Space gets privatized!

Williebee

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Space was already privatized. Hey, I bought a star for my wife years ago. Don't remember where it is anymore, but I've got this piece of paper sez we own it... named it and everything. I think it was, like, forty bucks. :)
 

Zoombie

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Dude, I just had an awesome idea for a story.

Person in 21st century buys a star for fourty bucks. 200 years later, and his decedents are trying to sue a mining corporation for some of the profits they are raking in from that star.

Heh.

Anywho, yes I know that private industries have made some steps, but this can only increase their efforts.

I hope.
 

Don

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Good call. I'd like to see government move from primary actor to promoter and judge in almost anything. Space is a prime example. Let NASA set goals and hand out big cash prizes for achieving them. Get dozens of approaches to a problem considered and tested instead of one.

Monopolies destroy innovation in the best of cases. In a field as innovative as space exploration, it's long-term suicide.

If that had been the approach since the day after we walked on the moon, we'd have colonies there by now, and we'd be mining the asteroids. Instead, space was closed to everyone but government for decades.
 

thothguard51

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Meanwhile, the Chinese are pressing ahead with getting a man on the moon, and possibly a lunar base. It is still years and years away, but they are moving forward, not backwards...
 

blacbird

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Already been done! Richard Branson and Burt Rutan have built a spaceship - sent it to space - and are planning a commercial venture. All without governmental help.

http://www.zath.co.uk/virgin-galactic-to-offer-space-tourism-by-2012/

When a private group manages actual orbital flight, then I'll be convinced. And I hope this happens, sooner rather than later, and I do think these efforts advance that moment significantly. Still, it appears to be a way off.

And, none of this would have happened without the immense strides made through governmental efforts in the 1960s-1970s.

caw
 

clintl

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Dude, I just had an awesome idea for a story.

Person in 21st century buys a star for fourty bucks. 200 years later, and his decedents are trying to sue a mining corporation for some of the profits they are raking in from that star.

Heh.

Anywho, yes I know that private industries have made some steps, but this can only increase their efforts.

I hope.

Wouldn't the mining company just be vaporized?
 

clintl

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You mean you get more than just the star when you buy one?
 

Diana Hignutt

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You mean you get more than just the star when you buy one?

You get your name next to the star's name (number) in a book registered in the copyright office. I don't think you actually have a claim on anything. Still, it's a pleasant little scam. (Sorry, Willie)