"Privatizing" the space industry. Yea or nay?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yea.

Private enterprise works better and is willing to take more risks.

We won't be able to say who does what up there as well as we could when the government controlled it.

Nay.

Government programs are less willing to risk human lives in the effort.

We won't be able to say who does what up there as well as we could when the government controlled it.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Nay.
Private companies don't like spending money they won't make back. The only way they'll make money is through space tourism.
Then they will concentrate on what the tourists want, spending gazillions on fun, thrill seeking shite, and less on real science to go out there and explore.

This is a point Dan Brown made in Deception Point.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Nay.
Private companies don't like spending money they won't make back. The only way they'll make money is through space tourism.
Then they will concentrate on what the tourists want, spending gazillions on fun, thrill seeking shite, and less on real science to go out there and explore.

This is a point Dan Brown made in Deception Point.

There is money to be made in LEO. A zero-G factory can be used to produce some really interesting stuff.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Leo the constellation?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Leo the constellation?

Low Earth Orbit.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, that "context" thing.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Back to the question at hand. If it were a "not-for-profit" organisation, they maybe a "yay" from me.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Back to the question at hand. If it were a "not-for-profit" organisation, they maybe a "yay" from me.

A "foundation" of some kind? Universities?

[klr]

Anyone here ever read Red Mars?

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Back to the question at hand. If it were a "not-for-profit" organisation, they maybe a "yay" from me.

A "foundation" of some kind? Universities?

Maybe something along the lines of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anyone here ever read Red Mars?

No, you read "The Man Who Sold the Moon?"

[klr]

Anyone here ever read Red Mars?

No, you read "The Man Who Sold the Moon?"

Nope, not yet. But Red Mars is much, much longer (and also the first part of a trilogy).

You've got more catching up to do.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anyone here ever read Red Mars?

No, you read "The Man Who Sold the Moon?"

Nope, not yet. But Red Mars is much, much longer (and also the first part of a trilogy).

You've got more catching up to do.

"The Man Who Sold the Moon" was published in the early '60s.

[Peter Brown]

Back in the 80’s there was a story about some British inventor who designed a space shuttle or the engine, I forget which, but the end result was space flight would be rather like a plane, in that it would take off, enter space and land again on Earth.

For a year or two I read no more about it, and then there was a story about the inventor finally gained some type of backing and was setting up in Africa I think.

That was the last I ever heard of the story.