True, true. You could have concluded from my previous comment that I'm not a fan of five-year plans. The market still functions in Europe.
Nevertheless, I hold to the precautionary principle in environmental issues. If such a helium source were never found, we'd be in some trouble. (We've lived for millennia without using helium, so we'll manage, but there are probably several things we can't do at all without it.) Now we know that there are likely more sources, we can relax and maybe leave it to the market.
This is similar to, although not as bad as, how we haven't been able to prevent global warming; there may be a point at which no amount of money or work is going to fix that. Governments may not be much better at preventing things like that, but at least they have a chance.
I think the different between your example is that the stratosphere has no system of property rights, so their simly is no market.
Helium is different, their is no clear market failure of any kind. As government provided helium will start to run out, future prices will rise. Potential gain from increasing production will raise as well. When prices rise many people will move to alternatives softening the rise in price.
Once the prices are higher, their will be a huge insentive to figure out a way to produce it economically.
The equillibrium price will probebly be higher then now, but currently we are living in an artefical low, so setting the goal of continuing this current low price is simply unrealistic even if government manages it, to keep the price this low they would have to subsidise it eventually and I don't think that is a worthwhile thibg for governemnt.
Nevertheless, I hold to the precautionary principle in environmental issues. If such a helium source were never found, we'd be in some trouble. (We've lived for millennia without using helium, so we'll manage, but there are probably several things we can't do at all without it.) Now we know that there are likely more sources, we can relax and maybe leave it to the market.
This is similar to, although not as bad as, how we haven't been able to prevent global warming; there may be a point at which no amount of money or work is going to fix that. Governments may not be much better at preventing things like that, but at least they have a chance.