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Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Private Business Will Not Open the Space Frontier

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-the-market-will-bear dept.

MarkWhittington writes "Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famous astrophysicist and media personality, offered something of a reality check on the potential of commercial enterprises to open the space frontier without the aid of government. Specifically referencing SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk's boast that he would establish a Mars colony, Tyson said on a recent video podcast, 'It's not possible. Space is dangerous. It's expensive. There are unquantified risks. Combine all of those under one umbrella; you cannot establish a free market capitalization of that enterprise.'"

93 of 580 comments (clear)

  1. I suspect he's right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But I hope he's wrong. Chances of anyone in government coming together for long enough to get something like this done again are slim, especially without a military reason.

    1. Re:I suspect he's right. by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's probably both.

      I can prove him wrong with two words: commercial satellites.

      I can prove him semi-right with a slightly higher word count: It will likely take some heavy-duty research to help get the costs down to under $100/kg or so, but once it hits that threshold, then you'll likely find a shitload of companies falling all over themselves to strip-mine space for everything from aluminum to methane (assuming a vessel could be made to send the stuff down w/o it burning/boiling off during re-entry.) It'll also open up colonization, albeit on a small scale.

      The reasons why? Sure there's unlimited distances, but there's also unlimited potential for wealth, and a lot of folks are going to give it a shot. Most will fail miserably. Many will see death, dismemberment, and spectacular horror. A few however will succeed - some will do so enough to make them wealthier than anyone could imagine.

      Not much different from the state of things in 1493 Europe, if you think about it.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    2. Re:I suspect he's right. by Chrisq · · Score: 2

      But I hope he's wrong. Chances of anyone in government coming together for long enough to get something like this done again are slim, especially without a military reason.

      .... unless you mean the Chinese government perhaps.

    3. Re:I suspect he's right. by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Informative

      I can prove him wrong with two words: commercial satellites.

      I watched a speech to the space society where he stated this message a bit more clearly, I think. Tyson means the Frontier will be "opened", as in "trail blazed" by the governments. Once you can get a person to Mars, then private industry has much more data to make the calculated risks. Massive uncalculated risk? That's not a valid business strategy, really. However, a government can allocate more funds as needed, and push forth a frontier for the good of mankind. Money isn't much of issue for governments (look at the size of the US's war budget, for example).

      Inspiring the people by pushing the frontier even further has shown beneficial in both economic and social terms in the past. This new generation has no Neil or Buzz. The ISS is hugely valuable, but we're still whipping around in the same near Earth orbit. That's not nearly as captivating, or inspiring to the average Jane or Joe.

      Take commercial space satellites. You didn't disprove shit, man. Guess who "opened" that frontier first? Governments. Neil is saying the Governments will blaze the trails and make way for the private space industry for the benefit of all. We all benefit from satellites now, but that private industry remained grounded until governments took the first steps.

    4. Re:I suspect he's right. by nospam007 · · Score: 2

      "I can prove him wrong with two words: commercial satellites."

      That's not exactly space. Also, those were launched by Russian, American or European state sponsored rockets.

      Since it seems to be even impossible to grow corn without government aid I fear he's right.

    5. Re:I suspect he's right. by Rakishi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Governments have already done the trail blazing for where it matters. There is nothing of worth on Mars, it's inside a gravity well with barely an atmosphere and no radiation protection. The money isn't in shipping a handful of people to a red rock for millions and burying them under twisty feet of rock.

      The money is in all the easier to access and easier to reach natural resources in asteroids and outside the giant gravity wells. There may also be some money in cheaper local tourism. As the cost per person goes up, the total amount of money you can make goes down as your potential market shrinks much faster than the price grows.

      These are all things which aren't even being commercially exploited. Blazing a trail into the jungle doesn't benefit anyone that much if you're starting from a dinky little 2 man outpost that the commercial routes won't reach for twenty years. Looks at colonization. The governments brazed a trail to the coasts but it was the commercial fur traders who really explored the inside of the US.

    6. Re:I suspect he's right. by Alef · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can prove him wrong with two words: commercial satellites.

      Oh really? What do you figure he said that this proves wrong? You know, because he specifically argues that private companies does things like transporting stuff into space better than government can. You'd known that if you bothered to watch TFV -- I know, this is Slashdot, what am I expecting?

      What he is talking about is missions to push the frontiers, like mapping planets and such, where it's hard to find a clear ROI for a private investor.

    7. Re:I suspect he's right. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can prove him wrong with two words: commercial satellites.

      What have commercial satellites in common with a Mars base? Commercial satellites are being launched by private companies because the government paved the way for them in the 1960s and 1970s. There are no live humans on board. Nobody to cope with the radiation and the microgravity. There's vast commercial interest in having a satellite fleet, even short-term - especially short term. Where's the commercial interest in sending a man to Mars? You're saying "commercial", and yet commercial companies can't see beyond the tips of their noses. Anything requiring more than ten years in the future is "not a viable business plan" for the shrewd MBA. You're talking about space mining, but who's going to do all the primary research? Because it surely weren't the commercial satellite companies who did the primary research on geosynchronous satellites! We can't even begin to design the technological processes to mine and process asteroid material unless we know what exactly is out there, and the first asteroid probes have been sent very recently. Guess what: they were sent by NASA, not by commercial companies! Yes, I believe that there will be a day when commercial space mining will be commonplace affair, but I don't think that pure commercial endeavours will be the ones to pave the way to that.

      Not much different from the state of things in 1493 Europe, if you think about it.

      So you're saying that if the Apollo 13 had died in the accident, Mrs. Shepard and Mrs. Roosa would have simply told their husbands "of course you have to go, we expected a lot of people to die in space anyway"? Human life has an entirely different value in 1493. Nobody cared about the survival of expendable, uneducated sailors back then. How many have died for every single successful discovery voyage? Because you can bet that every double-PhD scientist or engineer dying beyond Earth's orbit will be treated like a national catastrophe. That won't last forever, of course, but the beginnings won't be easy.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re:I suspect he's right. by negablade · · Score: 2

      Not convinced your example proves Neil wrong. Commercial satellites are common only because the US and Russian governments did all the primary research and development first. Satellites aren't as fragile as humans and considerably easier to launch into space and keep there. Near Earth orbit is easier and cheaper than Mars.

      Neil is commenting mainly on "Elon Musk's boast that he would establish a Mars colony". Manned travel to Mars isn't routinely done and there isn't anything for \industry to build on. The cost to develop and test the technology to make manned trips to Mars feasible and to sustain a base on Mars would be prohibitive for a single commercial industry. Look at the development of the electric car for instance. Significant cost and research required as well as infrastructure changes and no single commercial entity was responsible for the full development of the technology required to make hybrids and full electric vehicles commercially viable.

