Only reason to be in Space is to make money

[Booban]

Space cadets, astronauts all you brilliantly smart engineers and whatever else you do on the tax payers dime, you are all engaged in a very expensive hobby being paid by other people. Its nice that it's exciting and fun, but the bill is not being paid by the 'gov't' or 'Congress', its being paid by ordinary hard working people, many who do not have a respectable cushy high status job.

People expect a return in their investment. And not just microwaves ovens. We all expect our money back plus profit! Roads and schools are all paid and shared by everyone. Joy riding into space, only you guys get the benefits of that.

The perhaps provocative point of all this is, how to make money in space?

People explored to find gold, new trade routes, new markets. You can't just go back to the moon to find more rocks and maybe from there go to Mars to find even more rocks. People want real answers, not maybe we'll try this, and prepare for that. Going to the moon is not the same as going to Mars, it won't prepare you for Mars.

People want a plan, NASA you can have whatever budget you want for 10 years just pay it back with profit later. Show us the money.

Where are the plans to mine precious metals and to find new energy sources like helium 3 I hear about? Why aren't we beaming down free solar energy?

I haven't heard of a single plan that would actually work, apart from satellites and space tourism. In that case everything needs to stay grounded and send probes until we find gold in them thar hills!

 

[nimbus]

A job is a job. As a jobs program, NASA is no different from those "non-joyride" jobs being paid by other people. If you want that to be a better return on your investment, you need to do something about the govt choking their funds and keeping the catch-22 status quo where it is today: no cheap access to space because no initial expense in tooling/loss leaders because no cheap access to space because...

And you aren't necessarily superman to get a job "joyriding" in space. You work hard and can make it that way despite being "ordinary". There's nothing cushy about fighting your way to the leading edge of a field and then having the responsibility, in the eyes of "ordinary" people and personally, to make that job count with tiny margins of error and immense amount of work required to make it all work.

Space will start being a cash cow as it ought to be when demand overcomes that initial commercial inertia. There's plenty of plans to mine resources and beam down solar power, you just need to look a little harder. In the end it all comes back to that damned catch-22 of cheap space access.

everything needs to stay grounded and send probes until we find gold in them thar hills!

No.

only you guys get the benefits of that

No way! Research this a minimum and you'll see for yourself.. As far as the seemingly excessive proportion of NASA's funding... Is that really what you'd call 0.7 cent on each tax dollar? Consider this... NASA's total budget is dwarfed by what you'd get if you tallied just 1% off each social program in the budget.

 

[thermionic]

Wow, I thought the purpose was to join the Zero-G club! I guess my priorities are just different...

 

[trailrider]

In the 1920's everyone "knew" you'd never replace the luxury passenger train with those matchstick aerial "flivers" that were slightly larger versions of the JN-1's being flown by the former WWI fliers!

Someday...hopefully sooner than later, something will be found that can be profitable in space...whether in LEO, or on the Moon, or Mars or on an asteroid! Right now, we are about in the equivalent of the 1920's for commercial space. Of course, if we, the United States don't do it, somebody else will! If we, John and Jane Q public don't get ourselves behind the current space program...there won't be any manned program, and if there isn't any manned program, Congress and the public won't fund the unmanned probes after about two or three election cycles!

There are a LOT of things I don't like about NASA's handling of the manned space program...solid rocket boosters for a start, but until the commercial side does replace it, we better figure a way to make the most of it, including letting the President and Congress know that we want more funding...for whatever booster system we finally settle on! If you don't like the way things work, then get together with your friends and neigbors and fire the #@$+@&ds! And I'm not talking about NASA management! You get the chance every two and four years! Show of hands! How many of you old enough voted in the last election? If you didn't vote when you had the chance, then quit your complaining!

Ad LEO! Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Atra!

 

[halman]

Booban,

Welcome to the looney bin! It is refreshing to have someone post a negative comment without flaming the whole community. And, you are quite right about the taxpayers getting stuck with the bill for the joyrides. How did we get into this mess, anyway? Why has space been so different than other frontiers? Why has it taken so long to get anything done in space? Is there any kind of grand plan for what we want to do off planet?

