EPTNASA and the Private Sector - Page 12
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tsango
Australia214 Posts
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Too_MuchZerg
Finland2818 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20120329 Dr. Leroy Chiao, PhD, Former NASA astronaut, Former International Space Station commander, member of the Augustine Commission (Review of United States Human Spaceflight Plans Committee). Dr. G. Scott Hubbard, Former Director of NASA Ames Research Center, Stanford University professor of aeronautics and astronautics, sole NASA representative on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. | ||
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Alay
United States660 Posts
Unfortunately, something like the Webb Telescope doesn't provide a direct chance at profit, and at best the chance for any profit at all is probably close to none. But things like the Webb, the Hubble, the Apollo missions, etc provide direct scientific value. These projects expand human knowledge on the whole, with the direct effort towards this data. While there's definitely bi-product research benefits (NASA has given us a shit ton of stuff which they discovered along the way) the only way to really get some knowledge (close observations of the gravitational effects of SMBH in the center of Quasars, geological compositions analysis of neighboring planets, etc) is to actually directly go for these things. Further, manned exploration as it currently stands is generally not worth it--in fact, it's vastly not worth it. Something like 15x the cost. However such missions have two direct benefits: they allow human adaption to tasks in those environments (ie: "Those rocks look interesting, better grab a few of those too" on the Apollo landings) and they inspire people to reach for the stars. The private sector and the public funded organizations both have a place in space. It'd be extremely sad to see NASA and other countries programs shut down :[ | ||
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mrafaeldie12
Brazil537 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Miyoshino
314 Posts
This is why the government is so focussed on human space flight without it having any scientific benefits. This is why things like the terrestial planet finder were slashed and why the Webb space telescope is so delayed and always at risk of being canceled. These instruments will be able to find life within 10 to 30 years if life is very common and thus exists on a nearby star. But this apparently isn't important. US also canceled their version of the LHC. They dug a 1 billion dollar gap then they filled it again, spending once more a lot of money. US is stepping out of the LISA program. US is also slowing down on earth-based telescopes. So much money was wasted on human space flight. It is quite sickening to think how far we would be advanced right now if all that money wasn't wasted. It's all about developing space tourism for the super millionares, people. That's where the money is to be made. | ||
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Roe
Canada6002 Posts
On April 17 2012 08:50 Miyoshino wrote: The money made in the space industry is to be made in space tourism. We have a lot of absurdly wealthy people already. There will be more in the future because of the economic developments right now. Space tourism will be a very profitable industry. Most of the technology was researched, developed, tested and perfected with tax payer money. There is a lot of money to be made in this industry. This is why the government is so focussed on human space flight without it having any scientific benefits. This is why things like the terrestial planet finder were slashed and why the Webb space telescope is so delayed and always at risk of being canceled. These instruments will be able to find life within 10 to 30 years if life is very common and thus exists on a nearby star. But this apparently isn't important. US also canceled their version of the LHC. They dug a 1 billion dollar gap then they filled it again, spending once more a lot of money. US is stepping out of the LISA program. US is also slowing down on earth-based telescopes. So much money was wasted on human space flight. It is quite sickening to think how far we would be advanced right now if all that money wasn't wasted. It's all about developing space tourism for the super millionares, people. That's where the money is to be made. If we really go far (to other plants, asteroids, moons, etc) the money could easily be made back by mining and gas extraction. The idea is plausible and a very lucrative reason for investing in space exploration. | ||
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Rassy
Netherlands2308 Posts
Monney is made by bringing a payload into orbit, this can be humans but most of the payloads are satelites. It suprised me that instead of trying to launch a satelite the private sector is going directly for trying to launch humans into space.Well its not realy space ,its more like a giant frog jump to the edge of the athmosphere. The market for satelites is way larger then the market for space tourism (at current prices) and the private sector going for humans instead of commercial satelite launches makes me think that they are verry far from the capabilities needed to economically launch heavy industrial payloads into orbit. What they are doing now is far away from what nasa and other government agencys are capable of doing and i dont think the private sector will play a part in space for quiete some time to come, its still pretty much a niche. Maybe once brining things into orbit gets alot cheaper and alot more reliable private sector can play a role. | ||
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Miyoshino
314 Posts
On April 17 2012 08:58 Roe wrote: If we really go far (to other plants, asteroids, moons, etc) the money could easily be made back by mining and gas extraction. The idea is plausible and a very lucrative reason for investing in space exploration. Then why is no one investing in this? They all invest in tourism. Easily? I think you are out of touch with the physics. First off, what kind of gas do you even mean? Secondly, there's tons of minerals in the earth's crust. It will be cheaper to filter gold out of seawater than it will be to go into space, find some 20 km large asteroid, somehow melt it down and get filter the valuable minerals out of it. It will be cheaper to get things like copper or iridium from the earth's core compared to hauling some asteroid from beyond Mars all the way to earth and then somehow get it down safely. Yes, as technology progresses far enough, at some point it cam be done. But only by robots. Not by people. People will stay on the planet. People are just bags of water. You don't need to launch them into space ever. It's just SF. It's basic economics. No one is going to pay a lot more for a product just so humans can be in space. Colonizing othe planets? Sure. But we won't be sending humans into space for that. We will be sending DNA or use some other trick. The laws of nature won't change. Technology will make space flight cheaper. But it will make everything cheaper, not just space flight. All these SF ideas like mining helium-3 on the moon, make orbiting factories to build superconductors or special crystals under zero-g, building satellites on the moon, I don't see them materializing anytime soon. And if they ever become profitable, we will have the robot technology to do them and there will be