      As for the cost, getting a manned Mars trip down to $100/kg is a significant undertaking. I'm sure that if the costs could be bought down to that level that commercial interest would peak. But that is a far cry from doing it now before the technology has been developed, as Elon Musk seems to boast.

      -Wayne

      PS Secretly I'm hoping Elan can do it, but the chances are slim to none.

    9. Re:I suspect he's right. by peragrin · · Score: 2

      The thing is those fur traders who really explored the US needed a gun, a stock of ammo, and some blankets to do that exploration.

      In Alaska Today you can literally live without earning more than a couple of grand a year.

      Now let's see you live in space without

      water, oxygen, radiation shielding, propulsion, and some form of fake gravity. You have to carry everything with you literally everything. Asteriods to mine are very hard to get to and from basically because they are not near a gravity well and we use gravity wells for 90% of our intra solar travel propulsion.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    10. Re:I suspect he's right. by Teancum · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem with an entrepreneur making a profit in space is getting cooperation from government to get that to happen. Note that I'm not saying that the government must necessarily subsidize the venture, but it is possible to set up a "business climate" that encourages or discourages entrepreneurial activity in space.

      Two big examples for how the U.S. government basically killed entrepreneurial spaceflight activity:

      Space Services, Inc. designed and built the Conestoga rocket. They got to the working hardware stage of development which actual flights of the hardware (most rocket launching companies don't even get that far). While there were admittedly problems with quality control and other problems, the primary issue that this company faced was competition from the Space Shuttle program, where NASA claimed commercial customers could buy launching services for about $1000 per pound to low-Earth orbit. This basically threw out the business case for Space Services to continue developing this rocket, thus they bailed out. The funny thing is that NASA never delivered on that promise of commercial launches and the Space Shuttle never could have been able to fly payloads at that price even if commercial payloads were actually flowing freely like was originally promised.

      The OTRAG rocket wasn't even manufactured by an American company, but instead was mostly composed of European investors and engineers. Again they got to the working hardware stage of development and even started to build some launch sites for their rockets.... except those launch sites were located in "sensitive countries" like Libya and Zaire (now called Congo again). Intense diplomatic pressure (perhaps justified) was employed by the U.S. government to kill the development of this rocket, not to mention that Arianespace had formed as a competitor (government funded as well... something OTRAG didn't have) so all further permits were cancelled.

      The interesting thing is that more recently there was sort of the opposite sort of anti-entrepreneurial activity that took place, especially following the success of the Ansari X-Prize when Burt Rutan's Spaceship One finally made a successful series of sub-orbital flights. Noting that Scaled Composites was hardly the only company, the Office of Commercial Spaceflight was established to at the very least permit entrepreneurs to try and see if they can make a commercial effort in space. It also doesn't hurt that existing government launcher efforts like the Constellation program and the SLS have proven to be so horribly uneconomical in their operations and development that the case for commercial launcher operations is basically a slam dunk business case at the moment.

      What I'm trying to say is that the government can either encourage private entrepreneurial efforts in this regard, or they can completely screw them up so they would never be successful no matter how hard these entrepreneurs try. Also, spaceflight really is a very capital intensive business. Not nearly so much as petroleum exploration and refining (which definitely has much more capital tied up in those business), but unfortunately space transportation services is also a razor thin profit margin as well. In the words of Elon Musk, commercial spaceflight launchers is an excellent way to turn billionaires into millionaires.

    11. Re:I suspect he's right. by asylumx · · Score: 2

      Of course, Columbus used that funding so that he can now wander the heavens as the morning star, still believing he reached India.

      http://www.xkcd.com/1255/

    12. Re:I suspect he's right. by Teancum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Commercial satellites are being launched by private companies because the government paved the way for them in the 1960s and 1970s.

      Nope, you are wrong here.

      Commercial satellites were first developed not by the good graces of the U.S. government, or even the Soviet Union for that matter. Instead the first practical communications satellite (and commercial satellite I would note too) was launched by AT&T as a part of the Telstar program Keep in mind that AT&T paid for the satellite development, paid for the rocket to launch it into space, and even paid for the launch pad services at a premium rate. Unfortunately the rocket and the launch pad were government owned and required special legislation to be passed by the U.S. Congress just for AT&T to be granted permission for the privilege of being able to go into space.

      The other stupid thing about this whole venture by AT&T is that once they proved that commercial satellites could be successful, and furthermore that a real business opportunity existed so entrepreneurs could actually make money by sending satellites into space, special legislation was enacted that actually prohibited anybody else other than a competitor to AT&T could launch satellites into space. It was a forced government monopoly that essentially treated satellites as a regulated utility company.

      Far from the government being a trailblazer of going forth and proving that satellites could work and earn money, the government actually screwed things up and prevented commercial spaceflight from happening for more than 40 years after commercial spaceflight efforts had been proven successful. I think that has damaged the U.S. economy and only in the past decade has commercial spaceflight efforts even been permitted to happen in meaningful ways that in earlier decades simply were illegal.

      This lack of freedom to even try has been by far and away the worst part about government space policy in the 20th Century. I'm not even convinced that the government was the only option for developing rockets either, but the one thing that made building rockets so important to the government in the 1950's and 1960's (not so much in the 1970's) was that it provided a good platform to place nuclear bombs for ICBMs and shorter ranged missiles. The whole business of sending stuff into space was mainly a side-show of technology that could be reused for other things at the same time.

      I'll also note that one of the reasons why the USSR achieved so many "firsts" early on with rockets is that the nuclear bombs they had to fly were so much larger than the bombs built by America that they simply needed the larger rockets. The same ICBM used to deliver the huge nuke to America could also be used to launch a capsule big enough to carry a cosmonaut into space.

      Note also that by about 1970, the needs of missiles and the needs of vehicles going into space diverged enough that they became different vehicles. The design requirements for an ICBM is not the same as what you want to use for sending "fragile cargo" up into space including communications satellites or crewed vehicles. This is also why funding for spaceflight in both the USA and the USSR was cut substantially, even though the public relations benefits from continuing the spaceflight programs still had some benefit. This is also why Neil deGrasse Tyson's notion of government funded space is never going to happen either, as there is no purpose other than minor public relations benefits to the governments involved to see that it occurs.

      The first NASA astronauts going to Mars will be greeted by a crew from CNN covering the landing live on the ground under the lander... and a party will be held honoring their arrival when the rest of the people in that part of Mars gather together for the celebration. NASA astronauts or for that matter government employees will not be the first to go there.

    13. Re:I suspect he's right. by Agent0013 · · Score: 2

      I watched a speech to the space society where he stated this message a bit more clearly, I think. Tyson means the Frontier will be "opened", as in "trail blazed" by the governments. Once you can get a person to Mars, then private industry has much more data to make the calculated risks. Massive uncalculated risk?

