• Would private space exploration/exploitation be a good thing?
    17 replies, posted
I had to analyse this article for school about a month ago, and found its content quite interesting. (Mainly due to the fact that I'm a big fan of anything space-related, but still.) [url=http://www.economist.com/news/21589131-first-commercial-space-flight-will-be-launched-america-2014-promises-sir-richard-branson]From the Mojave to the Moon[/url] Commercial space-flight is something a lot of people have longed for, and that since the beginning of the space race in 1955. Whether to experience microgravity in an orbital station or to visit other planets or moons in the solar system, you can't deny you ever wanted to temporarily get off our planet and live your own little adventure. Unfortunately, this remains the privilege of a lucky few for the time being. Working as an astronaut for a governmental agency is hard to achieve, as only a few are selected, and require a lot of skills and training, not to mention being in excellent shape. These people don't have a lot of time for leisure either, as missions often encompass a lot of goals and every single one require absolute attention and concentration. Besides, manned mission are mostly restricted to Earth orbit, as probes are more convenient for more distant missions. Apparently, companies such as Virgin Galactic want to cash in on that frenzy. Commercial space flight seems to be their main goal at the moment, but they have other plans as well such as putting large quantities of satellites into orbit or mining asteroids for resources. While a lot of that seems a bit optimistic to me, especially if they want their first flight to take place this year, companies generally don't get involved when there's no profit to be made, leading me to believe they are confident at least part of it will be feasible. Which brings up an issue that comes along with anything related to capitalistic practices. [B]Could attempts at maximising profits lead to cutting corners?[/B] The tragedies of Columbia and Challenger are proof that space explorations tolerates little to no margin of error. Tried-and-true practises in different industrial sectors might yield fatal results if applied here, so safety regulations should be a priority. That being said, I'm sure VG have their own internal norms and securities. They have no interest in their billions-dollars investment going up in smoke, not to mention the huge PR hit that would induce. Another issue would be related to their industrial goals. [B]To whom do our solar system's resources belong to?[/B] Should private companies pay governments for the right to mine asteroids? Wouldn't the handling of numerous precious resources grant them a lot of power over the development of the economy back on Earth? Would citizens of hypothetical space colonies be governed by the companies themselves or form their own independent leadership? How events will unfold is very unpredictable, that's what makes it fascinating. Do you think regulations should be instated or would it be better to let things evolve on their own?
It isnt ideal, but id take anything to get human influence beyond its homeworld. Whatever groundwork they lay can always be hijacked by space-born democratic factions. What worries me is if corporate leaders start changing what makes humans human, subverting us through genetics, mind control, or whatever it might be.
[QUOTE=Sprockethead;44084520]It isnt ideal, but id take anything to get human influence beyond its homeworld. Whatever groundwork they lay can always be hijacked by space-born democratic factions. What worries me is if corporate leaders start changing what makes humans human, subverting us through genetics, mind control, or whatever it might be.[/QUOTE] Does it worry you because of the change in human nature, or because of the power it would grant to corporations?
Private space control seems like a bad idea. Private entities existing and working in space? Perfectly acceptable. Space can not be a wild west game for us. It won't help us and it'll just make our efforts in an already dangerous environment more likely to fail. We need both the government and private sector involved in our space race. It really will be a modern day wild west if we just leave everyone to their own devices and it'll harm us in the long run. But the government really won't have the time or the money to do everything themselves so it's a matter of them working together I feel.
