Maintaining interest in the new 'private' space race.

Shawn

It's said that expectations drive the economy.

So, how do you maintain interest in something that has no immediate bearing/benefit/utility of a population? I would think the answer to that question is to manifest a 'goal', in this case being an interplanetary species or even just building a lunar base as a stepping stone to Mars, is through making it a government imperative.

Yet, we've tried this once before during the space race in the cold war, and after winning the space race to the moon, we sort of just gave up on further missions to the moon. Some would say that the economics of the whole issue was too burdensome to undertake such a mission to establish a lunar base at the time. However, I would contest that through a commitment to the goal of establishing a lunar base on the moon, the economics or cost would sort itself out through reducing costs.

Back to the present day, we have a private company doing just that. They've (SpaceX) reduced costs to such a degree that building a lunar base is no longer a fantasy. So, they've sorted out the economics of the matter.

So, my question is, why did the government fail, where now, a private company will most likely succeed, with the help of the said private company, as I highly doubt SpaceX will succeed without the help from the government (U.S.). I've read that it is highly likely that SpaceX will be some form of private contractor for the government or NASA to establish a lunar base before going to Mars, as Trump seems highly interested in going back to the moon before any other nation and with that establish a permanent lunar base.

Now, to answer my own question, which I leave for you to judge if sound or not, I think that private companies serve as a vehicle or means to achieving a goal. Whereas, the government serves as a directive setting institution. However, for the government to realize said goals or aims, it needs the help of private industries to figure out a way to make said goals achievable through cost reduction. Does that make sense? I mean, in reality, there are some governments that don't rely upon private enterprises to help them achieve a goal; but, they suffer from not being able to realize said goals if there is no means (private industries) to reduce costs. We know what happened to the Soviet Union after all.

My only fear, in this hybrid private/public space race, is that people will lose interest in the goal and the same outcome might prevent or rather slow the amount of progress in this new space race. After all, expectations do drive the economy to a large degree.

Thoughts?

fishfry

We walked on the moon in 1967. In 1968 MLK and RFK were assassinated, the cities burned, and in the following years the country realized the government was lying to us about the war in Vietnam. US society has never been the same. Vietnam was the beginning of a long slide. People think this was a long time ago but Nixon's henchmen Cheney and Rumsfeld were key players in the Iraq war. In retrospect the 1967 moon walk was the high water mark of American power.

Shawn

We walked on the moon in 1967. In 1968 MLK and RFK were assassinated, the cities burned, and in the following years the country realized the government was lying to us about the war in Vietnam. US society has never been the same. Vietnam was the beginning of a long slide. People think this was a long time ago but Nixon's henchmen Cheney and Rumsfeld were key players in the Iraq war. In retrospect the 1967 moon walk was the high water mark of American power. — fishfry

Yeah, so business as usual for the wolves that hide in sheep clothing under the guise of neo-liberalism. What else is new? Care to address the topic?

apokrisis

Governments represent national interests. Commerce cashes in on individual desires. The real question is why the heck would anyone want to live on the Moon, or Mars, or anywhere remote and inhospitable? Is there either some national interest or some individual desire?

The moon race was a result of military self interest and the assertion of national dominance. The US had every reason to plant its flag in the sea of tranquility. But as soon as it had done that, the value of the gesture was over. The US didn’t need a single further Apollo mission. Rocketry had been perfected to the point needed to rain nuclear warheads down on any point of the planet. Colonising the Moon, or heading on to Mars, was a crazy waste of money from the point of view of furthering any national interest. And still is.

Then private space travel may be a rich person’s thrill ride. But rich people aren’t normally explorers or hermits. They would want to get home to their luxuries after a few weeks. You’d have to be an oddball to want to live on another planet. It’d be the same as living in the middle of a desert or top of a mountain or down in Antarctica. All those are fun to visit. But hardly desirable residences. The commercial real estate opportunities of the Moon or Mars would be even less. So unless it was all about mining, what could pay for it as more than a token kind of business?

Wayfarer

The real question is why the heck would anyone want to live on the Moon, or Mars, or anywhere remote and inhospitable? Is there either some national interest or some individual desire? — apokrisis

I sometimes wonder if in our age the dream of’the conquest of space’ is the sublimated image of Heaven. We don’t believe in an actual heaven, so the next best thing is - Warp Speed, Scotty!

In retrospect the 1967 moon walk was the high water mark of American power. — fishfry

Interesting observation. Hadn’t thought of that, but it might well turn out to be true.

Shawn

Rocketry had been perfected to the point needed to rain nuclear warheads down on any point of the planet. Colonising the Moon, or heading on to Mars, was a crazy waste of money from the point of view of furthering any national interest. And still is. — apokrisis

No comment.

You’d have to be an oddball to want to live on another planet. It’d be the same as living in the middle of a desert or top of a mountain or down in Antarctica. All those are fun to visit. But hardly desirable residences. The commercial real estate opportunities of the Moon or Mars would be even less. So unless it was all about mining, what could pay for it as more than a token kind of business? — apokrisis

Yeah, and if everything comes down to a matter of what provides the most amount of utility to me, we would all be heroin addicts, yeah?

