, you could expect to have a profitable trip pretty much every time you managed to come back alive, and you did not have to deal with bringing your own life support systems. With our technology, colonizing Mars is a much, much harder task, which has no foreseeable economic benefits for decades if not centuries.
- Kim_Bruning 3y agoHeh, I also named some 20th century exploration examples. (eg. Charles Lindbergh's first Trans-Atlantic flight was only in 1927) Current investment in space endeavors in eg. the USA is around 0.1% GDP. Even if you double it (or 10x it), that's not going to break the bank. If we take your optimistic estimate (profitable after a few decades) it might just be a risk that's worth it today, on a nation-scale. (Edit: unfortunately I couldn't find good GDP figures for the 1600's , but taking investments in eg british and dutch east india companies vs a guesstimated GDP, I also got to around 0.1% +/- 1 OOM, which seems like a reasonable estimate of exploration costs as % GDP , and thus modern investment levels seem to be reasonably in line with that. )