I think its a little too far off to be contemplating on an interplanetary civ yet so I'm going to stick to the coming private space boom in the early 2000s Russia abandoned Mir for good, seeing the hulk as a potential gold mine, mircorp was founded and became the first private venture to man a space station, now today we are sort of back to that, we have the international space station as the current only destination of value for a corporate standpoint, I'm not sure who actually controls what goes on the station or who can go to the station, I think its whomever can get there right now, but in the coming years private industry will probably be using the ISS as a base to start off and there will be some definate friction to buy slots at the station to both berth and fit your crew on. then you have companies building their own stations such as biglow and excelsior almaz who will put up other destinations in the future. private space will rely I think on who can run what experiments on their station at least in the short run, since that's all the commercial aspect. to test hardware today on the ISS takes a year of planning, design, and testing then 6-8 months before a turnaround, with private stations it will be cheaper to run these experiments since they can afford a risk. the whole private industry will be jepordized when the first deaths occurs, like when challenger happened it caused public outcry and almost scrapped the u.s. space program which had just got back into gear. private space will probably be the first back to the moon, excakiber almaz is planning to tow a space station to the moon, the scientific value there is very great and will make lunar exploration tons easier, NASA would be able to store craft or guide craft to the surface as well as provide a massive communications array something the Apollo program despritly needed. private space will drive Americas space program forward for the foreseeable future, meanwhile government monopolies will be destroyed and space exploration funding in general will be forced to be spent more efficiently, currently Russia is using 20 year old capsules on top of 60 year old rockets, they have had a solid plan for their replacements in place for years but they never funded it cas the current system works good enough, this is what space x aims to break, this mentality that its good enough not to innovate. the best part about the private space industry is the sheer amount of players. if space x fails to develope a ship, then Sierra Nevada Corp will, if they can't, then orbital science will, if they can't then Lockheed Boeing will, if they fail then there are a slew of others hot on the path, there are so many designs one will at least come to tuition, and many more will follow
I REALLY don't like it. What I see happening is that corporate entities will use space only to sell more shit. SpaceX is basically Elon Musk waving his massive wallet around and trying to convince people to buy his yuppiemobiles IMO. Any other coprorations who become space faring will use it to do little more than put billboards up there. They don't care about exploring space, or furthering science, or any of that shit. They just care about making more money, and if they think they can turn a profit by putting a billboard in LEO they bloody well will. And they won't go an inch beyond. We still need the non-profit governmental space agencies right now, we're simply not ready for commercial spaceflight.
[QUOTE=TestECull;44161686]I REALLY don't like it. What I see happening is that corporate entities will use space only to sell more shit. SpaceX is basically Elon Musk waving his massive wallet around and trying to convince people to buy his yuppiemobiles IMO. Any other coprorations who become space faring will use it to do little more than put billboards up there. They don't care about exploring space, or furthering science, or any of that shit. They just care about making more money, and if they think they can turn a profit by putting a billboard in LEO they bloody well will. And they won't go an inch beyond. We still need the non-profit governmental space agencies right now, we're simply not ready for commercial spaceflight.[/QUOTE] SpaceX and Tesla have nothing in common other than Elon. In fact the only reason Elon is still CEO of Tesla is because he hasn't found anyone he sees right to take over. SpaceX is his real pride and joy with a company business plan to transport humans to mars. Which they are the only people actually making headway on with plans to build rockets that will make the SLS obsolete by its first flight. [url]http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/03/spacex-advances-drive-mars-rocket-raptor-power/[/url] Commercial spaceflight is already happening, and it will be the future. NASA needs to stop wasting money on rockets and focus on scientific payloads and missions lofted on competitively priced commercial rockets. The current system is inefficient, financially wasteful, and a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance"]monopoly[/URL] taking advantage of the government with bloated launch costs.
I think having space kind of be the wild west may be beneficial at least in the beginning. It could entice private investors to develop better space flight technology, and once we've got the beginnings of more advanced space exploration going, we step in to regulate it. A little underhanded maybe, but hopefully effective. [editline]8th March 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=TestECull;44161686]I REALLY don't like it. What I see happening is that corporate entities will use space only to sell more shit. SpaceX is basically Elon Musk waving his massive wallet around and trying to convince people to buy his yuppiemobiles IMO. Any other coprorations who become space faring will use it to do little more than put billboards up there. They don't care about exploring space, or furthering science, or any of that shit. They just care about making more money, and if they think they can turn a profit by putting a billboard in LEO they bloody well will. And they won't go an inch beyond. We still need the non-profit governmental space agencies right now, we're simply not ready for commercial spaceflight.[/QUOTE] "We should invest in space exploration because space is neat," does not exactly send dosh flying your way.
