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2/10/2018 5:39:14 PM
4
Elon Musk and SpaceX
The reaction of most people when hearing about SpaceX's successful rocket launch is generally positive. After all, it is an impressive feat, and it gives hope of a renewed space program, this time guided and funded by private capital.
For me, though, it also raised some concerns. While I'm all for increased space exploration and development, it concerns me that national governments are taking a backseat in such an important area. At what point are things too important to leave to private, profit-guided institutions?
What balance, if any, do you want to see between private and public institutions as humanity moves forward into space?
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The government has had many decades to expand space exploration. As usual with government, lack of innovation and bureaucratic largesse slowly strangled the space program. Now private companies have come in with innovative designs and innovative business models that have seen more milestones surpassed in a decade than the last 40 years of NASA. Don't get me wrong, NASA has a lot of amazing accomplishments under its belt and still many more to come, I'm sure. But NASA is not the place that will spur iterative design philosophies that will lead to continuously improving development of platforms. The falcon heavy launch is a game changer for the commercial side of space exploration. The next 20 years are going to be VERY exciting.
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Privatization is pretty inevitable. Think of past expeditions. - Marco Polo was self funded. - Christopher Columbus was sponsored by the Spanish crown but that was more about funding than regulation. - James Cook was funded by the Royal Society. - Louis and Clark were commissioned by Jefferson, essentially making them civilian contractors. Also, as space becomes more accessible, it'll become harder for the government to hold people back. If anything, that could become a hindrance. It'd be like trying to regulate shipping in international waters. On top of that, what makes congress more qualified to make decisions on how space should be explored than engineers at Space X? What separates a business from a country? Both have ruling bodies, a set of internal rules on how their people should conduct themselvess, and are capable of establishing trade agreements. Heck, company towns cam already blur the line between a company and government at times. Personally, I see little difference between public and private institutions in terms of space exploration.
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2 RepliesZero funding.
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Elon musk, was bored in traffic so he built a tunnel under LA, he then sold 50K hats to celebrate his tunnel. He got bored with hats and decided to start selling flamethrowers. He then stuck he car(and his wallet) on the most powerful rocket ever and launched them into -blam!-ing space. This man is my idol