Even though the Apollo program has been the reason for a great deal of pride in American technology, it has also been responsible for many of the problems that we are dealing with space exploration today. How can this be? By achieving what would nominally be step number 5 or 6 in space exploration got shoved up to the front, and threw everything out of kilter. The progression should go; achieve orbit, build a space station, build orbital transfer vehicles, build cheap access to orbit, build lunar exploration ship, go to the moon.

So the U.S. spent large sums of money proving that we could do something that we were not really ready to take advantage of. Then, we compounded the error by developing the most advanced vehicle in the world to go to space, but couldn't come up with anything for it to do. Instead of learning how to get into space cheaply and reliably, we spent our money on getting there first. Instead of building a vehicle that would require the minimum of expense to operate, while performing the minimum requirements of launch missions, we went and built a huge thing that demands the absolute maximum in performance to get into space.

Instead of paving the way for private enterprise to get into space, the government has constantly delayed and obfuscated, denying outright at one point the sale of a shuttle to a group of wealthy investors. Instead of dealing with space exploration as the extension of the American sphere of activity, the government has consistently treated space as a playground for defense contractors who build high tech science experiments. The concept that we can actually accomplish anything substantive in space has been rare among our leaders, who seem instead to look upon space as a way of dazzling the rest of the world with our scientific prowess.

And these leaders have never, not even once, defined any kind of long term goals for the exploration of space. They have repeatedly spoken of things which we would like to do, but never have they said that we are going to take action to actually achieve anything. But then, it is not the governments place to mine the Moon, or to build space stations for the processing of materials. However, it is the governments responsibility to learn how these things can be done, to pave the way for private enterprise.

As long as we are getting nothing substantial back for our investment, the prospects of any colonization of other planets are very slim. The public is not interested in paying for a bunch of malcontents to run away to some other place, which is exactly the perception that the 'Mars Only' folks are spreading. Investors looking to increase their wealth see no measurable progress in developing space technology to where it will be reliable, cheap, and safe.

However, the time is approaching when extracting resources from the Earth will become prohibitively expensive, either due to energy costs, environmental concerns, or just whoever is sitting on the stuff is not going to move. One need only to look at oil extraction to see where things are going. 100 years ago, a hole 1,000 feet deep could produce large quantities of crude oil. Today, drilling ships able to operate in 10,000 feet of water are needed to drill 2 miles beneath the sea floor to extract crude oil. We may never run out of anything, but a lot of it is going to get really spendy.

Difficult it may be to believe, but someday resources from off planet will be cheaper than those available here. How soon this comes to pass has a great deal to do with how soon a Cheap Access To Space system is created.

 

[bbfreakDude]

Space cadets, astronauts all you brilliantly smart engineers and whatever else you do on the tax payers dime, you are all engaged in a very expensive hobby being paid by other people. Its nice that it's exciting and fun, but the bill is not being paid by the 'gov't' or 'Congress', its being paid by ordinary hard working people, many who do not have a respectable cushy high status job.

Yes, a small piece of the Government pie (less than one percent at the moment). You should read the budget sometime, especially the Mandatory spending part. You know what that means? It means its set in law that you have to pay Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Unemployment etc. Whether you can afford them or not, SS isn't so bad, as at least it pays for it self until the baby boomers take out more than is being put in.

People expect a return in their investment. And not just microwaves ovens. We all expect our money back plus profit! Roads and schools are all paid and shared by everyone. Joy riding into space, only you guys get the benefits of that.

Wrong, government doesn't work that way. The governments job isn't to make a profit, its to make it easier for others to be productive in society. You need roads so businesses can make a profit, schools to have better informed citizens who have the basic skills to be good citizens and productive to the community (though local governments pay for schools). Same for space exploration, they figure out all this stuff so private industry doesn't and they can just worry about making a profit which is hard enough considering (Space X is a perfect example, having lost two customers already for the Falcon 9).

People explored to find gold, new trade routes, new markets.

Ah, but first they went to see what was there didn't they? Besides, you analogy is unworkable as space is a hostile environment with little to offer worth taking. As there is no profit to be made in space, unless you have easy access to space. Which currently we don't have, nor do we even have an idea how to have in a practical doable manner today. Maybe tomorrow, but not at the current time.

