The Two Modern Space Races (arstechnica.com)

MarkWhittington writes: Observers of the current state of the space program like to maintain that a space race, such as occurred in the 1960s, will never happen again. They cannot be farther from the truth, since not just one, but two space races are going on. The Google Lunar X Prize is managing a race for the first private group to land a rover on the lunar surface and perform a number of tasks for glory and prize money. Eric Berger at Ars Technica pointed out that another prize space race, with the goal of performing the first private crewed space mission in low Earth orbit, is ongoing thanks to NASA's commercial crew program.

Comments

Re:Um, it's pretty much over, dude

[bobbied]

Apollo wasn't that valuable? I beg to differ...

There was a lot of common good generated by the effort to put men on the moon. You may not realize it, but they made vast advances in electronics, communications technology, materials and system design practices that have overflowed into the private sector from the Apollo effort. We learned a lot of stuff and built a lot of stuff from the technology advancements from Apollo, it's predecessors and the concurrent military build up that would have taken a lot longer to become viable enough to make a difference in the world.

Re:Um, it's pretty much over, dude

[Rei]

The only way to get Apollo again is by socialism, just like the first one.

Perhaps, but whether or not that is true, it glosses over another problem, namely, that Apollo just wasn't that valuable.

Are you kidding? He slayed Pytho, Earth-Dragon of Delphi; he could heal, he brought light and music, and warded away evil. He rescued Aeneas and helped Paris slay Achilles; saved his mother Leto from rape at the hands of Tityos; slayed the cyclopses; and countless other feats.

If it takes socialism to resurrect him, then long live the proletariat and down with the borgiouse swine! I'm kind of curious, what exactly is the summoning ritual like? A laurel branch, a lyre, a copy of Worker's World and a reciting of L'Internationale?

Re:Such as occurred in the 1960s

[JoeMerchant]

What % of GDP is being spent on today's races? Vs the 1960s?

I think by that measure, the current space race is about an order of magnitude short of the one in the 1960s.

Re:Um, it's pretty much over, dude

[someone1234]

I consider this a huge disaster.