      It wasn't a government that pushed to find the new world. Columbus had to search for funding for his expedition. Sounds like a commercial endeavor being done by an entrepreneur to me.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    14. Re:I suspect he's right. by Teancum · · Score: 2

      Sputnik was a stripped down nuclear warhead missing the fissionable material itself and instead it had a very simple radio transmitter.

      Also note that Telstar was launched just five years after Sputnik. Do you really think there was much of a technology transfer from the USSR to an American telecom company in the 1950's and 1960's?

      And yes, I believe that without the massive race to build nuclear bombs and the Cold War that it is likely commercial spaceflight would have happened anyway. It may have been slower to get going and certainly done on a much smaller scale, but it likely would have happened. The rocket equation wasn't exactly a new concept in 1960, especially since the people you really need to give thanks to are the Germans of World War II that helped to build the V2.

      With this statement you are presupposing that Telstar would never have been able to go into space had Sputnik never launched. I am suggesting that the two were not directly related incidents and indeed were contemporary of each other.

    15. Re:I suspect he's right. by wiit_rabit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Change the paradigm.

      You don't need water, oxygen, etc... if you don't send humans. Private enterprise will do the cost analysis, and I bet they will send very sophisticated robots first. Go to the Asteroid belt to mine for things, go into low/medium orbit to develop new materials and manufacturing processes, etc... All with a focus on what is the best return on investment, not what political whims are fashionable.

      I agree with others that Kennedy's speech about going to the moon was brilliant, but we were developing heavy lift capability anyway for the military, and maybe starting a 'space program' deflected some of the criticism that would have come about of we had developed the heavy lift capability, etc... with only military interests in mind.

    16. Re:I suspect he's right. by schnell · · Score: 3, Informative

      It wasn't a government that pushed to find the new world. Columbus had to search for funding for his expedition. Sounds like a commercial endeavor being done by an entrepreneur to me.

      You do know where Columbus got his funding, right?

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
  2. Doesn't matter. Only option. by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It doesn't really matter, because private sector is our only option. Adjusted for inflation, we spent more in each year of our last dozen years of military actions than on NASA in 55 years. Doubling NASA's budget seems trivial. Hell, tripling or quadrupling it (especially in consideration for the kinds of returns we get, technologically and economically across all of society) seems insignificant.

    But it isn't going to happen.

    If we wait for a government and a citizenry that is more compelled by blowing up brown people overseas and pushing authoritarian and corporate agendas, it is never going to happen.

    If we wait for a government and a citizenry that doesn't want to spend the money to cure cancer, cure aids, feed starving people -- all things that are entirely reasonable with fractions of the funding we spend on some of the most controversial and possibly unnecessary expenses in this country -- then what fucking hope have we of ever finding the progressive spirit for human advancement within our collective selves for funding space efforts?

    1. Re:Doesn't matter. Only option. by meglon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The current lifetime projected budget cost for just the F-35 program is equivalent to about 75 years of NASA funding. The other part of that, of course, is that they recalculate the lifetime cost of the F-35 about every 12-18 months... and it keeps skyrocketing every time they do.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    2. Re:Doesn't matter. Only option. by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 2

      More real local jobs again, real science, real data and real costs.

      Why is that? people from India are at least as smart an those from the USA, but a lot cheaper. And Russians can read their own theory (theory of space travel was largely developed by Russians, the practical problems were largely solved by the Germans) for a fraction of the price it takes for an American to do it. If programming is outsourced, why not rocket science? It's not exactly speculative finance, you know.

      No more slowing a science or an imaging project due to politics, an epic boondoggle or hidden costs :)

      Like in digital publishing you mean? That is even more boring than rocket science, but to say that "private sector"=="no politics" is simply not true.

      And off course there is another thing. If you can launch anything into space, it will be abused before you know it. A satellite launching missile can easily be abused as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Or you could orbit GPS jammers, targeted lasers, guided solar mirrors, chaffs of debris to disable other satellites, or any other stuff you know from James Bond villains. Do you really think politicians will stay out of that?

      --
      Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
    3. Re:Doesn't matter. Only option. by boarder8925 · · Score: 4, Funny

      They should just go ahead and upgrade to the F150. I hear you can get one of those things for around $20,000.

      --
      Keep your eyes to the sky.
  3. Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not possible. Space is dangerous.

    So was crossing the atlantic in a boat. So was heavier-than-air flight. So was getting into space in the first place. So was going to the toilet in the middle of the night 100 years ago.

    It's expensive.

    So was... well, you see where I'm going with this.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, he said " Space is dangerous. It's expensive. There are unquantified risks."

      And he thinks that will stop private enterprise? If the potential for profit is there, then those have never posed an obstacle. The hard part is preventing business from sacrificing life and limb in pursuit of profit.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not possible. Space is dangerous.

      So was crossing the atlantic in a boat. So was heavier-than-air flight.

      But there were riches to be had if you risked that crossing in a boat - there isn't in space. Etc... etc... And, as he notes and you conveniently ignore, the Atlantic wasn't opened by private enterprise. The same goes for heaver-than-air flight. From the NACA to the enormous jumpstart that came from truckloads goverment cash spending on research, training pilots (who later became available for civil employment), aircraft production, etc... etc... (especially in the two world wars)
       
      Cheap soundbites only make you look wise to the uneducated and kool-aid swillers.

    3. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by asmkm22 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Commercial businesses need more than just "potential" profit, especially if they are going to be spending the insane amounts of money that space exploration will demand. There is currently no company that can realistically make something like a moon colony happen, much less a mars colony, because there needs to be some kind of return of investment.

      We can't even get a company to successfully trail blaze and revolutionize a source of clean energy to replace fossil fuels, so I don't know how in the world anyone thinks we'll do something even more difficult, expensive, and risky like manned space exploration any time soon.

      It's not a lost cause, however. It's just not something that's going to happen until a mars rover unearths a huge diamond deposit, or discovers some martian species capable of picking fruit for cheaper than the Mexicans. THEN, you can bet your ass some company will step up and suddenly have a plan.

    4. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by Jade_Wayfarer · · Score: 2

      The same goes for heaver-than-air flight.

      Oh yes, the famous Smithsonian Institute spent hundreds of thousand of taxpayers dollars over the several years to create the marvel of heavier-than-air unmanned flying machine. It's not that some small bicycle company then took that ideas and made a first controllable manned airplane. Ridiculous notion, truly.

      --
      Absence of proof != proof of absence.
    5. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by gutnor · · Score: 2

      Not to rain on your parade, but yes those 3 elements are show stopper for private enterprise, especially the unquantified bit. Getting the government covering your asses for some/all of those aspect is what it takes to kick start a market. Once the unquantifiable has been quantified, that's when the fun begin.

