Boxy
07-28-2009, 12:37 PM
What think you, gentle Earthlings? What will happen to governmental space agencies in the coming age of space development?
I'm somewhat of a realist -- NASA and other space agencies were developed primarily with dick-measuring in mind, and I daresay that that's why these agencies are still being funded. No matter how much we may complain about NASA using their funds for useful things like asteroid mining, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that countries will still sink billions into getting to the Moon first, all over again.
I predict that NASA will still be alive and well when we're well into chomping down on NEA's. If this is a given, then we might as well piggy-back off their labor. What do I mean by this, exactly? Well, because of the immanent space race between the U.S. and China, NASA is going to go back to the Moon as soon as possible, then shoot for Mars whenever it gets off its lazy ass. My suggestion is that a civilian prospecting team accompany the NASA scientists, first to the Moon and then to Mars. The results would be proprietary to the particular company that did the prospecting, and could sell the results to space-based resource exploitation companies. The legal precedent this would send is that mineral exploitation and/or permanent human settlement is the benchmark for legal claims to property, not simply getting there first.
What this means then is that an initial fact-finding mission could pave the way for dozens of companies to converge at a single time. The prospecting mission would prove that the resources are there (and what exactly they are, and where they are); the previous achievements of asteroid mining would prove that the economic model is solid.
This would demand that asteroid mining be carried out before 2020, when NASA is planning on returning to the Moon. Barring that, asteroid mining would have to be realized by whenever NASA goes to Mars and establishes a "permanent presence." Estimates on this vary, but probably wouldn't happen before 2030. That gives us a good twenty years to get space mining to the point of major economic investment.
Some other possible plans for NASA for the development of a civilian industry:
1) Have interorbital ships and/or landers built at a private shipyard in orbit.
2) Have crew and cargo carted up to LEO entirely by private companies.
These ideas would get NASA in the business of exploring (and dick-measuring -- they're bound to do it) while meshing with the development of a commercial spaceflight industry and infrastructure.
I'm somewhat of a realist -- NASA and other space agencies were developed primarily with dick-measuring in mind, and I daresay that that's why these agencies are still being funded. No matter how much we may complain about NASA using their funds for useful things like asteroid mining, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that countries will still sink billions into getting to the Moon first, all over again.
I predict that NASA will still be alive and well when we're well into chomping down on NEA's. If this is a given, then we might as well piggy-back off their labor. What do I mean by this, exactly? Well, because of the immanent space race between the U.S. and China, NASA is going to go back to the Moon as soon as possible, then shoot for Mars whenever it gets off its lazy ass. My suggestion is that a civilian prospecting team accompany the NASA scientists, first to the Moon and then to Mars. The results would be proprietary to the particular company that did the prospecting, and could sell the results to space-based resource exploitation companies. The legal precedent this would send is that mineral exploitation and/or permanent human settlement is the benchmark for legal claims to property, not simply getting there first.
What this means then is that an initial fact-finding mission could pave the way for dozens of companies to converge at a single time. The prospecting mission would prove that the resources are there (and what exactly they are, and where they are); the previous achievements of asteroid mining would prove that the economic model is solid.
This would demand that asteroid mining be carried out before 2020, when NASA is planning on returning to the Moon. Barring that, asteroid mining would have to be realized by whenever NASA goes to Mars and establishes a "permanent presence." Estimates on this vary, but probably wouldn't happen before 2030. That gives us a good twenty years to get space mining to the point of major economic investment.
Some other possible plans for NASA for the development of a civilian industry:
1) Have interorbital ships and/or landers built at a private shipyard in orbit.
2) Have crew and cargo carted up to LEO entirely by private companies.
These ideas would get NASA in the business of exploring (and dick-measuring -- they're bound to do it) while meshing with the development of a commercial spaceflight industry and infrastructure.