Re: Private Enterprise

[Gail Leatherwood]

OK, tomgreen, what should we do? Turn the whole thing over to the government? How about some good suggestions about how we should get ourselves off the planet? Gail the Guy ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 5:52 AM Subject: Re: Private Enterprise In a message dated 12/7/2001 12:18:24 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As an American, I emphatically disagree.  Private enterprise is not the solution for space exploration, for the simple reasons already mentioned: 1. Nobody has found a way to make a profit outside earth's orbit yet. Yet.  Altruism won't get humans into space on a sustainable basis, no more so than the quest for knowledge by Greek philosophers put the Greeks in first place in the world order. Science makes bombs, and dollars.  That's what it is good for, to the people who pay for it.  It is then up to the altruists to make pure knowledge spin-offs from the bombs and profit making discoveries. Even the Noble Peace Prize was funded by a bomb maker. 2. If there were a way to profit, it would not be for motives to learn.  At best, it would only be to research new ways to exploit the existing resources. That's the human story.  It is a grim, greedy one, but humans are a grim, greedy lot.  It is our legacy from thousands of years of evolution, and has put us where we are today. How many private companies are in the business of astronomy, ecology, anthropology, mathmatics, etc for profit? How about the Natl. Geographic Society?  The Rand Institute?  And, ecology is a growing field in 'green business' initiatives. If you want an example of this; look at what private industry can/is doing to earth's resources... forests are logged at unsustainable rates, even though the potential profit in the genetic information could potentially be greater than the price of raw lumber. Certainly.  But, the problem there is not necessarily pure greed -- after all, you're holding out the inducement of potentially greater profits in order to forestall logging profits. The problem is really one of reasonable expectations.  Humans have working lives of about 40 years, so they want to realize a profit in a 5-10 year period, at most.  We have not evolved, socially, or physically, to allow us to take long term speculative risks like preserving a patch of forest over a 20 year study cycle. Taking this back to space science, what is true for the rain forests will likely prove true for lunar or martian plots.  If there is a profit to be made, profit will come first, pure knowledge science a distant second. A petro company explores for new resources, but just ask to look at their maps and research.  What they learn will be hoarded as proprietary information, at least until patents/treaties are drawn to protect their interest. And does the average American care?  Heck yes.  That's why we have zoning laws, the EPA, federally funded research, etc...  I think the American ideal is to allow one's right to free enterprise, but not by turning a blind eye to the damage done by blatant greed  (aka Aldo Leopold). Free enterprise and altruism are antithetical. A gold rush in space would do almost nothing for science; and in the case of Europa, could do much more harm than good through contamination.  I'm all for space tourism, but how does that lead to Pluto Express or a Europa lander? == In 1885, Eugene Dubois, a Belgian doctor, reluctantly joined the Belgian army in order to get to Indonesia so he could dig for 'the missing link', later termed Homo Erectus.  He found his missing link, but if the Belgians had not invaded Indonesia to exploit it, they wouldn't have needed a doctor to tend the troops there. -- JHB