13 ms·

What exactly is the incentive for the private sector to go to Mars? Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration

by efuquen 12y ago

What exactly is the incentive for the private sector to go to Mars? Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. Maybe when I a see private sector company at least get a human into LEO, let alone get someone to the Moon, we can start talking about whether they'll be able to pull off a Mars mission.

Houshalter 12y ago
What exactly is the incentive for anyone to go to mars?
- XJOKOLAT 12y ago
  "Because it's there" - George Mallory
- cryptoz 12y ago
  Well, that will differ from person to person. My personal incentive to go to Mars is that I want to study its atmosphere, help modify it to become denser and warmer, to be friendlier to life. Others will have different incentives to go, I imagine.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  Monetarily? No benefits, or even negative benefit. Not unless the research leads to the ability to capture one of the thousands of asteroids which contain an upwards of $1 trillion in minerals. A better question is probably, "What will the consequences be if we limit ourselves to Earth?"
  - finid 12y ago
    > What will the consequences be if we limit ourselves to Earth? Very good question, man. At the rate we're going, both at the rate we're reproducing and the rate we're (mis)using what this planet still has to offer, we better start looking for another location.
  - zerooneinfinity 12y ago
    Anyone want to start a company?
- Tepix 12y ago
  Improving the odds of the survival of the human race.
tolmasky 12y ago
I suppose its true that the private sector doesn't have the traditional governmental incentives of religious persecution, exploitation of indigenous people, proselytization, and banishment of undesirables to encourage them to seek out and colonize new lands. But who knows, maybe we'll come up with other reasons to do it in the future.
- saraid216 12y ago
  I wonder when Hobby Lobby will go to Mars.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > I suppose its true that the private sector doesn't have the traditional governmental incentives of religious persecution, exploitation of indigenous people, proselytization, and banishment of undesirables to encourage them to seek out and colonize new lands. I disagree. Private sector has those incentives when they lead to making money. Both past and present is full of cases of companies committing atrocities.
  - johndevor 12y ago
    Difference being, one can choose to not support companies who slaughter innocents. You cannot choose to back your government. (and voting doesn't work as we've seen with the hypocrisy from Obama.)
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      You can, it's called migration :). Someone here mentioned "vote vs. exit"; both of them are available in either private or government sectors. That's in principle of course. In practice, migration is hard and not supporting companies doesn't usually work (boycotts don't really hurt companies in any significant ways).
logn 12y ago
> What exactly is the incentive for the private sector to go to Mars? Sponsorships, reality TV, claiming undiscovered land
- cmyr 12y ago
  Which are all pretty base incentives. We should be going to mars, as a species, for its own sake. The idea that the thing that might justify our first visit to another planet, for some people, might be because it would make good reality TV is just horrifying and saddening and stupefying and should be confronted at every opportunity.
  - bdamm 12y ago
    The news is also a reality TV show.
  - johndevor 12y ago
    Um, the moon landing was reality tv and it was awesome.
  - tripzilch 12y ago
    > We should be going to mars, as a species, for its own sake > The idea that the thing that might justify our first visit to another planet, for some people, might be because it would make good reality TV In this post-modern age of hyperreality, there's not nearly as much difference between the two as you may think. > just horrifying and saddening and stupefying and should be confronted at every opportunity. Yes, well maybe. You can fight it. You can wallow in it. You can also see it as a kind of gravity-assist :)
ajju 12y ago
> Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. Lookup the British East India company
- msabalau 12y ago
  Trade isn't identical to exploration. And the grant of a monopoly is a form of governmental support.
- smacktoward 12y ago
  The key difference, of course, being that there are no tea or indigo or opium to be gathered on Mars. The East India Company went exploring because there was money to be made in the places they explored. Those places were full of marketable commodities, many of which were extremely rare in the West and thus could fetch extraordinarily high prices. If the Moon or Mars were covered in some easily gathered resource that people back on Earth would happily pay top dollar for, private industry would have gone there decades ago. But there's nothing there that's worth the money it would cost to bring it back.
  - briandear 12y ago
    We don't know it's not. The early trading explorers were doing it for potential, however unknown profit.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    True. But we DO know the asteroids are valuable. The recent comet rendezvous was invaluable information for future mining missions.
    - PeterisP 12y ago
      Umm, nope, there's absolutely nothing on asteroids that's valuable enough to justify mining them in near future. Even being made of solid platinum or diamonds wouldn't make it profitable. Everything that can be gathered from asteroids can be mined from, for example, the Antarctic or the floor of the ocean which are both simpler and cheaper to reach.