zero need for humans. We will never live on top of mount Everest, we will never live on the bottom of the Mariana trench. A few scientists do live on Antartica but that's about it. Who wants to be locked up in a tiny cabin on Mars if you can be super wealthy on earth with the same money? No one. Things like SpaceX are great and all, but they use the exact same technology was used with Apollo. Technology hasn't really changed at all. Things got cheaper but not because we use new and better technology right now. Yes, a lot of technology has been developed. But that's all in robotics and solar panels. Not in rockets. I remember watching to this successor of the space shuttle called 'Venture Star' on discorvery when I was younger. Stuff like that just doesn't materialize. This whole space boom has been a myth so far. People really exploit the romantisism many people feel for SF. Maybe I am wrong and maybe there is hope for human space flight. But then why does it have to be pushed by tax payer money while at the same time tax payer money is cut from very important science? I never said there wasn't a market for satellites. Obviously that is the main market in space flight. And a very profitable one. I don't deny that. I am mainly talking about human space flight and space faring civilizations like we see in SF. Things like colonizing the Moon and Mars and then go to world around other stars, it's a myth if you ask me. It will all be tourism and maybe an occasional person doing something for which designing a new robot is too expensive so that the huge robot army that probably will be out there can function properly. On March 31 2012 04:34 mrafaeldie12 wrote: With NASA's current budget, its pretty unlikely it will be able to even compete with the private sector. SpaceX get most of their money from NASA. NASA basically takes a lot of risks to Elon Musk can make a lot of money. He is using NASA designs, his engineers are former NASA and most of his income comes from NASA as well. That it makes rockets cheaper this way may be true, but it's still tax payer money. If it succseeds people get cheaper satellites, people get cheaper space tourism and Elon Musk and his shareholders get a lot of money. The rockets are still owned by SpaceX and I don't know what is in their contract. But when the corrent contract runs out SpaceX can ask just a little less than the Russians would ask. At that point NASA has to pay for the rocket they paid for the in first place. To the US specificially, they went to the Moon. They build the Space Shuttle. Huge achivements engineering wise. All very impressive. But it was also absurdly expensive. Now where are they at? It was so irrational, the people who worked on the space shuttle program find it hard to understand. They spend so much money but it was all for nothing. Now they need to hire chairs on the Soyuz. I can't imagine a bigger failure. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google's Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & explorer James Cameron; Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Microsoft's former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, Ph.D.; Founder of Sherpalo and Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram; and Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr., the company will overlay two critical sectors - space exploration and natural resources - to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources'." Source | ||
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Ramong
Denmark1706 Posts
On April 21 2012 06:51 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Heads up next Tuesday, the 24th, another Commercial Space Company will introduce itself, the company is being backed by an unknown billionaire: Source We have another thread about this as well for those interested: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330625 | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
The question which you can't hear very well is what's stopping private companies from doing space flights, the answer is that NASA is helping them do it. | ||
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aintthatfunny
193 Posts
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
On April 17 2012 08:58 Roe wrote: If we really go far (to other plants, asteroids, moons, etc) the money could easily be made back by mining and gas extraction. The idea is plausible and a very lucrative reason for investing in space exploration. We aren't even mining in Antarctica and you want to mine asteroids. Makes a lot of sense lol. EV+ yo | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
"Am pushing launch back approx a week to do more testing on Dragon docking code," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk wrote today on Twitter. "New date pending coordination with @NASA." The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has been working to finish final testing and checkouts of its flight system, which will be the first privately built vehicle to rendezvous and dock with the orbiting laboratory. "After reviewing our recent progress, it was clear that we needed more time to finish hardware-in-the-loop testing and properly review and follow up on all data," SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham wrote in an email. "While it is still possible that we could launch on May 3rd, it would be wise to add a few more days of margin in case things take longer than expected. As a result, our launch is likely to be pushed back by one week, pending coordination with NASA." Source | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
A newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers — including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page — has announced plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water. Planetary Resources, Inc. intends to sell these materials, generating a healthy profit for itself. But it also aims to advance humanity's exploration and exploitation of space, with resource extraction serving as an anchor industry that helps our species spread throughout the solar system. "If you look at space resources, the logical next step is to go to the near-Earth asteroids," Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairman Eric Anderson told SPACE.com. "They're just so valuable, and so easy to reach energetically. Near-Earth asteroids really are the low-hanging fruit of the solar system." Planetary Resources is officially unveiling its asteroid-mining plans at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) Tuesday (April 24) during a news conference at Seattle's Museum of Flight. Source | ||
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Wegandi
United States2455 Posts
This is going to be a huge failure. If they wanted to sell water it would be cheaper to build a desalination plant. I also am very skeptical that the cost of launching craft out of orbit as well as landing on a NEA with telemetry (highly risky) is going to be less than any potential earnings. It would be cheaper to buy out mining companies. I hope they'll achieve their goals, but I just don't see us being there yet in terms of lack of resources on our planet to warrant such expenditures. We'll go to space resources when the prices of commodities blows up in I don't know...200 years? | ||
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Voltaire
United States1485 Posts
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sc14s
United States5052 Posts
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