Henry Hudson explored on behalf of the Moscovy Company, the Dutch East India Company, the Virginia Company, and the British East India Company.

Captain Cook’s expeditions were sponsored by the Royal Society.

The American West was explored by mountain men working for fur companies.

David Livingston worked for the London Missionary Society, and Henry Stanley’s African explorations were financed by the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph.

The National Geographic Society sponsored exploratory work by Theodore Roosevelt, Robert Peary, Hiram Bingham, Richard Byrd, Jacques Cousteau, the Leakeys, and Robert Ballard, to name just a few.

The Discovery Channel has sponsored a number of exploratory expeditions.

Exxon plans to spend $10 billion on oil exploration in the next decade.

Atlantis Adventures is a private company that operates 11 submarines around the world, allowing 750,000 people annually to explore the ocean depths as deep as 1000 feet.

More than 25 million people explore Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World, and other Orlando theme parks every year.

Where do people get the idea that only government does exploration?

I don’t think Mr. Brecht understands all the different research projects that NASA assists. I have frequently read of scientific research unrelated to spaceflight or aviation that has used either indirectly or directly NASA resources or innovations. I’m sure cancer research would benefit from the research in radiations effect on human in space and currently an experiment on ISS in protein crystal growth assists medical research, one of the few active experiments on ISS.

I do agree we need federal goals/visions in other areas not just space exploration. I think US could eliminate homelessness given the same level expectations that is put on NASA. Does anyone know of any exploration that was done by the private sector without any government assistance or guidance?

It would be interesting to know WHY he thinks the private sector will “take over”.

I do not agree that it will. But it is still interesting that a semi-intelligent, public service-interested guy thinks this, and says it.
If only because most politicians never talk about space. (Which is a really bad sign, in case readers here don’t realize that.)

This is why robotic vs. human spaceflight is silly, too.

It would be a strange politician who scrapped human spaceflight and kept robotic spaceflight fully funded.

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin

If you’re pro-space, you want more private AND more public.

It’s not a zero-sum game.

Even if not, if a politician can derive a noticeable advantage by saying such things then that suggests 2005/2006 could be far rosier years than today’s indicators foretell. I expect the electorate to have other troubling issues to worry about.

I suppose there’s also the chance that NASA’s death spiral will have ended by 2006, making it a moot point – you never know…