Quote:
Originally Posted by PQ
Those would have been developed anyway. And by PRIVATE companies.
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Eventually they would have, but how many lives, how much property, and how many dollars have been saved by having them earlier? How much farther along are we down the technological road because we needed to kick the process in the butt to get to the moon or build a reusable spacecraft?
Private companies are more conservative with their money because they want to make a profit. Ventures like NASA force private companies to indulge in areas of research they might not be interested in because the things NASA wants to do require more capability that we have right now, and thus new capabilities must be developed.
It's the same sort of relationship you see with racing versus the car industry at large. You don't need the average road car to move like an F1 car, but what else can you make a road car do when it's benefiting from the development you're putting into the F1 car?
Besides, if we last long enough, we'll need a way off this rock. Might as well start figuring out the basic requirements now.