      For example, did you see a boom in private space exploration in the 70's ?

      Seems to me here that the only disagreement is to know if we have passed the threshold that make commercial colonisation of space viable or not. Tyson thinks more leg work needs to be done by the government (you know killing people, crashing a few billion on a rock). Musk is of the opposite opinion. Both have very good basis to talk as they are.

      We will see, there have been many many claim of commercial operation in the space. It is only very recently that a tiny bit of it has actually materialised. I'm still waiting for my Moon resort and my orbit hotel that were promised in the 90's.

    6. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... by DerekLyons · · Score: 2

      To say that the Atlantic wasn't opened by private enterprise is obtusely semantic.

      No, it's plain black-and-white fact. The 'companies' you refer to range from outright government enterprises only thinly disguised to what amounted to government contractors. They were almost universally backed with special privileges afforded by law, etc... etc..

      It's supremely ignorant to pretend these were equivalent to the companies of today. The one playing semantic games is you, by pretending that the word represents the same thing then and now.

  4. SpaceX is impressive, but... by jfruh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...to say that it's an example of free enterprise in space is laughable. The company's most high-profile missions -- the Dragon capsules to and from the ISS -- are fully paid for by NASA. SpaceX is essentially a government contractor. It's "profitable" because the government is paying it do things (and because it can do those things more efficiently than the government could itself, for a variety of structural reasons). So, yeah, I have no doubt that Elon Musk could set up a Mars colony if the U.S. government paid him to do it. I'm just not sure that really constitutes "private business" doing the job.

    1. Re:SpaceX is impressive, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      SpaceX's launch manifest is right here: http://www.spacex.com/missions

      Of the remaining four launches this year, only one is for NASA. Indeed, only one is for a US-based customer.
      Of the twelve launches next year, three are for NASA and one is for the US Air Force. One is a launch demo so that obviously doesn't count, but that's still seven out of eleven launches going somewhere other than the US Government.

      I don't really see SpaceX as being just a government contractor. It has plenty of customers, some of which are governments, and it actively seeks more by bringing launch costs down lower than any government agency has done in the past.

      The real questions are:

      1) Is there any profit to be made in colonizing space with human presence? If yes, then as someone else said, the hard part will be stopping them from doing so.
      2) If there isn't, since Elon Musk is a bit of a space colonization nut, can he make enough profit off of his other business to finance a colony out of sspare change?

    2. Re:SpaceX is impressive, but... by shia84 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If by "developing its capabilities" you mean "analysing, understanding and applying NASA knowledge from the last 5 decades" to which they have full access then yes, they did that at some point and are still doing it. However, I'd be very surprised if their own research added even close to 1% to the heap. Just look at the outright silly disparity in amount, scale and scope of experiments, the size of the funding and R&D staff, etc. between the two.

      They are basically a private extension of NASA with a significantly less risk averse decision making process, but also much less accountability. Not that I have anything against that, I think SpaceX is awesome, but I also do think that Tyson is mostly right.

  5. Years late to the party by DerekLyons · · Score: 2

    I've known this for... well, the better part of two decades now. It's blindingly obvious to anyone who has actually studied the history of exploration. And he doesn't go far enough at that - most of the voyages and expeditions were indeed backed by governments, but for commercial, political, and military advantages. The big problem, is that there really isn't much of that in space that we aren't exploiting already.

  6. counterargument: by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson's_Bay_Company

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Company

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartered_company

    http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Weyland-Yutani

    (ok, the last one not so much)

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:counterargument: by oDDmON+oUT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of your three examples, it seems to me the only real contender for a purely corporate endeavor is the Massachusetts Bay Company.

      The Hudson's Bay Company, and the East India Company in particular, appear to be more quasi-governmental concerns, birthed by royal fiat, benefiting those in government who invested, allowing ample plausible deniability for inhumane actions against indigenous people and whose assets were eventually folded back into government.

      --
      Some days it's just not worth
      chewing through my restraints.
    2. Re:counterargument: by Alef · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And obviously you didn't watch TFV. Quote from it: "The first Europeans to the New World were not the Dutch East India Trading Company. It was governments funding government missions. Columbus drew the maps, established where the trade winds were. Where are the hostiles? Where are the friendlies? Is there food there? Can you breathe the air? They come back with this information. Then you can establish a capital market evaluation. 'Cause now you know there are riches here but not there; you can go here by this route but not that one. Then you can turn it into a profitable enterprise."

      He thinks private companies should do more of the work in space, he just thinks there are too many unknowns for it to make business sense for anyone to push the frontiers.

  7. Re: There have always been doubters by bruce_the_loon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They did plan it, engineer it, build it and pay for it. Falcon and Dragon was their accomplishment.

    Unless you're talking about the space station, which is then scraping the slimy mud under the bottom of the barrel. That's like saying the first transatlantic flight was not a massive credit to the builders and aviators because the towns were already there and built by other people.

    --
    Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
  8. The real reason by sir-gold · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tyson hit the REAL reason why serious private space flight will never happen, even if he didn't realize it:

    "...There are unquantified risks..."

    If the risks can't be quantified down to a concrete set of numbers, no insurance company will offer coverage. Without insurance coverage, no corporation has the balls to actually take the risk.

  9. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by SealBeater · · Score: 2

    I'm sure the odds of that happening are not impossible.

    --
    -- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
  10. Re:on a related note by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    Its always great to put people down but what have you done lately mr tyson.

    ...he whacked Pluto with smug satisfaction.

    (yeah, still kinda mad about that one...)

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  11. Historically speaking by oDDmON+oUT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many major exploratory endeavors were subsidized:

    Columbus, subsidized by Queen Isabella.

    Louis and Clark, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and subsidized by the US government

    The transcontinental railroad, subsidized by the US government via the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864.

    The interstate highway system, which enabled US citizens to truly explore their own country was brought about through the US taxpayer at the behest of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

    NASA was subsidized.

    The initial ventures into "cyberspace" came about through the direction of DARPA, an arm of government.

    In fact, looking back, private industry hasn't really gotten involved until a clear profit potential was identified. So yeah, I'm going to have to side with Neil on this one.

    --
    Some days it's just not worth
    chewing through my restraints.
    1. Re:Historically speaking by Xiaran · · Score: 2

      You forgot commercial air travel. When you look at the big picture commercial air travel has made a cumulative loss and only exists because of government subsidy.

  12. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by tmosley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, that is very likely. Simply being intelligent doesn't make you immune to bias, especially in areas outside of your expertise (here an astrophysicist is playing at being an economist). Liberals tend to look down on industry while believing strongly in government.

