3 ms·
Heh, I also named some 20th century exploration examples. (eg. Charles Lindbergh's first Trans-Atlantic flight was only in 1927) Current investment in space en
by Kim_Bruning 3y ago
Heh, 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. )