Shawn

↪Wayfarer

The cynicism is strong, here.

Metaphysician Undercover

We walked on the moon in 1967. In 1968 MLK and RFK were assassinated, the cities burned, and in the following years the country realized the government was lying to us about the war in Vietnam. US society has never been the same. — fishfry

Actually the date of the first moon walk was July 20, 1969. Following that, there was a massive party of celebration at Woodstock, New York, from Aug15-18 1969.

apokrisis

Yeah, and if everything comes down to a matter of what provides the most amount of utility to me, we would all be heroin addicts, yeah? — Posty McPostface

I have no interest in being a heroin addict. But if I had to choose that or being shipped out to a Mars colony for life, then heroin does seem the rosier option.

I think you’ve fallen for some romantic notion about space travel - that it somehow represents humanity’s best side. But exploration is just the precursor to exploitation. It isn’t noble even if it makes sense to big up those willing to take a risk on behalf of the masses.

[edit: On second thoughts I’d rather be on Mars than be a heroin addict. The idea of being slave to an addiction that leaves you befuddled in fact has less than zero appeal. Your claim that heroin has any utility, except as pain relief, doesn’t fly with me personally.]

Shawn

I have no interest in being a heroin addict. But if I had to choose that or being shipped out to a Mars colony for life, then heroin does seem the rosier option. — apokrisis

I don't understand your prejudice about living on Mars. What's so wrong with that I wonder?

I think you’ve fallen for some romantic notion about space travel - that it somehow represents humanity’s best side. But exploration is just the precursor to exploitation. It isn’t noble even if it makes sense to big up those willing to take a risk on behalf of the masses. — apokrisis

Who's going to be exploiting whom on Mars or on the moon? I mean, if you really think about it, there's probably no person that is immune to exploitation, in entirety.

apokrisis

↪Posty McPostface

I’m questioning your apparent assumption that it would be an attractive enough proposition for people to pay their way there. Even if commercialisation lowered the price, why would anyone choose to go there as a place to live?

Just list the advantages you are imagining. What are they?

Shawn

I posted this same thread over at PhysicsForums too, and I'm kinda surprised the whole thread took that turn.

Guess my English is really that bad as I'm at the threat of being banned for a substandard post quality.

apokrisis

↪Posty McPostface

Hah. Your OP is flawed in taking it as intuitively obvious that we would want to be spacefaring. That’s hippie thinking. But it’s funny to see the same old dickheads still police physics forum. Russ and Evo are just deeply unhappy people. Intellectual wannabes. Laugh and move on.

Shawn

Hah. Your OP is flawed in taking it as intuitively obvious that we would want to be spacefaring. That’s hippie thinking. But it’s funny to see the same old dickheads still police physics forum. Russ and Evo are just deeply unhappy people. Intellectual wannabes. Laugh and move on. — apokrisis

Well, I can see your opposition to the thread. It would in principle deny the actuality of entropofication of social institutions or civilizations as they grow in complexity. Or am I misunderstanding your sentiment here?

fishfry

Actually the date of the first moon walk was July 20, 1969. Following that, there was a massive party of celebration at Woodstock, New York, from Aug15-18 1969. — Metaphysician Undercover

They say memory is the second thing to go.

Wayfarer

I don't understand your prejudice about living on Mars. What's so wrong with that I wonder? — Posty McPostface

No beaches, forests, wildlife, rivers, cities and towns, habitable land, mainly sub-zero desert landscapes with poisonous atmosphere. Nothing much wrong with it apart from that.

Shawn

No beaches, forests, wildlife, rivers, cities and towns, habitable land, mainly sub-zero desert landscapes with poisonous atmosphere. Nothing much wrong with it apart from that. — Wayfarer

I think, de gustibus non est disputandum, would be apropo here.

Wayfarer

↪Posty McPostface

Non enim ex materia gustum

(No Latin, either, although I guess you’d still have Google Translate.)

BC

↪Wayfarer

Google Translate says "It is not made of matter of taste".

Wayfarer

Aha! I should have thought to translate it back again.

Actually I have passed one exam in Latin but that was (let’s see) 1966, so I plead forgetfulness.

Anyway, it conveys the drift. (Although I thought the Lost on Mars movie, with Matt Damon, was definitely one of the better sci-fi films.)

BC

↪Posty McPostface

The exploration of space didn't end with a few trips to the moon. NASA went on to amazing feats of engineering, design, instrumentation, and organizational achievement in sending robots to Mercury, Venus, (Earth too -- don't forget all the satellites studying earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Pluto, and beyond--way, way beyond. Voyager 1 and voyager 2 were launched in 1977. On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to cross the heliopause and enter the interstellar medium. As of this moment, it is still working, still sending back a trickle of information about the solar radiation and cosmic radiation -- the latter which is now more dominant (for where the intrepid Voyager is located).