  13. Re:There have always been doubters by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

    LEO to Mars isn't such a gap -- remember that the first Mars probe (Mars 1, 1962) was launched only 5 years after the first satellite (Sputnik, 1957). Now the manned part, yes, is far more complex.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank
  14. Not, it is NOT impossible ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... but at the current pricing, it is still HIGHLY improbable.

    Although entrepreneurship can go very VERY FAR, it still needs to follow what the balance sheet tells it to do.

    After all, businesses survive/thrive purely because of profit, and no business can engage in loss-making endeavor for too long.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Not, it is NOT impossible ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... but at the current pricing, it is still HIGHLY improbable.

      Although entrepreneurship can go very VERY FAR, it still needs to follow what the balance sheet tells it to do.

      After all, businesses survive/thrive purely because of profit, and no business can engage in loss-making endeavor for too long.

      Not quite sure whether to laugh or cry at the amount of irony coming from this when referring to a country that is trillions in debt. Seems "for too long" has been redefined.

    2. Re:Not, it is NOT impossible ... by xigxag · · Score: 2

      Not quite sure whether to laugh or cry at the amount of irony coming from this when referring to a country that is trillions in debt. Seems "for too long" has been redefined.

      I'm more flabbergasted by the irony of your posting that comment in a topic that is expressly about why your equating "country" with "business" is wrong. Dr. Tyson's entire point is that a country is NOT necessarily a for-profit business and doesn't need to balance its ledger ever. A nation's ability to incur debt is tempered only by the will of the people or the leadership to continue, and the ability that it has to secure loans from creditors. Even there, loans from creditors are only required because there are external debts -- payments to domestic bondholders and to other nations. A hypothetical SFnal future world-spanning empire would not have external debt payments and could engage in any venture that its leadership had the ability to bring to fruition.

      Having said that, I still suspect that Dr. Tyson is incorrect. First of all, we have reached the point where private individuals are as wealthy as some governments, and I don't see that trend abating. Mars One estimates they can put four people there for US$6 billion. That's an amount that could come out of a hyperwealthy individual's back pocket totally without regard to profit. They would be able to enlarge the frontier, so to speak, and determine whether it is even viable for humans to establish a permanent colony there. They would be able to report back to the accountants and from there, if profit was viable, industry would gladly take over, which Dr. Tyson acknowledges and encourages.

      Secondly, Dr. Tyson is referring to the undetermined costs of establishing a frontier as being something that governments have traditionally undertaken. But those costs are only going to get cheaper over time. Robots continue to develop greater autonomy and data-gathering ability, so at some point in the not-too distant future, it will be possible for a robotic probe to do all of the necessary frontiering. And at some point after that, it will be possible for the robots to do all of the colonizing and profit-extraction as well.

      Also, the uncharted waters parallel that Dr. Tyson used doesn't really work. In the case of the New World, the Spanish Government literally had no idea whatsoever of the dangers Columbus faced. Were there monsters or other impassible dangers? Nobody actually knew. The only way to gather the data was to do the mission. That's totally unlike, say, a mission to Mars, where we already know a considerable amount about the planet. Many of the risks are already known and will be better known long before colonization begins in earnest.

      Not to mention, a great deal of Christopher Columbus's funding was indeed private. He just ran out of potential investors and had to turn to the crown for the rest of the funding, but that was not necessarily a foregone chain of events. Plus, Isabella wasn't looking to advance the cause of science and exploration - the Spanish government was in it for the money as well.

      Finally, back to your comment, "the amount of irony coming from this when referring to a country that is trillions in debt." Presumably you mean the USA here, but Dr.Tyson didn't refer to any specific country. He just said a government would do so. Could just as easily be China, which is not trillions in debt. In timeless words of our Usenet forefathers, "Nice strawman."

      --
      There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
    3. Re:Not, it is NOT impossible ... by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      MarsOne isn't trying to put people on mars for $6 billion. They are trying to determine what is needed and develop the tech to be transported and survive on mars for $6 billion.

      I listened to a radio interview a while ago with them. They were clear that the $6 billion wouldn't be putting people on the planet. They were also clear that they were going to be asking for more money in the future too.

      Perhaps you know something I don't or their statements are ambiguous enough that you took them differently then I did.

  15. Private space tech can work if we get behind it by physicsphairy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Space is dangerous.

    Which doesn't matter as long as people are willing and the government doesn't step in to protect us from ourselves. I think the fact that it's dangerous has been much more of an impediment to NASA than it would be for private companies. When national pride rides on the mission success you have to attenuate risk to a degree that impedes the rate of progress. In any case, the progress of techology is constantly making all aspects of space travel safer, cheaper, and more feasible, which is why we are finally starting to see private space tech taking off. It could be that designing a robust space vehicle soon becomes as trivial as designing a luxury car.

    It's expensive.

    And potentially very profitable. Huge chunks of valuable metals floating around waiting to be mined. Potential for improved synthesis of high-value products in zero-G, or exploitable power which can be beamed back down to earth. Opportunity and adventure for which rich persons who would otherwise be building $1 billion yachts can pony up the ticket price. Entertainment value for the billions of earthlings watching the space colony reality TV shows. And then all the capitalizable charity and investment from people who just want it to happen.

    There are unquantified risks.

    Present in every undertaking, and the confrontation of which is what is known in economics as "entrepreurship."

    I do completely agree that more government funding would be nice. But I think it's a mistake to downplay the promise of private space technology in order to make that case. Especially because doing so is going to chase away investment money, which, unlike the congressional budget, Neil Degrassie can definitely influence. In some ways, I don't think it's good to discuss feasibility at all. Space tech has been all about taking what is not feasible and making it feasible. It was never a given the Apollo missions would make it to the moon. And it's not a given that you and I are going to see someone land on Mars. But I'm willing to support Elon Musk, or NASA, or anyone else who is going to try, and I'm not going suggest they can't do it, because I have to hope they can.

    --
    When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
    1. Re:Private space tech can work if we get behind it by Rollgunner · · Score: 2

      And potentially very profitable. Huge chunks of valuable metals floating around waiting to be mined. .

      I seem to recall reading that If there were a mass of gold ingots in low Earth orbit, it would not be economically feasible to send the Space Shuttle up to bring them back to Earth. You'd spend more on training, parts, maintenance and fuel than a cargo hold full of pure bullion could offset. If you had a factory in orbit to use the gold to some purpose, that might be different, but that's putting the cart before the horse.

  16. As it's been said some time ago by Jade_Wayfarer · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Relevant quotes from Arthur C. Clarke:

    "Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along."

    "The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible."

    And my personal favorite:

    "If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

    With all the respect to Neil, my bets are on Musk and his likes in this one.