skriticos2 12y ago
Maybe a bit far fetched, but creating a colony on Mars would be the foundation of creating a new, highly advanced trading partner. Colonists on Mars would have to deal with extreme environmental conditions and therefore be forced to invest the majority of resources in science and engineering instead of politics and entrenched systems. Also, martians would be natural space travelers. Mars has a gravity that's less than half of Earth's, so they would get off that rock much easier and they would have a wealth of natural resources through asteroid mining that they could sell to earth together with advanced technology. After a few centuries the martians would push the technological boundary far beyond what we have now and give Earth the motivation to follow suit to ensure sovereignty.
- lightblade 12y ago
  Come to think of it, America was/is that highly advanced trading partner colony. The exploration of this side of Earth had its own share of danger and uncertainty. Remember, people back then think the Earth was flat. Traveling far enough is doomed to drop off the edge.
  - tg3 12y ago
    I was with you until the Earth is flat comment - most everyone knew the Earth was round - the thought was that you could get to the Far East by going West.
- forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
  >After a few centuries the martians would push the technological boundary far beyond what we have now and give Earth the motivation to follow suit to ensure sovereignty. To ensure sovereignty? I'm all for technological progress, but I don't think it should be forced due to a then real threat of a martian invasion. ;)
  - kijin 12y ago
    Invasions, or threats thereof, tend to be excellent incentives for technological progress. Until we hit singularity and/or become radically better as a species, I don't see that changing anytime soon.
grey-area 12y ago
What exactly is the incentive for the private sector to go to Mars? For a company like spacex, the advantages are clear - if they can promote human space flight around the solar system, they stand to earn huge amounts of money providing the infrastructure/launches etc, so promoting a Mars Mission makes a lot of sense for them as a company. Even if it never happens they'd make lots of money from preparation, investigation of launch options and the renewed interest in human space flight. Of course that money has to come from somewhere, but I'm sure any such mission would attract all kinds of science missions and funding from national governments, particularly as it becomes clear they can pull it off. No-one will make money mining down a gravity well like Mars, but there are plenty of other reasons to go there and to other bodies in the solar system, even if only for short periods for scientific investigations. Of course you can do a lot with robots, and personally were I to be investing I'd invest in orbiters and landers, not human missions. The public would disagree though and national governments are more likely to fund a first man on mars than they are another rover. I think companies like planetary resources are also interesting as when one of them tows an asteroid back to earth orbit and starts mining and sending lumps of metal with a heat shield back to earth, or mining for reaction mass and selling it in orbit, that might be a game changer. Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. I'm not sure that is entirely true - as a counterpoint, consider the East India company, or the Hudson's Bay Company, there are lots of examples of private exploration, and many examples of private individuals simply seeking funding from governments for an enterprise they had already decided upon, so it's hardly fair to characterise exploration as uniquely government funded. Maybe when I a see private sector company at least get a human into LEO This is already scheduled to happen soon - they're testing human-rated capsules at spacex for example, so it's looking probable over the next few years given the pressure to remove dependence on Russia for the ISS.
- tormeh 12y ago
  >I'm not sure that is entirely true - as a counterpoint, consider the East India company, or the Hudson's Bay Company The trading companies of that era were a very special sort of company. They had armies, courts, prisons and sometimes even their own currencies. I have no idea why they would be relevant. Even putting that aside, these are trading companies, not exploration companies. We're not at the point in space travel where exploration can be a nice side-effect yet.
novalis78 12y ago
It's well worth watching Neil deGrasse Tyson on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CJ8g8w1huc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CJ8g8w1huc "The 3 Fears That Drive Us to Accomplish Extraordinary Things" - if you look closely, the actual successful colonization of North America was driven by private enterprise. I gave a talk on this topic at the last Mars Society convention, in case you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BOOuGUnDek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BOOuGUnDek
- analogj 12y ago
  Bringing Commercial Space Fantasies Back to Earth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQd7zqyd_EM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQd7zqyd_EM
  - novalis78 12y ago
    The comments on that video are diametrically opposed to Neil's view. It's interesting how many fans of his do not share this particular of his sentiments. I wonder if Carl Sagan, his own inspiration, would have supported the nascent commercial space industry. I can't imagine why not.

by efuquen 12y ago

Houshalter 12y ago

What exactly is the incentive for anyone to go to mars?