Going to the moon is not the same as going to Mars, it won't prepare you for Mars.

Yes it will, in the most important way. Mars and the moon are both hostile worlds, requiring us to learn how to live on another world and be entirely self sufficient. Technology needs to be tested, astronauts trained, and while the moon isn't a perfect substitute it is the best one we have.

People want real answer eh? What sort of answers? All you seem to be concerned about is NASA making a profit, how is that an answer?

People want a plan, NASA you can have whatever budget you want for 10 years just pay it back with profit later. Show us the money.

There is no profit in space exploration, none. The best parallel in our past is Antarctica. A hostile environment with explorers that were government funded for the most part. Those that weren't didn't do it because there was any money in it.

Even today we have bases in Antarctica, and it certainly isn't because there is any money in it. Do you not believe in understanding our world, solar system, and universe for the sake of understanding? It isn't like we spend a lot of money on these things, the current NASA budget is 18 billion give or take and while that sounds like a lot. The Department of Education for example gets 47 billion. DOD? 664 billion. Department of energy? 26.3 billion. National Science Foundation? 7 billion.

Where are the plans to mine precious metals and to find new energy sources like helium 3 I hear about? Why aren't we beaming down free solar energy?

Most government agencies don't make a profit, so I'm not really understanding why you think NASA should. Let the companies develop all these things, NASA's job is to explore and further the science and engineering needed to make these things more accessible to the rest of us.

I haven't heard of a single plan that would actually work, apart from satellites and space tourism. In that case everything needs to stay grounded and send probes until we find gold in them thar hills!

No, again there is no profit in space exploration except furthering our knowledge and understanding. If we stopped trying to understand and explorer the world we live in until we made a direct profit, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere. We'd still be hugging the coast to sail ships!

 

[Booban]

Thanks for the thought out replies. I certainly don't want to flame anybody, but provoke, yes!

Politicians, the military industrial complex are using space for their own goals, international prestige and expensive experiments. In that case they are getting a return on tax payer investments, I should say 'return' because as bbfreakDude pointed out profit was a wrong choice of word. But this isn't their money to begin with. It seems the people not benefiting are the ones who are footing the bill.

But the tax payer also needs a substantial return on their investment, not direct profits, but as pointed out NASA needs to put down the ground work so that civilian companies can then come in and make their 'profit', which will then get taxed and pay for the schools and other public services where the public can see a definite benefit on their investment in space.

Yes, the NASA budget is tiny, I am aware of where most of the money goes to, but those are services. This is money that goes in and then goes back out to the needy. Even if its just 1% of the budget, this is not small potatoes for your common man, this money has to be motivated and not just go to intangible experiments and paying the very high wages of these few educated people basically just doing what they enjoy doing, like a hobby! For it not to be a hobby, the results of their work has to come back to and be relevant to the people who paid for it.

Antarctic exploration, if it was up to me they wouldn't have gotten government money either. Same thing basically happened to them, explored, lives lost, and now just a bunch of mad scientists huddled about in a white igloo just like the ISS.

If that is what exploration leads to, then the NASA budget shouldn't be bigger than the arts and crafts budget. The paintings are nice, but I don't want it to be a work program for unemployed artists doing their hobby.

The other guys who were doing the real exploring and not just for the mad scientists, all these people were financed by governments/private investors looking to make money. They had some idea of what they wanted and explored on the way, all the way around africa and bumping into America when they tried going the other way. For their era, this exploration was just as hazardous and high risk for failure as space exploration is now.

Why this demand for easy access to space now? There was nothing easy for the old explorers. They had to do it the first time to show it could be done and what riches could be made. Then it became easy. NASA has shown it can be done, but has not shown any riches out there. We don't need easy and cheap access to space, if the wealth out there is great enough, access will become easy and cheap all by itself, as everything is relative.

I still maintain that going to the moon will teach you how to live on the moon, not live on mars. There will be some things which are common between the two, but that just mean's you'll have wasted learning a lot about living on the moon which is not applicable to living on Mars and then dumping all that knowledge when you go to Mars. When people see what it costs to get people to the moon with basically more moon rocks to show for it, going to mars will be political suicide for anybody.