    --
    Absence of proof != proof of absence.
  17. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by FPhlyer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Exactly. Neil deGrasse Tyson is certainly an intelligent and articulate voice for science but we all have bias and he's not immune.
    In this case, Tyson has been on the front lines of advocating increasing NASA's budget. When private industry begins talking about doing the things that have traditionally been done within NASA for cheaper, this becomes an argument against increasing government funding for space exploration.

    --
    Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
  18. The answer: by FPhlyer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forget Govt. subsidizing of space exploration or private industry.
    We. Need. KERBALS!
    In less than 10 years my Kerbals have colonized two worlds and visited countless moons. How? Because Kerbals take the risks!

    --
    Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
  19. He's right by Alioth · · Score: 2

    He's right, you won't have businesses trying to establish a colony on Mars.

    However, that doesn't necessarily mean there is a probability of zero that Elon Musk can't talk a bunch of his very rich buddies to helping bankroll a mission to Mars, in other words, private but not commercial. (The probability is probably close to zero, but it is non-zero). In reality you'd probably find that NASA also provides something (and probably quite a lot of something) towards a Mars mission that had its origins outside of government.

    You can have private travel to somewhere without it being commercial.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  20. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    And I suspect he should look up the definition of the word Entrepreneur sometime.

    A USS Enterprise crew member?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  21. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    especially in areas outside of your expertise

    An astrophysicist telling a car engineer that space is dangerous and that the space people don't know all the risks? Surely he's way outside his comfort zone here!

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  22. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Alef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Very likely? I'll give you that it is possible that a "random slashdot poster" is more intelligent and insightful than "one of the brightest minds of our time", but you can't honestly think it is usually the case?

    It seems most posters in this story haven't really bothered to watch TFV (go figure). Unlike the impression you can get from TFS, Tyson says he thinks there is too little private enterprise in the space industry, and that it's taken too long for them to get there.

    The point he is making is that when it comes to pushing the frontiers, mapping planets and such, the business case is tricky. So he thinks there will continue to be a need for governments to fund this, if it is to continue, much like basic research.

    I'd say that the presumption that private enterprises will always do everything better is the biased opinion, if anything.

  23. Some links of the counter argument by Nielsio · · Score: 2

    The Economics of Space Exploration | by Gregory Rehmke

    TEDxSanJoseCA - Jeff Greason - Rocket Scientist: Making Space Pay and Having Fun Doing It

    A response to Neil deGrasse Tyson regarding NASA | by Robert P. Murphy

  24. Re: There have always been doubters by meglon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What i'm saying is, you and your pal are entirely discounting EVERYTHING that NASA has done. Without everything THE GOVERNMENT has done since WWII in research and development towards aeronautics and space exploration, Elon Musk certainly would not have funded all of that on his own to get to where he is now. Lets not forget the bigger picture: had NASA not existed, with all that GOVERNMENT research and taxpayer money, Elon Musk might never have been who he is at all, given what the NASA programs contributed to solid state electronics, miniaturization, computers, communications, material science, and all sorts of other stuff.

    This is a very common problem in the US... people are too egotistical to think that the reason they are where they are is that they've stood on the shoulders of this country to get there (to co-opt a compelling meme). We are who we are, our nation is what our nation is, BECAUSE previous generations have invested in the future to make this country better for the next generations (up until now.. now we have a bunch of asshats doing nothing but bleeding the country's future dry because they don't want to live up to the responsibility of investing in someone elses future).

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  25. Re:I need to write a subject for this prattle? by msauve · · Score: 2

    Tesla received a loan from the government, not aid. And they've since paid it back, with interest, 9 years early.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  26. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Jade_Wayfarer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Theoretical scientist telling his own point of view on business and engineering problems to successful businessman and engineer? Surely Musk must repent and change his wrongful ways this instant.

    I'm not saying he is wrong, or that his words mean nothing. I'm just saying that in this dialogue I'd listen to Musk and his arguments with much greater interest.

    --
    Absence of proof != proof of absence.
  27. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think that it should be noted, because the poster that you replied to was talking about liberals, that Neil deGrasse Tyson calls the liberals out on their complete hostility towards NASA funding (and science in general.)

    He observed and noted that NASA funding goes up during Republican administrations and goes down during Democrat administrations: here is a video of him talking about NIH, NSF, and NASA budgets and Bush vs Clinton funding levels.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  28. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by jkflying · · Score: 5, Informative

    Musk is also a physicist. He actually dropped out of a PhD in physics to start PayPal.

    --
    Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
  29. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by TheCarp · · Score: 2

    One need not be brilliant to be right. The man is an astronomer not an economist, and generally seems to be assuming that there are only 2 possibilities.... 1. Government 2. For profit enterprise

    I would submit that its entirely possible for groups of private individuals to come together and work on things for purposes other than either violently imposing their will on others, or building their own personal wealth. He may be right about private for profit business ventures but.... government is too focused on beating the heads of people here.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  30. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, it's an astrophysicist telling us that voluntary association (i.e. free choice) can't possibly achieve what coercive authority (i.e. government) has.

    And I say that's bullshit. The only thing coercive authority has over voluntary association is the ability to force people to pay for things they wouldn't otherwise choose to. (Otherwise they'd already be funding it, wouldn't they?) Well, that's about to change, because people are beginning to get very interested in the possibilities of space industry.

  31. Re: I suspect he's wrong. by jdigriz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funding for space goes up in Republican administrations because space exploration has traditionally been an outgrowth of the armaments industry. Put a capsule on a Titan II and it's a rocket. Put a warhead or several on it and it's an ICBM. Building and testing peaceful rockets helps national defense.

  32. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by delt0r · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

    "New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!"

    -- A C Clark.

    I will go a step further. Space *won't* be done by nasa, at lest for the masses. But will be done by private industry when technology makes it cheap and safe enough to so. Of course by private i mean at the airline industry version of private and non government. Which can be disputed as being not really being a "private industry".

    --
    If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
  33. Re:I need to write a subject for this prattle? by oobayly · · Score: 2

    9 years early.

    Exactly, they've ripped off the government by paying back the loan early so it gets less interest. The bastards.

  34. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

    Yeah FSM forbid a hard science man try his hand at a soft science like economics. I trust him before folks that can't even make meaningful predictions, but claim they are practicing a science.

    Yeah, trot out that tired old liberal boogey man, great idea. Realists, like Mr Tyson here realize not everything can be done by industry. As he observes it wants known risks to calculate against, industry needs a profit motive. Without known numbers it can't make one.

  35. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

    Which will only happen after NASA makes it routine.

    Private industry is great at lots of things, bringing stuff to the masses is where it really shines. Opening new frontiers and basic research is not.

  36. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You should lookup the word Investor sometime: Dangerous, Expensive, Unquantified Risks, are all things investors AVOID.