XJOKOLAT 12y ago
"Because it's there" - George Mallory
cryptoz 12y ago
Well, that will differ from person to person. My personal incentive to go to Mars is that I want to study its atmosphere, help modify it to become denser and warmer, to be friendlier to life. Others will have different incentives to go, I imagine.
sillysaurus3 12y ago
Monetarily? No benefits, or even negative benefit. Not unless the research leads to the ability to capture one of the thousands of asteroids which contain an upwards of $1 trillion in minerals. A better question is probably, "What will the consequences be if we limit ourselves to Earth?"
- finid 12y ago
  > What will the consequences be if we limit ourselves to Earth? Very good question, man. At the rate we're going, both at the rate we're reproducing and the rate we're (mis)using what this planet still has to offer, we better start looking for another location.
- zerooneinfinity 12y ago
  Anyone want to start a company?
Tepix 12y ago
Improving the odds of the survival of the human race.

tolmasky 12y ago

I suppose its true that the private sector doesn't have the traditional governmental incentives of religious persecution, exploitation of indigenous people, proselytization, and banishment of undesirables to encourage them to seek out and colonize new lands. But who knows, maybe we'll come up with other reasons to do it in the future.

saraid216 12y ago
I wonder when Hobby Lobby will go to Mars.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> I suppose its true that the private sector doesn't have the traditional governmental incentives of religious persecution, exploitation of indigenous people, proselytization, and banishment of undesirables to encourage them to seek out and colonize new lands. I disagree. Private sector has those incentives when they lead to making money. Both past and present is full of cases of companies committing atrocities.
- johndevor 12y ago
  Difference being, one can choose to not support companies who slaughter innocents. You cannot choose to back your government. (and voting doesn't work as we've seen with the hypocrisy from Obama.)
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    You can, it's called migration :). Someone here mentioned "vote vs. exit"; both of them are available in either private or government sectors. That's in principle of course. In practice, migration is hard and not supporting companies doesn't usually work (boycotts don't really hurt companies in any significant ways).

logn 12y ago

> What exactly is the incentive for the private sector to go to Mars? Sponsorships, reality TV, claiming undiscovered land

cmyr 12y ago
Which are all pretty base incentives. We should be going to mars, as a species, for its own sake. The idea that the thing that might justify our first visit to another planet, for some people, might be because it would make good reality TV is just horrifying and saddening and stupefying and should be confronted at every opportunity.
- bdamm 12y ago
  The news is also a reality TV show.
- johndevor 12y ago
  Um, the moon landing was reality tv and it was awesome.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  > We should be going to mars, as a species, for its own sake > The idea that the thing that might justify our first visit to another planet, for some people, might be because it would make good reality TV In this post-modern age of hyperreality, there's not nearly as much difference between the two as you may think. > just horrifying and saddening and stupefying and should be confronted at every opportunity. Yes, well maybe. You can fight it. You can wallow in it. You can also see it as a kind of gravity-assist :)

ajju 12y ago

> Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. Lookup the British East India company

msabalau 12y ago
Trade isn't identical to exploration. And the grant of a monopoly is a form of governmental support.
smacktoward 12y ago
The key difference, of course, being that there are no tea or indigo or opium to be gathered on Mars. The East India Company went exploring because there was money to be made in the places they explored. Those places were full of marketable commodities, many of which were extremely rare in the West and thus could fetch extraordinarily high prices. If the Moon or Mars were covered in some easily gathered resource that people back on Earth would happily pay top dollar for, private industry would have gone there decades ago. But there's nothing there that's worth the money it would cost to bring it back.
- briandear 12y ago
  We don't know it's not. The early trading explorers were doing it for potential, however unknown profit.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  True. But we DO know the asteroids are valuable. The recent comet rendezvous was invaluable information for future mining missions.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
    Umm, nope, there's absolutely nothing on asteroids that's valuable enough to justify mining them in near future. Even being made of solid platinum or diamonds wouldn't make it profitable. Everything that can be gathered from asteroids can be mined from, for example, the Antarctic or the floor of the ocean which are both simpler and cheaper to reach.

