Reply to post: Re: The reason Orion was nearly scrapped ...

Re: The reason Orion was nearly scrapped ...

"Privately funded space programs were going to achieve the same goals, and could be bought for far less than the anticipated cost of Orion - even without government funding for Orion's R&D and the inevitable cost overruns."

Privately *funded* space programs want to make money. You don't make money (or at least a net profit) going to Mars. You make money from space activities in 3 primary fashions: 1) launching satellites for groups rich enough to afford them; 2) commsats; and 3) selling satellite imagery to Google Maps.

Private companies like SpaceX are making a profit in space exploration from US government funds because the US government wants to explore space - or at least keep an expensive orbital science lab stocked with toilet paper. (And, yes, SpaceX is making money for launching satellites for paying, private customers. But that's not exploration.) Private companies like Lockheed Martin, who made the Orion and various Mars probes, are making a profit from space exploration in the same way as SpaceX: the US government's willingness to explore space.

Neither of those private companies would be turning a net profit from going to Mars or otherwise "exploring space" if a government wasn't funding them, and the government customer isn't going to make money back unless it turns up some unobtainium at $10,000,000 a gram.

SpaceX has demonstrated laudable cost savings over other private space companies like Lockheed and Boeing. I'm really excited about what could be accomplished with a NASA-sized budget contracted to SpaceX rather than older private space companies. But blithely saying "Privately funded space programs are going to do it better, faster, cheaper!" is ignoring three realities:

1) Most space exploration targets of the past 60 years have had 0 investment potential; you need a customer willing to lose money on exploration

2) The only way private companies have made money on space exploration is from government funds

3) SpaceX's funding source for space exploration isn't different than prior private space companies like Boeing and Lockheed: it's the US government.