    Try again Potsy.

  37. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by gtall · · Score: 2

    To be a physicist, one has to actually do physics. Does anyone know what physics Musk has done after dropping out? Recently?

  38. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 2

    No, he's saying that a corporation operates on profit. Government does not. Space exploration costs alot of money. Corporations would need to see return on their investment now or shareholders will revolt. In today's economic climate, private space exploration WILL NOT HAPPEN. If you actually followed business news you'd understand that.

  39. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by dcw3 · · Score: 2

    Private industry is great at lots of things, bringing stuff to the masses is where it really shines. Opening new frontiers and basic research is not.

    I've heard this argument before, but wonder what it's based upon? As a counter to it, what about all of these:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prolific_inventors
    Were they done with government support? Yeah, I understand that the govt. has done some really big stuff, but so has private industry. One example that immediately comes to mind is:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  40. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Alioth · · Score: 2

    Elon Musk *does* have a degree in physics.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  41. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Baloroth · · Score: 2

    Which Musk does, he has a bachelor's in physics (most physicists have a PhD, yes, but it's not really required). Besides, you don't really need a degree: all a degree is is a piece if paper. You can know and do physics without having a piece of paper that says you can.

    --
    "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  42. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Alioth · · Score: 2

    No, *for profit* space exploration won't happen (at least any time soon). You can still have private not-for-profit things. Private does not necessarily imply profit motive. If Musk can get enough of his ultra-rich buddies excited enough to fund (for example) a Mars exploration mission, then it could be done privately. Of course this is a big "if" and the probability of it happening is somewhere close to zero.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  43. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Sique · · Score: 2

    You miss the point of the parent poster. Inventing a light bulb is not exactly breaking new frontiers, especially when the first patents on lightbulbs are more than 25 years old at the time of invention. But going to Mars does not even require a big scientific breakthrough. We know how rockets work, we know how to get a load to Mars. It's done before. It will need lots of little improvements and innovation to get a person there, for sure. But what it really requires is lots and lots of funding. And you won't see a return of investment in the next decades, at least not pecuniarily. So no company will do it on its own. No conglomerate of companies will form on its own to get there. You need a state or even a group of states come together and make putting a person on Mars a state goal, and then fund it.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  44. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by jellomizer · · Score: 3

    Yes because he is an astrophysicist, it makes him qualified to be an expert on all fields, like economics.

    This XKCD Applies

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  45. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by evilRhino · · Score: 2

    Do you know what really brings stuff to the masses? Public roads and highways.

  46. Re: I suspect he's wrong. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Wait, we're blaming Obama for pushing unnecessary cuts? Since when? Not vetoing the dumb shit the republicans forced through congress by threatening to destroy the government's basic function, is bad, but it's hardly comparable to actually pushing for said dumb shit.

  47. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by geekoid · · Score: 2

    Wrong.
    We has said, many time, that he would like to see private industry do the routing thing we do now. Launch satellites, restock the space station, etc..

    Here, he is talking about going to Mars. This will cost billions of dollars, to go to what is currently a planet that can not support life on its own.
    There is a lot of knowledge to gain, a lot of science to do, but it will take a long time before thee is enough infrastructure to private enterprise to do it.

    Business only thrive when there is an infrastructure in place, and there s reasonable assurance of a return.
    Columbus was a government funded enterprise, as was Lewis and Clark, was was expansion across the US, as was Marco Polo.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  48. Private patronage might. by DdJ · · Score: 2

    The reasons cited are reasons why a competitive free market wouldn't directly lead to space.

    They're not, it seems to me, reasons why funds earned in the market and used by private individuals wouldn't lead to space.

    For an example, look at the Carnegie Museum and Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Andrew Carnegie got rich as hell, and then spent the money on stuff like that. Can other folks see stuff like that leading outward to space?

  49. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by geekoid · · Score: 2

    HAHAHAHA. Everyone on that list did what they did based on government infrastructure and RnD.

    NO one is saying private industry doesn't invent. What it does very poorly is create and maintain infrastructure needed by every one.
    Science doe science sake isn't done in the private sector very much anymore. Meaning large companies. Having a large goal thats just for exploring has always been the work of a large body of people pooling together tremendous wealth. i.e. a government.

    Bell labs started from french government funding, via an award.

    "In 1880, the French government awarded Bell the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs (approximately US$10,000 at that time, about $250,000 in current dollars[1]) for the invention of the telephone, which he used to found the Volta Laboratory, along with Sumner Tainter and Bell's cousin Chichester Bell.[2] His research laboratory focused on the analysis, recording and transmission of sound. Bell used his considerable profits from the laboratory for further research and education to permit the "[increased] diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf".[2]:
    And
    " Support work for the phone companies included the writing and maintaining of the Bell System Practices (BSP), a comprehensive series of technical manuals. Bell Labs also carried out consulting work for the Bell Telephone Companies, and U.S. government work, including Project Nike and the Apollo program."

    Guess who made it possible to have the infrastructure to lay telephone lines?

    Look, you have missed the point. When they government does a large project, they don't literally burn money. They set goals, developer engineering and the go to the private industry to build things to meet the goal. The vast majority of these things are thing private industry would never have researched on their own. There was as time where the idea of a smoke detector in the home didn't even exist. NASA needed one, took bids, got a private company to make one. The private company went out and start the smoke detector industry, and many private companies shave improved them.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  50. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by nschubach · · Score: 2

    There's no requirement to be a physicist other than practicing physics. To be called a Doctor, you need a doctorate, sure. But there's no such requirement for physicist like there's no degree requirement to be a manager or a programmer.

    Webster defines it as: "a specialist in physics"
    Oxford defines it as: "an expert in or student of physics."

    So by those definitions, it could just be someone studying physics book or extremely learned in the field of physics.

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  51. WTF? by sribe · · Score: 2

    Seriously, in the 15th-18th centuries, trans-oceanic travel was extremely expensive and dangerous. Care to explain to me how private enterprise was unable to establish enterprises around it???

    It really is the perfect analogy: early exploration was funded by the richest governments of the day; as time passed, private enterprise pooled funds from large groups of investors; eventually costs were lowered, risks managed, and profits proven to an extent that smaller enterprises could play. But at no time was there a lack of willing travelers; there were always plenty of people not deterred by the unquantified dangers.

  52. Neil deGrasse Tyson... by bloggerhater · · Score: 2

    Neil deGrasse Tyson is a brilliant astrophysicist. NOT a businessman.
    It isn't as if NASA has an exemplary safety record, so stop trying to play that card.
    I'm sad for Neil since he is so hurt by NASA's reduced roles. The reality of the thing is that without the massive hydra that is Uncle Sam staring over their shoulders, productivity just went up 10x.