skriticos2 12y ago

Maybe a bit far fetched, but creating a colony on Mars would be the foundation of creating a new, highly advanced trading partner. Colonists on Mars would have to deal with extreme environmental conditions and therefore be forced to invest the majority of resources in science and engineering instead of politics and entrenched systems. Also, martians would be natural space travelers. Mars has a gravity that's less than half of Earth's, so they would get off that rock much easier and they would have a wealth of natural resources through asteroid mining that they could sell to earth together with advanced technology. After a few centuries the martians would push the technological boundary far beyond what we have now and give Earth the motivation to follow suit to ensure sovereignty.

lightblade 12y ago
Come to think of it, America was/is that highly advanced trading partner colony. The exploration of this side of Earth had its own share of danger and uncertainty. Remember, people back then think the Earth was flat. Traveling far enough is doomed to drop off the edge.
- tg3 12y ago
  I was with you until the Earth is flat comment - most everyone knew the Earth was round - the thought was that you could get to the Far East by going West.
forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
>After a few centuries the martians would push the technological boundary far beyond what we have now and give Earth the motivation to follow suit to ensure sovereignty. To ensure sovereignty? I'm all for technological progress, but I don't think it should be forced due to a then real threat of a martian invasion. ;)
- kijin 12y ago
  Invasions, or threats thereof, tend to be excellent incentives for technological progress. Until we hit singularity and/or become radically better as a species, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

grey-area 12y ago

What exactly is the incentive for the private sector to go to Mars? For a company like spacex, the advantages are clear - if they can promote human space flight around the solar system, they stand to earn huge amounts of money providing the infrastructure/launches etc, so promoting a Mars Mission makes a lot of sense for them as a company. Even if it never happens they'd make lots of money from preparation, investigation of launch options and the renewed interest in human space flight. Of course that money has to come from somewhere, but I'm sure any such mission would attract all kinds of science missions and funding from national governments, particularly as it becomes clear they can pull it off. No-one will make money mining down a gravity well like Mars, but there are plenty of other reasons to go there and to other bodies in the solar system, even if only for short periods for scientific investigations. Of course you can do a lot with robots, and personally were I to be investing I'd invest in orbiters and landers, not human missions. The public would disagree though and national governments are more likely to fund a first man on mars than they are another rover. I think companies like planetary resources are also interesting as when one of them tows an asteroid back to earth orbit and starts mining and sending lumps of metal with a heat shield back to earth, or mining for reaction mass and selling it in orbit, that might be a game changer. Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. I'm not sure that is entirely true - as a counterpoint, consider the East India company, or the Hudson's Bay Company, there are lots of examples of private exploration, and many examples of private individuals simply seeking funding from governments for an enterprise they had already decided upon, so it's hardly fair to characterise exploration as uniquely government funded. Maybe when I a see private sector company at least get a human into LEO This is already scheduled to happen soon - they're testing human-rated capsules at spacex for example, so it's looking probable over the next few years given the pressure to remove dependence on Russia for the ISS.

tormeh 12y ago
>I'm not sure that is entirely true - as a counterpoint, consider the East India company, or the Hudson's Bay Company The trading companies of that era were a very special sort of company. They had armies, courts, prisons and sometimes even their own currencies. I have no idea why they would be relevant. Even putting that aside, these are trading companies, not exploration companies. We're not at the point in space travel where exploration can be a nice side-effect yet.

novalis78 12y ago

It's well worth watching Neil deGrasse Tyson on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CJ8g8w1huc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CJ8g8w1huc "The 3 Fears That Drive Us to Accomplish Extraordinary Things" - if you look closely, the actual successful colonization of North America was driven by private enterprise. I gave a talk on this topic at the last Mars Society convention, in case you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BOOuGUnDek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BOOuGUnDek

analogj 12y ago
Bringing Commercial Space Fantasies Back to Earth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQd7zqyd_EM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQd7zqyd_EM
- novalis78 12y ago
  The comments on that video are diametrically opposed to Neil's view. It's interesting how many fans of his do not share this particular of his sentiments. I wonder if Carl Sagan, his own inspiration, would have supported the nascent commercial space industry. I can't imagine why not.