BC

↪Wayfarer

It's a very well constructed story, with numerous threats and reprieves to keep the story going. In reality our hero would have been dead martian meat PDQ.

Wayfarer

↪Bitter Crank

with nothing to clean the bones....

As I’ve said before - earth is our spaceship, and it’s the only one.

ArguingWAristotleTiff

@Posty McPostface
As with most things in life, NASA has morphed and changed to stay up with the times. We know enough about the Moon that it is time to take it to the next level of man's evolution which is to make the Moon into a travel destination. It isn't my idea nor my desire but that is usually how it happens and I have a great deal of confidence in this idea. So make reservations and start packing so you can go see what only a few have experienced.

ssu

Yet, we've tried this once before during the space race in the cold war, and after winning the space race to the moon, we sort of just gave up on further missions to the moon. Some would say that the economics of the whole issue was too burdensome to undertake such a mission to establish a lunar base at the time. However, I would contest that through a commitment to the goal of establishing a lunar base on the moon, the economics or cost would sort itself out through reducing costs. — Posty McPostface

Actually Americans didn't just give up further missions to the Moon, they de facto gave up the mission to go to Mars and anywhere else (like a manned Venus flyby). Basically when Apollo missions were still going, Werner von Braun was already thinking of the next step being a Mars mission, that would be carried out in the early 1980's. Then Nixon called it quits. Basically the only thing that wasn't scrapped was the Space Shuttle, which was designed as a cost cutting device (which in the end it wasn't). After Apollo, manned exploration of space stopped. The only true accomplishment that we got was the International Space Station in the realm of manned space flight. That we have even that is an accomplishment.

(Things haven't happened for a long time: von Braun writing of a 1985 mission to Mars in 1969.)

First and foremost, the civilian Space Race was a political endeavour as the price of space exploration is so high and it could easily go along with the more important race, the ICBM race and the Cold War arms buildup. And even if all the high tech investment that goes into such Project will create wealth especially in an open economy/society, there isn't the drive, the political will. For many it's a totally pointless endeavour. That it helps the countries economy simply doesn't matter.

Anyway, it wasn't about economics, it was about the politics not being anymore so important to the US, especially after the Russians gave up as they simply couldn't get the huge rocket to work (and von Braun's counterpart Sergei Korolev had died). Once Russia was out, no need to go up one notch. Now if the Russians would have somehow been capable of stealing the first place away from NASA and land a cosmonaut into the Moon before Neil Armstrong set his foot on the Moon, I think we likely would already have seen a manned NASA Mars mission.

(the Lunar lander which never was, the Russian LK)

I think today we live in that denial with having plans that have since Nixon's time been pushed further and further away every time. If some billionaire hopes to build the vehicles to get us to Mars, it still is so costly that it in the end it has to be a government financed program. And the US government or especially ESA has no true enthusiasm on the thing. So there you have it.

Shawn

Well, Trump did sign a directive just today, now how much money is the real question though.

_db

I think you’ve fallen for some romantic notion about space travel - that it somehow represents humanity’s best side. But exploration is just the precursor to exploitation. It isn’t noble even if it makes sense to big up those willing to take a risk on behalf of the masses. — apokrisis

(Y) The interest in space travel is fueled primarily by a naive, adolescent, starry-eyed anticipation for some future metamorphosis in human civilization.

It doesn't make sense, from a practical perspective, to colonize Mars, or the moon, or whatever. It's not going to solve the overpopulation problem, especially since it's stupidly easier to just put down procreative limitation laws instead of sending people vast distances across space. It's not going to solve any energy problems, because it takes at least as much energy to get to Mars and back as we would get from mining there. It would be a logistical nightmare to try to "govern" an interplanetary society. And it wouldn't be a very comfortable, easy or fulfilling life on another planet, either. Like you said, it's fun to go to Antarctica for a few months or so but it gets old after a while. Try arriving on Mars, being amazed for maybe a week and then realizing you're stuck there for the rest of your life, or at least for many years.

If space holds answers for energy problems, it might only be with bringing things to us, not going there ourselves. We might be able to lasso an asteroid into Earth's orbit and, assuming rocketry becomes more efficient, be able to mine that. Or set up entertainment depots or whatever makes the capitalists froth at the mouth.

Not to say that I don't harbor curiosity about other worlds. If there's a "good" reason for going into space, it's for sheer scientific, philosophical and spiritual reasons. I used to fantasize (and still do, on occasion) being a deep-space explorer, who leaves Earth (probably permanently) in order to travel FTL to all sorts of worlds, not for colonization or exploitation but to simply bear witness to their existence. There's something deeply, intensely breathtaking to think there are worlds that, given certain metaphysical assumptions, have never been perceived, and that I conceivably could be the very first to witness them.

That's what drew me to astronomy as a child and what continues to pique my interest in it. To realize that stuff still happens even if there isn't anyone around to witness it disorienting. Makes you feel like an alien, like you've been exiled from everything else.

Maintaining interest in the new 'private' space race.

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