Capitalism is not the right system for Space Exploration

If the UN introduced an internationally agreed mechanism whereby nations, corporations and individuals could claim territorial rights to celestial bodies humanity would be out in the solar system in no time.

Neil Degrasse Tyson has it right. The only real human advances are driven by 2 motives, greed or fear. This is because thats what motivates those holding the purse strings.

All the other motives are a smoke screen.

The Europeans explored out of greed and the Americans went to the moon out of fear of communism. When there is no obvious way to profit and nothing to fear, we don't try hard things.

There will always be idealists wanting exploration for its own sake but without funding they are stuck writing polemics.

Making the treaty change I suggest would restore the greed motive and get us going again. A race to claim the polar regions of mars for example.

Reading history, it seems that people explored for many things, all ultimately for profit, searching for gold, silver, farm land, minerals, people who could be taxed (gold,silver, produce) the only way the west, at least, is going to get out there is the profit motive, H3 on the Moon, asteroid mining, for gold, silver, nickle, tungstan, rare earths, etc. and 'living space' on Mars. Although with the vast emptiness of the Sahara, and Australia, there is plenty of space on this planet, for the moment, at least.

reply to post by pikestaff


I'd like to think certain explorers like Darwin had a goal of documenting the species and studying the natural world.

Originally posted by wildespace
reply to post by pikestaff

 

I'd like to think certain explorers like Darwin had a goal of documenting the species and studying the natural world.

Darwin got a ride along on the Beagle which was a sea mapping ship of the Royal Navy.

If not for the Royal Navy wanting accurate maps to fight better Darwin would not have gone to the Galapagos.

reply to post by justwokeup


Ok, he's a bad example. Other explorers have travelled on their own to study and collect animals and plants.

Originally posted by wildespace
Other explorers have travelled on their own to study and collect animals and plants.

Yes, they did. But they did it in ships that could be financed by rich individuals of the time.

No single individual is rich enough to finance space travel. (And before you say: 'What about Richard Bronson?' you should remember that the guy is a billionaire and his ambitious goal is to bring tourists into low orbit and back - which is nothing! Even a trip to the moon would completely ruin him financially if he were to attempt it.)

Also: a ship that you used to go on scientific explorations in the 19th century could be used to haul goods afterwards (or even while you do the exploration).

There absolutely nothing to gain in space at the current cost of space travel. Sure there are minerals and metals in abundance in the asteroid belt. But even if you could send a rocket to the asteroid belt and it would come home with as much gold as it can haul, you would still be loosing money because of the insane costs of even launching the rocket into space (fuel, technology, ...).

The only way for mankind to really go into space is some new technology that would make space travel dirt-cheap.