In my opinion, the only way that this is going to work is if the world creates an organization that represents and defends the right for people from any country to claim/buy reasonable amounts of space/lunar surface, and planetary surfaces as we move farther away from home. Ideally, this entity would be made up of people who can adequately represent the interests of each countries investors in a fair and moral way. The only requirement I think a company should have, no matter where that company exists, is that they can get to and use the land/space they want to claim. It's a big wide solar system, and I would absolutely hate to see it end up being controlled by only a few or a single entity. As the technology for space travel progresses, I believe that the people of earth will either have to unite in a way that it hasn't done before in history, or we will end up living in a terribly corrupt and violent future as nations war for control of space and the celestial bodies. I believe 100% that space exploitation is a good thing and will benefit the human race in ways we can't even fathom, if it is done in a fair and moral way. Otherwise it will benefit the few, while the many suffer in servitude and conscription.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44169572]I think having space kind of be the wild west may be beneficial at least in the beginning. It could entice private investors to develop better space flight technology, and once we've got the beginnings of more advanced space exploration going, we step in to regulate it. [/QUOTE] The problem with this is that its not really profitable in the short term. Developing new space technologies and going into space beyond our atmosphere and the moon is going to require the vast resources that can only be organized by governments. Most private space companies are only looking at space trips as opposed to space exploration. When it comes to actually colonizing space and searching for resources in the distant future I can see the private sector really carrying everything. [QUOTE]Could attempts at maximising profits lead to cutting corners? The tragedies of Columbia and Challenger are proof that space explorations tolerates little to no margin of error.[/QUOTE] You point at those accidents but it was governments who oversaw those missions. Private companies should probably be subject to inspections or something but they have an incentive not to mess this up. The most obvious one being is that its their investment and reputation at risk if they make a mistake. [QUOTE] To whom do our solar system's resources belong to?[/QUOTE] Realistically I see corporations using their influence within the government to secure themselves rights but ideally it really should be the governments controlling these resources. Private industry probably would allow us to exploit the resources most efficiently but it would probably give certain businesses too much power.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44169572] "We should invest in space exploration because space is neat," does not exactly send dosh flying your way.[/QUOTE] GOOD NEWS, elon musk is fucking filthy rich and has tons of fucking filthy rich friends who instead of investing in billion dollar yachets they decided to go into model rocketry! model rocketry on the scale of what you can buy with a couple billion dollars.... actually its amazing how cheap they got the rocket process down to with utilizing horizontal integration, the problem with NASA is that they don't control where things are built so everything needs to be trucked across the country, back in the 60s for example rocketdyne actually tried to intise nasa to choose their boosters for the saturn V's first stage by building a massive facility down in florida so they wouldn't have to transport everything a million miles. with the space shuttle, the boosters were packed in wyoming, tested in nevada, the tanks were built in mississippi and boated to florida, and the engines were refurbished in huntsville i believe, tons and tons of transport cost factored in there, the SLS is worse and even ULA has similar problems since they opperate both new and legacy hardware such as the Atlas and Delta rockets and formerly the Titan, space-x can get away with making everything so cheap because they just build the whole damn rocket in one place and then ship it whereever it needs to go and erect it, at some point with re-usable boosters they would probably be able to refurbish boosters in facilities near the launch facilities and just have to re-integrate an upper stage
[QUOTE=Sableye;44187931]space-x can get away with making everything so cheap because they just build the whole damn rocket in one place and then ship it whereever it needs to go and erect it, at some point with re-usable boosters they would probably be able to refurbish boosters in facilities near the launch facilities and just have to re-integrate an upper stage[/QUOTE] Especially since SpaceX now has rights over pad 39a, where they launched Shuttles and Saturn V, and Launch complex 40. Both at the cape. They also got a pad at Vandenburg in California, and a future site operated by themselves in Texas. Rockets are built in one place, then shipped to Texas for testing and then shipped out to either of the 3 pads for launch. Rocket integration is done at the pad so once they recover a landed rocket all they have to do is reattach it and pop a payload on top right at the pad and light it again. First test with landing legs takes place in 6 days, actually. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/qcc9o4r.jpg[/IMG] They're going to land it at sea. After that it's just up to the Cape to give them approval to land it back home.