Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Private Business Will Not Open the Space Frontier 580
MarkWhittington writes "Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famous astrophysicist and media personality, offered something of a reality check on the potential of commercial enterprises to open the space frontier without the aid of government. Specifically referencing SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk's boast that he would establish a Mars colony, Tyson said on a recent video podcast, 'It's not possible. Space is dangerous. It's expensive. There are unquantified risks. Combine all of those under one umbrella; you cannot establish a free market capitalization of that enterprise.'"
Re:Doesn't matter. Only option. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ignore it (Score:0, Interesting)
Mod parent up.
Tyson is clearly intelligent and knowledgable, but he's actually quite a bit of an egotistical twat as well. And at the risk of stating the obvious: the only reason he's famous is because he's black. Phil Plait is a much better scientist and skeptic, but not nearly as well known, again for the obvious reason.
Such a shame that we've traded in the brilliant Sagan for the lemon Tyson. Hopefully the next generation will get someone better.
Re:I suspect he's wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. Neil deGrasse Tyson is certainly an intelligent and articulate voice for science but we all have bias and he's not immune.
In this case, Tyson has been on the front lines of advocating increasing NASA's budget. When private industry begins talking about doing the things that have traditionally been done within NASA for cheaper, this becomes an argument against increasing government funding for space exploration.
Re:I suspect he's right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Governments have already done the trail blazing for where it matters. There is nothing of worth on Mars, it's inside a gravity well with barely an atmosphere and no radiation protection. The money isn't in shipping a handful of people to a red rock for millions and burying them under twisty feet of rock.
The money is in all the easier to access and easier to reach natural resources in asteroids and outside the giant gravity wells. There may also be some money in cheaper local tourism. As the cost per person goes up, the total amount of money you can make goes down as your potential market shrinks much faster than the price grows.
These are all things which aren't even being commercially exploited. Blazing a trail into the jungle doesn't benefit anyone that much if you're starting from a dinky little 2 man outpost that the commercial routes won't reach for twenty years. Looks at colonization. The governments brazed a trail to the coasts but it was the commercial fur traders who really explored the inside of the US.
Re: There have always been doubters (Score:2, Interesting)
Without everything THE GOVERNMENT has done since WWII in research and development towards aeronautics and space exploration
You mean the former government mandated monopoly of space exploration? It was ILLEGAL to build and launch a private space craft in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's (until 1984, to be precise... just a little bit ironic) unless you used a government launch vehicle (the shuttle in the case of the U.S)
You did know that, right?
So your argument translates to: "The government did all the research and development of initial space technologies during the period where it monopolized space technologies through the use of force" -- well no fucking shit sherlock. Now, I'm going to believe that you were sadly misinformed about what held back commercial space launches, rather than being an outright dishonest government/nasa shill.
To be very very specific: The Commercial Space Launch Act was passed in 1984 - prior to that point, it was completely illegal for any American company to use anything but a U.S. government launch vehicle to put anything into space. By 1997 (13 years), commercial launches outnumbered all government launches worldwide.
This is a very common problem in the US
You know whats a common problem in the U.S.? People being so sadly misinformed about things while defending the government based on arguments that fall to pieces when the light if knowledge is shines upon them.
Re:I suspect he's wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying he is wrong, or that his words mean nothing. I'm just saying that in this dialogue I'd listen to Musk and his arguments with much greater interest.
Re:I suspect he's wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
"New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!"
-- A C Clark.
I will go a step further. Space *won't* be done by nasa, at lest for the masses. But will be done by private industry when technology makes it cheap and safe enough to so. Of course by private i mean at the airline industry version of private and non government. Which can be disputed as being not really being a "private industry".
Re:I suspect he's wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)
In my dictionary, it says that an Entrepreneur is someone who's smart enough to realize that space is a worthless, inhospitable money sink.