Privatized spaceflight is flowering in the sense asparagus is growing in Death Valley with massive and unsustainable infusions of Shasta water, and new industries are being birthed in the sense cloning can produce one compromised live specimen from 200+ failed inseminations.
half of one percent of the national budget is unsustainable? Actually less because that's the total budget for NASA.
There are some companies more viable than others, but privatized spaceflight has already been proven by SpaceX as viable and economically profitable.
You can hardly call them 'clones'
Where else in the world is this sort of list of space related companies popping up? You might call them unproven, but elsewhere there aren't even the companies to call unproven!
NewSpace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
specifically these.
Of course not every company will survive, and some are longshots while others are quite down to earth, but where else do you see this sort of list of space related businesses popping up? I'd like to know.
My initial point stands. Bezos is doing what NASA and the USSR did 70 years ago, with massive subsidies from the government itself. And to be clear, the whole "same side up" claim is retarded. Every space vehicle has to land the same way it goes up, with the heat shield facing down.
The point is economic reusability and sustainability. Clearly the Soviet and NASA programs were unsustainable, that is proven by history and was not their primary focus. Now, private companies are doing what was before only the domain of governments, and global superpowers at that! Sustainability is part of their business plans.
NASA sent men to the moon about 50 years ago, that doesn't change that if a private company did the same thing it would be a world first and historical event... They'd also be more likely to stay.
The government isn't "failing". It's not as though GPS, telecom and weather satelites (which were designed by the military, i.e., the govt) are falling to earth. What we have now, is entirely the product of government efforts.
I was referencing an economically viable reusable spacecraft. Both governments unequivocally failed!
As for private industry, of course it has not been to the level of government efforts, it is still growing and for the most part in its infancy! That said the potential is there, and a few have already proven themselves, there is no reason to believe more won't. In regards to rockets at least, it has already been proven that private industry can do better economically.
NASA Figures Show That Commercial Rocket Costs Less Than Half as Much as Government-Run Effort Would - Observations - Scientific American Blog Network
The belief private industry can do it better is speculative and being forced into being in the same way Communist states put huge resources into making collectivized farming work so they could say, "so there".
The very fact I make such an argument proves I am not prejudiced.
I suppose I should make this clear, are you arguing that newspace companies should not accept CCDev funding or else they are doomed to failure because any amount of government funding means their business model is $hit?
This is what it sounds like to me, please clarify.
No one is arguing that the government hasn't jump-started the growth of commercial space, probably it wouldn't have even been born without government encouragement, but SpaceX for example are now sustainable without government help. I also don't consider government contracts as help, they are paying for services provided.
What an un-Christian argument. Societies and ventures that are based on nothing more than greed ultimately fail. One could quite easily argue this was the demise of Greek and Arab science during the late Roman and medieval periods.
Sorry, not Christian, and profit is a great motivator.
Greed is like fire, its a very useful motivator but can destroy if not contained.
It is in fact a core basis of capitalism, harnessing profit motive and human greed.
