SpaceX

Unfortunately, weather conditions caused the launch to be delayed until Saturday.

It also rains a lot in the Orlando area, if nothing else frequent short showers in the afternoon.  When I came back from there in 1992 after attending Magicon (and doing a lot of sightseeing in the area, of course), my flight was delayed for quite some time.  This made it interesting seeing my sister on our stop in Atlanta, and then getting picked up by Elizabeth a lot later that night than anticipated.

Good for them. From a public relations standpoint, was anybody watching, especially after the reschedule?

Good for SpaceX. And there’s no telling where this could go.

But I think it’s an extremely remote possibility that private companies can turn a dime anytime soon in regards to anything but launching satellites.

I see the International Space Station itself as an albatross. It’s a make-work project for the Star Trek dreamers. But it doesn’t do a hell of a lot but cost money.

Okay, if SpaceX has the extra money and the desire to go to Mars, I think that would be cool. But it would amount to little more than extraterrestrial virtue signaling because there isn’t likely a dime to be made on the moon, Mars, or anywhere else in the near future. I would say “Thank you for doing the research on your dime.” But I don’t see factories on Mars cranking out anything for resale on Earth anytime soon.

I read an article the other day that was gung ho on the private companies operating in space. I don't know where the article is. But the gist of it was that the guy thinks there is a lot of money to be made mining asteroids.

He offered zero information in regards to the feasibility, so it may be pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff that is written with plenty of enthusiasm but not much else.

But, sure, if you could cost effectively mine gold and platinum, among other metals, then you have a fantastic business opportunity there. My own hunch is that the operation would have to be really yuge to turn a profit and compete with terrestrial sources.

I wonder if there is more computing power in even a modern pocket calculator. Do they still make those things?

One could say the justification for the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs was to beat the Russians, a worthy goal indeed. It was a government-lead agenda supported by oodles of highly innovated private companies.

The International Space Station was motivated by Cosmic Kumbaya. It’s probably hasn’t delivered much more than that. It had/has a multi-governmental agenda fueled by hopes-and-dreams as much as actual rocket engines.

The many robotic missions to Mars could be said to have been fueled by some vague “search for life,” although anyone with half a brain must understand by now that it takes more than just water and time to make life. We’re not sure what. But present theories are naive and inept.

But when we come to things such as the Hubble Space Telescope (and those that have or will replace it) and fly-by missions to the outer planets, I think we do see some real science being done if only because it’s based on the desire to discover new things. And we’ve discovered tons of new things.

I’m not saying that other motivations aren’t good or useful. But I do think these endeavors got the most done in terms of bang-for-buck. After all, we spent billions on Apollo and other than Tang, what do we have? We were basically in the role of Columbus who discovered a New World…but then never returned and built upon it.

To actually colonize Mars or the Moon will take megabucks and it likely can’t be justified by anything other than “Because we haven’t done it before.” And having a colony on Mars would be very cool. But at the end of the day, it’s not go to be doing anything a robot couldn’t do better. They’ll just be filling space. It will be glorified geology, and nothing more. And the ventures will be so expensive, I can’t imagine a private company doing it on their own.

Yes, if they find a solid gold asteroid, I think that would definitely make it commercially viable. Good analogy. But I’m not holding my breath even if I do think exploration in space is a very cool thing indeed.