“Right now we have two cases (shuttle and ISS) of the federal government trying to build infrastructure that was at some point or another promised to expand commercial (read private) infrastructure and it has failed (or at least failed so far on the space station).”

The Shuttle was a worthwhile experiment for the time period it was conceived, but it went on for far too long. Experimentation is good, but not learning from the experiments is bad. Certainly now there is no reason for the U.S. Government to run a transportation system, as it has no innate skills in do so, and it hasn’t even validated if the commercial market can’t handle it’s needs.

Regarding the ISS, I’ve never heard that it was going to be anything more than a laboratory and testbed. I don’t call that infrastructure per se, and it’s far too early to write accolades or it’s obituary.

Wikipedia defines infrastructure:

“Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function.”

Commercial Cargo and Crew would be classified as infrastructure assets, but as designed the ISS is more of a destination. I know people would like it to morph into something more, but I don’t count unfunded wishes.

“So far at least there is no notion (at least in my mind) how on its own or in any consortium of companies a “private” concern drives its way to the Moon and then do something that generates a profit…”

I agree. But what I was outlining earlier was based on a timeline that goes pretty far out, and the further out we go, the more capable our autonomous and tele-presence systems will get, and that’s where I see the tipping point coming for finally allowing us to exploit the Moon, and maybe bodies beyond. What they’ll exploit is still unknown, but who knows what our needs will be in 30-50 years.

“What I am pretty certain however is that there is no market “just for exploration””

No even with the U.S. Government. Apollo was a political thing, not exploration, and the Shuttle wasn’t exploration at all. Congress is fine letting NASA do robotic exploration, but it has repeatedly shown that human exploration is a very low priority. They still have no plans to actually use the SLS/MPCV, despite it’s horrendous cost.

Once we define what the Moon and other heavenly bodies have that we need, then people will be interested in funding exploration. Until then, I agree, not so much.

“Right now we have two cases (shuttle and ISS) of the federal government trying to build infrastructure that was at some point or another promised to expand commercial (read private) infrastructure and it has failed (or at least failed so far on the space station).

So far at least there is no notion (at least in my mind) how on its own or in any consortium of companies a “private” concern drives its way to the Moon and then do something that generates a profit…we cannot even find a way to generate a product that services geosynch satellites from Earth.”

In some cases the status quo has to run to the point of no returns before we see some changes.

In one area that I am seeing this is orbital junk. We are heading to a point of no return and something will have to be done. Government funded garbage collectors of some sort of commercial/government system.

“- Frederick W. Smith decided that we should have the ability to ship a package anywhere within the continental U.S. overnight.”

He was late to the game. Governments have been doing that for years – worldwide, too- we called it the Diplomatic Pouch– because it absolutely, positively had to get there. Yes, FedEx swiped it from State. .

“Jack Dorsey thought we should communicate in message lengths of 140 characters or less.” That’s not communicating- that’s abbreviating. But if you want to condense conversation into tweeted code like technoCliffNotes, sure there’s a market for it, but it’s not an improvement in communicating at all– just more noise/clutter.

Well there clearly has to be some thought along those lines…and I dont pretend to know how it is going to work out.

Right now we have two cases (shuttle and ISS) of the federal government trying to build infrastructure that was at some point or another promised to expand commercial (read private) infrastructure and it has failed (or at least failed so far on the space station).

So far at least there is no notion (at least in my mind) how on its own or in any consortium of companies a “private” concern drives its way to the Moon and then do something that generates a profit…we cannot even find a way to generate a product that services geosynch satellites from Earth.

I dont know how this changes.

At some point my assumption would be that some “Elon Musk” tries a new product and gets a success…but I dont know where and how this happens.

What I am pretty certain however is that there is no market “just for exploration”…

Robert

“Ron, the question I was answering was why NASA employees were not supporting Gingrich in the primaries.”

OK.

“Exploration is non-sustaining, there’s little to no return on investment. That’s why government has to be the lead.”

Exploration tied to future exploitation is sustainable here on Earth – you just have to get a far enough head start. There is no reason to think the same model won’t work beyond our atmosphere.

Regarding the government taking the lead, Commercial Cargo & Crew is not exploration, it’s services – the government needs cargo delivered and crew transported to their space station in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

I’m not aware of any large scale exploration that the U.S. Government funds on a regular basis, are you? And if there is, what percentage of the overall amount invested in exploration is it?

Or at least explain why you think the government is taking the lead in exploration (and how you define that).

“First off exploration is not a business that is sustaining…”

Good subject to “dig” into.

First of all, I never said what the timescale was before a business case could be made for the fruits of exploration, and from a business perspective, you don’t do exploration unless you are looking to exploit what you’re exploring. There is a market in knowledge extraction, but more in resource extraction.

So from that perspective, yes, oil & mineral companies are having to invest a lot of money into exploration. But that wasn’t always true. When there was still virgin territory it took less exploration to find the resources you thought you could sell. The Moon is virgin territory, if (and it’s still a big “if”) a market can be found for what it has.

“Second none of the cases you mentioned developed a product that worked outside of EXISTING infrastructure…”

For today, you’re right. And again, I wasn’t stating a timescale. But someday the tipping point will come, and “someone” will figure out the combination of existing infrastructure to make it happen. That person may be a CEO of a space-related company, or maybe an entrepreneur that has figured out how to leverage the infrastructure of the day.

Personally I think most lunar exploration and exploitation will be done by autonomous or telepresence robotic systems – not humans. If that turns out to be true, then the Google Lunar X-Prize could be an indication of how close the tipping point is getting. We still need to find something worth mining on the Moon, but companies are already lining up multi-million dollar contracts for transmitting data back from the Moon, so that’s a start.

My $0.02

To the main trust of your argument, I never thought I’d say this but Oler covers it quite well.
Exploration is non-sustaining, there’s little to no return on investment. That’s why government has to be the lead. Programs like COTs and Commercial Crew are perfect ways to lower costs by bringing in commercial entities in a sustaining role and encouraging them to take an exploitation role .

– Frederick W. Smith decided that we should have the ability to ship a package anywhere within the continental U.S. overnight.
– Jack Dorsey thought we should communicate in message lengths of 140 characters or less.

At some point someone we don’t know may step forward and lead the way towards opening up the exploration of the Moon.”

anything is possible but I will be pretty surprised if the last sentence I quote happens…ever.

First off exploration is not a business that is sustaining…as the two cases you mentioned (and I quoted) above. I dont care how cheap human spaceflight gets there are few pockets outside of government that can sustain the continued cost of “exploration” with no monetary return.

Second none of the cases you mentioned developed a product that worked outside of EXISTING infrastructure, infrastructure that has in some measure (more in FedEx case then the other) been developed and sustained by the Federal government.

I can see a Musk or someone thinking “wow lets do this as a stunt” and going to the Moon with humans or Mars with a Dragon …but that “stunt” has to be related to making their product more sale able and more valuable ….

Robert