The funny thing is that the people making their money in software and entertainment: John Carmack, Elon Musk, Larry Page, James Cameron, etc... are the ones getting us to space and re-igniting the space program that the general population lost interest in funding a long time ago.
I say: Let the people with big ideas and great implementation skills make all the money they can legally. They're the ones we want to fund so they can pursue new interests and create new markets.
Very true and that's an interesting article. The Shuttle Program is a great example of an idea that should have been allowed to fail. At very least (in YC terms), NASA needed to pivot hard much earlier on.
The opportunity cost to mankind only existed because politicians and bureaucrats didn't get their funding and power from success at getting cargo and people into space economically and safely. They got it from overplaying their hands on past successes, diverting dollars to their constituencies and contractors to "bring home the bacon", and plain dumb government spending momentum.
In other words, the incentive model of the Shuttle Program (and of NASA in general) was broken and no one with sufficient power ever did anything about it.
Agreed. The Shuttle, as operated, was a pretty stupid design, compared to the alternatives. I admire the folks who ran it for making it run as long and safely as it did. But it was insanely expensive. And fundamentally inferior, inefficient and risker compared to say just having a cylindrical multi-stage rocket and putting a payload on top of it, ala Saturn, Delta, Falcon, etc.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57419801/asteroid-mining... http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home http://www.spacex.com/
I say: Let the people with big ideas and great implementation skills make all the money they can legally. They're the ones we want to fund so they can pursue new interests and create new markets.