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SpaceX Capsule Returns To Earth With Lab Results
An anonymous reader writes SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean carrying NASA cargo and scientific samples from the International Space Station. A boat is ferrying the spacecraft to a port near Los Angeles, where NASA said the 1.5 tons of materials will be removed and returned to the space agency by late tomorrow for scientists to pick apart. "This mission enabled research critical to achieving NASA's goal of long-duration human spaceflight in deep space," said Sam Scimemi, director of the International Space Station division at NASA headquarters.
The problem appears to be a lack of profitability. There's just nothing to do for money in space beyond geostationary orbit. It's just a big empty nothing, in the most literal way possible. The only resource to be had is energy, which is cheaper to make down on earth. There are potentially valuable rocks far away, but no economically-viable means of getting at them. The ISS is doing some useful research, but it's not there to run a profit. The only reason any private enterprise would want to go into space is to run a satelite or because someone in government is footing the bill for science or military purposes.
Suborbital transport would be nice, but you're looking at a very limited market - the only advantage over first-class flights on a conventional aircraft is trip time, and who has enough money to pay that much extra to save a few hours? If that business model was viable, Concorde would have been updated and continued.
Space tourism has emerged as an unexpected market, at the same time as the increasing difficulty of mining on Earth is leading to interest in extracting valuable minerals from asteroids. And the more satellites we put into orbit, the more servicing is needed to maintain them. Meanwhile, NASA finds itself, perhaps intentionally, with no domestic way of getting astronauts and material into LEO. Why not exploit this opportunity to develop and sell both materials ferries and manned craft? Once the private sector develops a man-rated craft, there will be no limits to what we can do.
Even if a space tourism market exists, there is no guarantee it will survive. A Concorde market existed and it went bust nonetheless.
Less than 1\3 of spacex launches are us gov launches. They can now exist without them. However, NASA is speading up spacex's programs. And since these are saving America billions, it makes sense to continue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.