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;44187930]The problem with this is that its not really profitable in the short term. Developing new space technologies and going into space beyond our atmosphere and the moon is going to require the vast resources that can only be organized by governments. Most private space companies are only looking at space trips as opposed to space exploration. When it comes to actually colonizing space and searching for resources in the distant future I can see the private sector really carrying everything. You point at those accidents but it was governments who oversaw those missions. Private companies should probably be subject to inspections or something but they have an incentive not to mess this up. The most obvious one being is that its their investment and reputation at risk if they make a mistake.[/QUOTE] actually challenger was a massive coverup, NASA had successfully forced the U.S. military to use the shuttle and they had to garentee the airforce the ability to launch at a week's notice, unfortunatly the shuttle wasn't designed to be used in such a way, leading to the booster failure since they were on an accelerated launch schedule columbia was just unexpected, the shuttles had had strikes from debris for years, none had ever done any damage and they thought with all the sensors on board the orbiter that they would have detected the damage before re-entry, as it stands there wasn't much that could have been done in any case since the shuttle only had a week's worth of oxygen and columbia was never able to dock with the ISS, at best the russians could have sent over 1 manned soyuz vehicles and docked, concievably the soyuz could carry 4 people to the ISS, allowing time for another mission to be sent up to rescue the remaining crew off topic there, but it is important commercial space is tightly regulated so if an orbiter or capsule was stuck in orbit, there has to be compatablility with docking mechanisms at least for manned missions, the dragon is not compatable with russian hatches, the problem is there is this mix of legacy, national, and individual hardware up there now, and comercial space needs to talk to goverment and goverments need to talk to each other and decide on a future universal docking mechanism the other thing about comercial is it is making goverments anxous about their own hardware, people will start to question why goverments cling to legacy hardware when comercial has been able to build newer more capable vehicles on half the cost of the legacy hardware
[QUOTE=Sableye;44188006]actually challenger was a massive coverup, NASA had successfully forced the U.S. military to use the shuttle and they had to garentee the airforce the ability to launch at a week's notice, unfortunatly the shuttle wasn't designed to be used in such a way, leading to the booster failure since they were on an accelerated launch schedule columbia was just unexpected, the shuttles had had strikes from debris for years, none had ever done any damage and they thought with all the sensors on board the orbiter that they would have detected the damage before re-entry, as it stands there wasn't much that could have been done in any case since the shuttle only had a week's worth of oxygen and columbia was never able to dock with the ISS, at best the russians could have sent over 1 manned soyuz vehicles and docked, concievably the soyuz could carry 4 people to the ISS, allowing time for another mission to be sent up to rescue the remaining crew [/QUOTE] I wouldn't call it a cover-up, just incompetence. They didn't really try to hide anything and cooperated with the Rogers Commission. As for the Columbia, that was incompetence too, and probably preventable. They knew that something struck the leading edge of the wing and several engineers requested to have telescopes assess the damage. For whatever brilliant reason management decided to deny the request and not look into the issue at all, saying things like, "It would be better not to know something was wrong, because there's nothing we can do about it." There were actually a few alternatives, because another shuttle launch was originally scheduled for a a week or two out. For the launch that was already set in motion, they could have changed its mission into a rescue operation.
-SNIP-
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44169572] [editline]8th March 2014[/editline] "We should invest in space exploration because space is neat," does not exactly send dosh flying your way.[/QUOTE] And every corporation in the world putting billboards in LEO isn't going to build a Mars colony or let us leave Earth when Earth can no longer support us. We as a society are just not ready to let commercial entities have free reign over space. We still need non-profit entities like NASA going up there because otherwise we're not going any farther than orbiting advertisements and publicity stunts. And MAAAYYBE a tourist trap on the moon.
[QUOTE=TestECull;44208259]And every corporation in the world putting billboards in LEO isn't going to build a Mars colony or let us leave Earth when Earth can no longer support us. We as a society are just not ready to let commercial entities have free reign over space. We still need non-profit entities like NASA going up there because otherwise we're not going any farther than orbiting advertisements and publicity stunts. And MAAAYYBE a tourist trap on the moon.[/QUOTE] Show me one space billboard. Or plans to build one space billboard. [editline]11th March 2014[/editline] I guess launching satellites for the military and various world governments and companies counts as a publicity stunt too? Or sending mission critical supplies to and from the ISS? [editline]11th March 2014[/editline] The [I]only[/I] capsule that can return cargo from the ISS is the SpaceX Dragon. Russian Soyuz can't do it. Russian Progress-M can't do it. Orbital Science Corp. Cygnus can't. No one can except SpaceX.
[QUOTE=OvB;44208469] The [I]only[/I] capsule that can return cargo from the ISS is the SpaceX Dragon. Russian Soyuz can't do it. Russian Progress-M can't do it. Orbital Science Corp. Cygnus can't. No one can except SpaceX.[/QUOTE] Actually Soyuz can return a minuscule amount of cargo (on the order of 3kg). Not useful almost any given scenario but I feel like being pedantic. But yeah TestECull is being a neophobe and the future belongs to US private space companies.
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