Go to the moon because it is worth going to all by itself, not just for a bunch of mad scientists huddled inside an igloo. I don't think that is the future most people think of when we think of space being the next frontier for all of mankind.

For right or wrong NASA is never going to get a substantial budget until they can prove it is 'worth' it. Don't rely on the commercial companies, they are risk adverse. They are not going to do anything more than space tourism and satellites, were they can see a return on their investment.

So, hmm...nothing up there eh? Damn, since I am not a scientist, I thought I could become a lunar miner.

 

[radarredux]

The perhaps provocative point of all this is, how to make money in space?
...
I haven't heard of a single plan that would actually work, apart from satellites and space tourism. In that case everything needs to stay grounded and send probes until we find gold in them thar hills!

This argument certainly has merit at a minimum in the following sense: while polls have shown broad support for NASA, polls have not shown support for funding NASA, at least not beyond current levels (which is about 0.6% of the federal budget). Even at the height of the Apollo program polls showed that Americans did not support paying for Apollo. This issue of Return On Investment (however you want to measure those returns) has not been convincingly made to the wider public for over 40 years. If it had been, people would be willing to open up their wallets (either as tax supported endeavors or private investment (beyond a few extraordinarily rich individuals) into manned space program).

So while Booban may be purposely provocative, he clearly has a point.

 

[tanstaafl76]

Booban,

I appreciate your zeal for gaining productive purpose out of space exploration. However, your suggestions are a bit myopic. Primarily, the problem is that we don't know what we don't know. We don't even know what to look for until we go places and look around. The only way to find out if there is anything there that can be of profit for the country or private industry is to check it out either with robots or humans. This goes for both new frontiers like Mars, but also new forms of science that require presence in space, or more research on astrophysics that requires real data from space.

A brief unrelated example: We never would have wound up with nuclear power unless we had scientists trying to figure it out for non-profit reasons. At the time it was for a weapon, obviously, but it was not being pursued for the sake of profit because there were too many unknowns. No one knew that it could eventually be turned into a safe and stable power source that could be used to power everything from homes to aircraft carriers. From your perspective, if we had only pursued what we knew was profitable, we never would have split the atom and the world would be a very different place. Much is similar with space exploration, not only what we discover is valuable, but the research and development that is achieved in the process of that exploration is valuable also.

So, while I certainly am in favor of NASA keeping a firm eye on providing benefit to the taxpayers, there is always going to be some aspect of pure science and discovery that we cannot know whether it would ever be profitable.

 

[Booban]

Well, now that sounds really depressing. That we know so little.

I thought you guys new something I didn't (well you do but...you know what I mean). It's easy to take for granted these rovers roaming about mars all these years. But they are just two small rovers with itsy bitsy teeny wheelies. You would've thought we'd have sent one to every single planetary object we could reach by now. We havn't done much at all.

Those rovers better find a gold bar buried somewhere soon. Because I think that's what the missions ought to look for (gold is just a symbolic example of course). Like say NASA is going to the moon to look for gold is alot more alluring than saying we are just stopping over there on the way to Mars, because people will just wonder, is there gold on Mars? Look for the gold first, then the rest is R&D bonus. Like if you built that (experimental) space solar power plant...we'll you get a space station automatically (the ISS with much bigger solar panels) to do all that other boring research on.

But I see your point. To do the basic space exploration first apparently needs gargantuan amounts of money from the budget (not percent wise, but cash wise).

 

[radarredux]

Provocative quote from a NewScientist article

Falling out of love with market myths
25 July 2009 by Terence Kealey

The article talks about how common economic theories are wrong, and one result of those theories is that businesses shouldn't do R&D, and furthermore, according to an analysis published by University of Chicago economist Paul Romer, only the government has any interest in funding R&D. But then when they looked at real data:

In fact, the evidence shows otherwise. In 2003, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published The Sources of Economic Growth in OECD Countries, reporting on a comprehensive regression analysis of the factors that might explain the different growth rates of the world's 21 leading economies between 1971 and 1998. This indicated that only privately funded R&D led to economic growth, and that publicly funded R&D did not. Worse, the public funding of R&D crowded out private funding, and thus slowed economic growth.