    We shouldn't be concerned about getting there. That's inevitable. We should be concerned what's going to happen when we get there. Is the government going to step back in...or is Heinlein going to blow Nostradamus' socks off yet again?

  53. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 2

    Something closer to what happened in the airline industry is what you want.

    The airline industry takes people and cargo from one habitable place to another.

    Something close to that for space would take people from one habitable place (Earth) to...where, exactly?

    There is nowhere to go. "Going into space" is as pointless as "going into the air". Modulo a handful of thrill-seekers or performance artists, you go into the air in order to get somewhere. There is no destination for which you can go into space, that's worth getting there other than for extremely rich thrill-seekers or performance artists, or participants in international bigger-dick contents. Science missions can be done so much more cheaply with robots that we will never launch a human beyond Earth orbit on a science mission.

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  54. I really think he's wrong. by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    Far be it from me to argue with a famous astrophysicist and media personality, but I really think Tyson is wrong on this one.

    Think of all the high risk (for the time) tasks that were done by private industry. Heavier than air flight, oil rigging and skyscrapers come to mind. There's probably a lot of other examples.

    Yes, space is dangerous, but so are a lot of other things.

    And most importantly, I think we're finding that space travel is expensive primarily because of the way governments do it. Having worked for a government contractor, I've seen first hand that our government has lost the ability to do anything at all at reasonable cost. To keep costs at reasonable (effective but not exorbitant) levels requires, I believe, the mind set that "I'm spending my own money on this", not "I'm spending someone else's money".

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  55. Perhaps. But... by saturnianjourneyman · · Score: 2

    As long as government has no power to keep the frontier CLOSED, free enterprise will have as much of a chance as anyone else to OPEN it.

  56. Re:I suspect he's wrong. by notanalien_justgreen · · Score: 2

    A huge chunk of NASA's funding goes directly to private industry like SpaceX and Lockheed Martin. Ask these companies what they think of NASA funding - I guarantee you they're in favor or it. SpaceX's primary funding is to deliver the ISS. Without NASA these companies would be hurting. I don't know why people think NASA spends all its money on itself, it's just not true.

  57. He is wrong He has no vision or sense of history by n2hightech · · Score: 2

    It was potential for profit that drove the exploration of the new world. The risk of death and failure were just as large for those explorers. There technology was barely able to handle the trip and the process of extracting the required resources to maintain life and obtain a profit. Space is vastly more difficult however our technology is becoming capable of conquering it. Many people risked all their wealth and life on opening up the new world. After the initial voyages it took about 100 years. That time frame looks very likely to repeat itself for the conquest of space. Initial voyages into space started in the 1940s. Man took some trips in the 60s and then set up a permanent outpost in near space. Government did the heavy lifting. Now its time for the commercial interests to take over. Elon Musk has already bet his company Space X once on a do or die launch. The company was nearly out of money and would have folded if the launch was not successful. Space X has passed their crisis and is moving ahead. There are others that are following. If they succeed or fail as individuals no one can know. As a group they will keep trying making that big bet to get the big payoff. That's what entrepreneurs and explorers do,

  58. Tyson is a brilliant theoretical physicist and.. by Loki_1929 · · Score: 2

    Tyson is a brilliant theoretical physicist and he should probably continue studying theoretical physics rather than pontificating on whether a billionaire who owns and designs products for multiple successful companies understands the risks and rewards of space exploration. When Neil deGrasse Tyson launches his own successful businesses and starts designing rocket ships that successfully deliver supplies to the international space station, he'll be slightly more qualified to hold an opinion on the subject.

    Elon Musk is an educated, trained physicist. He's started multiple successful businesses. He's designed and built electric cars that actually work for real people and that are built like tanks. He's designed and built rockets and capsules that carry out successful missions in space at a fraction of the cost of NASA and everyone else. He's doing what virtually nobody else is doing: taking risks. He's the next Steve Jobs and he doesn't want to make your music player pretty; he wants to go to Mars.

    If I were a betting man, I most certainly wouldn't be betting against Elon Musk. That's a stupid bet.

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  59. Risky alright, but for different reasons by clustro · · Score: 2

    Tyson is wrong in his belief that free market capitalism abhors risky investments. On the contrary, the free market scenario minimizes risk for any investment, simply by ensuring government will not interfere and change the rulebook during halftime. Sure, there are substantial risks in space travel. But as has been discussed at length in these comments already, risk is only one-third of the equation:

    Payoff = (1 - Risk) x Reward + Risk x Loss

    There is no way to dismiss an investment purely on risk. If the Reward and the Loss are in alignment, any risk can possibly be worth it. Heck, what if the lottery was free to play - what idiot wouldn't play each week?

    To be blunt, there are terrestrial ventures that seem riskier than space mining. Heck, look at Afghanistan. That country isn't poor - its filthy rich. There are over $1 trillion in minerals beneath the feet of those backwards Pashtuns. Their mineral wealth could pave their streets with gold, send every child to school, modernize (or render extant) their food, health, and transportation sectors.

    But it borders on impossible. First, the Taliban have fought the mightiest army in the world to a standstill. Any mining venture would be subjected to relentless and bloody attacks, as well as sabotage. To them, Afghanistan's greatest resource isn't minerals, oil, or anything else earthly - it is Islam. Large-scale mining would need roads to be built pretty much everywhere, since much of the country has none. Despite the enormous benefits mining could bring to their country, Afghanistan has a corrupt government, riven by tribal and family squabbles. Much like Africa and Iran, it is not difficult to foresee corruption leading to a small number of connected tribesmen becoming multi-billionaires, while the rest of the country wears sandals.

    Space mining at least doesn't require miners to duke it out with decapitation-happy, Third-world savages.

    Another argument against Tyson's claim is that, quite simply, we do not practice free market capitalism in America (nearly any Western country) anymore. We practice crony capitalism, where huge swaths of production are controlled of a few powerful men, with loyal (or, if nothing else, frightened) men filling legislatures and working on their behalf. Instead of focusing on improving the productivity of their industries, their main pursuit becomes rent-seeking. Regulations are applied stringently to those outside of the inner circle, to raise the barrier-to-entry. Inside players are allowed to skate.

    Here is a general, dismal scenario:

    1. Some company shoulders enormous financial risk at developing space technologies.
    2. After much hardship, this company actually pulls it off, e.g. a working mining pipeline from the Moon or Mars.
    3. Stakeholders in the current economic landscape view this activity as a threat, and dispatch their political Sardaukar.
    3. Laws are passed plunder the company, and/or take over administration of their operations.

    One can easily envision some slimy future President lecturing the American public on how regulation of space mining is necessary to prevent the sale of yellowcake to terrorists.