You can see some evidence of this with respect to NASA. NASA, not wanting ELVs to compete with the Shuttle pushed for all ELV productions to be shutdown thus requiring the Shuttle for all launches, so when Challenger blew up America was screwed for a while. Recently the stimulus bill wanted more money to go to help commercial organizations to go into space, but a Congressman with a NASA constituency fought to get that money cut out. Greg Klerkx's "Lost in Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age" describes several examples where apparently NASA scuttled third-party space efforts.

And one thing I've heard a number of times is that it is difficult for companies to attract 3rd party investors if they think NASA will end up competing for the same business. For example, space station resupply or manned space launches.

Another issue is property rights. Lots of people think no one should "own" property on the Moon, that it should be for everyone. But exclusionary access is important to investors. If they find "gold" (or whatever) on the Moon, they want to protect access to that gold so they can profit from it. If the world governments decide they cannot do that, then there will not be a lot of incentive for private investment.

 

[radarredux]

Here is an article some might be interested in:

MAKING THE MOON PAY
Posted: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 7:55 PM by Alan Boyle
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/ ... 12537.aspx

"Forty years ago, moon landings were exclusively the province of superpowers - but today, commercial ventures are trying to turn lunar missions into profitable businesses. Do such dreams represent one small step for high-tech entrepreneurship, or do they require an overly giant leap of faith?

Ramin Khadem, a veteran of the telecom satellite industry, thinks there's definitely money to be made on the moon. That's not surprising: As chairman of Odyssey Moon Limited, he's in charge of one of the ventures planning to deliver commercial payloads to the moon - not 40 years from now, but sometime in the next five years."
...

 

[frodo1008]

Booban, how about the survival of the human race? Would that be good enough for Joe Six pack out there in taxpayer land?

Besides which, NASA's current budget is less than the price of a single candy bar for each taxpayer in the US, for each month.

And then there is of course the total usefulness of the wars we are now fighting in the Middle East, at far more each month than NASA's (to you anyway) wasted budget is each ENTIRE year! And do not go giving me that BS that it is securing our security. Although I must admit to generally supporting our stabilizing Afghanistan from Al Queda and the Taliban, if for no other reason than to keep fanatically extreme Islamic types from possibly obtaining nukes and a delivery system by eventually taking over Pakistan! But even that relatively worthy cause was put on a back burner by the last administration!

However, even with that, we are generally kept safe by our work with homeland security right here in the good old USA, and that I am perfectly happy to pay for!

So just what do I mean by the human race being doomed without a viable space program?

Well, in the first place, although it is a consideration, I am not even talking about NEO's that can totally take out not only humanity, but also quite probably most other life larger than the insects at the same time. While we know that will happen eventually, it is not what I mean.

What I do mean is the contest that humanity is having between using up the resources of this space ship Earth. Which would within a few hundred years at most totally ensure that our civilization collapses, and we probably end up with some kind of post Apocalypse type of existence AKA "Mad MAX"! Not a very pretty picture to leave for future generations!

Then there is the other side of the coin, where in this race we don't use up all the resources, we just so pollute the Earth in the meantime, that we can no longer breath the atmosphere. Now, wouldn't that be a legacy to leave our progeny?

Now, all the environmental programs such as conservation, recycling, and alternate fuels are very good in themselves, and may just give us the time needed to truly save ourselves. But any engineer worth his/her degree knows that there is NO perfect system. There is ALWAYS some leakage, regardless of what you do. So all of those programs will indeed slow the rot, but eventually the human race is doomed anyways!!

However, if (and without the space programs of all the people of the Earth, and those of private industry also) we of humanity CAN at the very least get the thrust of our industrial civilization out into the relatively unlimited resources of the entire solar system, we might just leave our decedents a fair chance at not only survival, but even a far better life than we ourselves have!

That IS what man in space is really all about! Simple survival of our human race!

If you lack even the basic scientific knowledge to realize even that, then just what are you doing on a site with the name space.com?

And just who says that we have not already benefited enormously from the space program?

The biggest push for the miniaturization and improved reliability of electronics came out of the space program! It is quite probable that we would not even be communicating here on these boards if it was not for that!

NASA has an entire group of not only scientists and engineers, but also accountants and other business types whose main job is to take ideas, inventions, methodologies, and other items of very high tech from the space program and see just where those can be used to benefit the businesses of the US economy. Basically, a great proportion of our high tech industries have come from the space program, and that is worth literally $trillions of dollar to the economy of this country.

Beside which NASA also does aerodynamics research that directly benefits such companies as Boeing in keeping a leading position in aerospace. In fact that is one of the complaints of the Europeans, that the US government even spends such funds! The ONLY major industry in the US that STILL runs in the black as far as the balance of trade with the rest of the world, IS the US aerospace industry, or didn't you realize that?

I have studied macro economics, and the US space program has been estimated to give back to the US economy from a minimum of 4x, to a maximum of 14 x as much as has been spent on it all these years. I would be perfectly willing to make that a reasonable average of some 10x, and with an average of some 20% of that going back to the federal government in taxes, that would mean a ROI for the government of some 200% for the space program!

As for the non manned programs, that ROI is even greater. Just how do you think the GPS systems actually works. by magic?

Heck, even such a seemingly unrelated area as farming now almost totally depends for its greatly increased productivity on both satellite imaging and the GPS system!

You might just want to go out an try Googling such subjects before you come here!

Somewhat sorry about the relative rant, but I have seen this kind of thing for about the last forty years (even back to the years when I worked on the engines for Apollo), and after that long it starts to get just a little bit old! :x :x

 

[neutrino78x]

Well, I think it is like the Louisiana Purchase. The government sent explorers, Lewis and Clark, to map the area and determine a rough idea of what the opportunities were for colonization by private homesteaders.

Same with space: The government sends the initial explorers to map and find out broadly what it is there. The government also provides law and order.

The act of colonization itself is up to private entities.

In other words, NASA's purpose is not to make money; the private colonizers are the ones who are there to make money.

In off shore oil fields, the Navy provides military protection, and defines the national boundary of US waters, but their purpose is not to be profitable; profitability is the purpose of Chevron, who came after the government to develop the resources.

--Brian

 

[Booban]

Arguing environmental factors and the impending doom of humanity on this planet only motivates for even more resources and technology to save this one and not for it to go into space. This planet is perfect for us, magnitudes better than anything we could ever find out there. I am not a scientist but I would think a scientifically knowledgeable person would be a little realistic about the technology needed to go beyond our solar system to find a reasonable alternate home, or terraforming Mars.

I didn't say NASA doesn't contribute to the economy or technology, but this is about being in space. Satellite TV and whatever else, great stuff, this is motivating the exploitation of our near space. This is the kind of motivation we need if we are to go further. Sputnik went beep beep beep all over the planet. It wasn't hard to realize the potential there. But what are we going to do on the moon? Mars?

Which has to come first? Exploration or exploitation? But this is kinda missing my point. The point is that exploration should be focused on how to exploit, that has been the historically motivating factor behind exploration. Space exploration should not be like mountain climbing, just because it is there. That is what happened to Apollo and what looks to be the Space Station.

Louisiana Purchase, yes, an example, the explorers had a economic mission (colonization is basically an economic endeavor). NASA doesn't have to make the money, but I don't think they are looking for ways to make money either. If they were, there would be an extra module on the space station for tourists. I believe each Russian tourist pays for the entire trip to space, so the astronauts travel for free.

But don't think that making money should be entirely left to the private investors. This kind of huge investment and risk deserves a direct return to the country, not for some corporation to swoop in and pocket all the riches to pay for their bonuses. We need to go back to a more mercantile approach of the early Europeans when they colonized. Minus the British parliamentarians who personally owned the East India Company but had the government pay for the soldiers.

If were going to the moon, then look for something that we can make money from. Like building a base near resources, or with large solar panels to beam back energy. At the very least there should be an extra bed for a tourist! Why havn't they asked if Virgin Galactic want's to invest in the moon base? It's too early for private enterprise to do it all themselves, but they can tag along, and offset some of the NASA budget.

But nobody talks about that, its just go to the moon to go to Mars. The public can't support either unless you can tell them why.

 

[frodo1008]

Then there are the intangibles such as the absolute fact that every human civilization in the past that has given up the urge to explore and go to and discover new territories has stagnated. In fact it is even somewhat worse than that, after that stagnation there always seems to be some upstart civilization that comes along and utterly takes over the stagnated one!

This has happened with western civilizations such as Rome, but the most startling example of that was the Ming dynasty civilization of China. At one time, that civilization was a totally vibrant and exploratory nation, when the western civilization was still struggling with the Dark Ages after the fall or the Roman Empire, and if the Chinese had not given up their explorations, it would have been they that discovered Western Civilization, and not the other way around.

While I may not necessarily agree with the details of Dr, Robert Zubrin's plans, he certainly nails it on the head for the reasons that we must go onwards in space in his truly great book, "Entering Space".

There were a couple of paragraphs in the first chapter of that excellent book, that I don't think he would mind if I copied here, (and upon examining the fair use page, I find that I would not be infringing upon any copyright laws either) as this thread IS about the very justification for going further out into the solar system that he also finds so very compelling! So, in Dr Zubrin's excellent words:

" Pax Terrestris yes. Pax Mundana no. Humanity does not need war, death, disease, decay, superstition, national or racial cults, belief structures or despotisms, or any number of other other residues of out primitive past against which many noble people have struggled through the ages. But humanity does need challenge. A humanity without challenge would be a humanity without change, without innovation, which fundamentally means a humanity without meaningful freedom. A humanity without challenge would be a humanity without humanity."

I particularly liked that last sentence. It was positively poetic!

Further on Dr, Zubrin writes:

" The Earth's challenges have largely been met, and the planet is currently in the process of effective unification. I believe this marks the end, not of human history, but of the first phase of human history, our development into a mature Type I civilization. It is not the end of human history because, if we choose to embrace it, we have in space a new frontier offering endless Challenge-- an infinite frontier, filled with worlds waiting to be discovered and history waiting to be made by myriad new branches of human civilization waiting to be born.

The opening of the space frontier, the creation of a spacefaring civilization, is thus the critical task facing our age. Compared to it, all other human enterprises of the present day are of trivial significance. Our success in this endeavor will determine whether we stand at the beginning of human history or the end. It will determine whether humanity continues as a truly human species. Failure is unacceptable."

I have never seen the REAL reason for the human space program put so well!

And, if some people can make good profits out of this in the meantime, then that is just icing on the cake!

Further, a thousand years into the future our age will be either thought of as the beginning of the greatest age of human advancement and discovery, or the age of the stupidity and failure of the human retreat from the cosmos!

Which is it going to be? or !

 

[tampaDreamer]

I think it's positively a sin that NASA has apparently intentionally obstructed third party space efforts. :evil:
NASA and the rest of the federal government need to work harder at getting the hell out of the way. Attempting to keep a lockdown on technology, the supposed benefit to _The People_, is preventing the payback that everyone says we're supposed to get.

I think the OP makes a good point, so far we have only searched for water and life. At some point we're going to have to concede that the public doesn't actually care very much if there is microbial life on mars, the moon, et. al. The search for water is important because it is the #1 resource needed for a self sustaining base on another body. But the secondary search needs to quickly move to precious metals. Once you get the infrastructure for mining and processing up there, dropping things back down to earth should be pretty cheap. Just send up packages of airbags or cheap capsules with parachutes and drop them back down to earth full of platinum. The search for life will have a much easier time piggybacking on a full-scale mining operation than feeding off a dwindling space science budget.

 

[Jazman1985]

Agreed Tampa Dreamer, as cool as it would be to find microbial life on Mars, most people could care less. All of the talk about having to make sure we don't disrupt this "potential" life is ridiculous. If it can survive on Mars, I doubt there's much we could do to harm it. More important is finding usefull elements or compounds. I sincerely hope that if NASA does reach Mars first, they bring enough gear to mine and refine metals, water, H and O. After initially discovering these, it will be far easier to make a case for private spaceflight to mine and bring these back, or use them in space.