There was only one reason, why humanity reached the outer space in the 60s: the Cold War or more precisely the nuclear payload, that if delivered is the ultimate weapon of our times. Delivered? German failed attempts to bomb London with fast and unstoppable rockets pointed world in the direction of intercontinental missiles, and what is the better test field, than space rockets. It doesn't create diplomatic or domestic tensions, yet the difference is none, since you can always just replace people with nuclear payload. Of course some will argue, that even if it was important, the curiosity of people was as important. At those times only two governments in the world was able to attract enough finances and people required to accomplish such a achievement.
Times has changed and now governments are slowly backing up from space programs, with one exception of China, which now tries to catch up. In spite of this regress, we have more space optimists, than ever before. A lot of people think, that nowadays a space exploration will be picked up by private sector. Here you have an interview by Economist with lawyer of Bigelow Aerospace.
The first space flight of Space Ship One was the biggest accomplishment by private sector so far. It wasn't able to build enough speed to remain on orbit, nevertheless it ended an era of government monopoly on space flights. All thanks to one amazing constructor Burt Rutan.
When you listen Burt talking, you really do grow optimistic about the whole private space flights. Why shouldn't we be? If government can, a private sector surely is able too. Of course it is, but there is only one problem, private sector not always would want to. Private sector operates similarly to evolution: it can try things, but if it won't prove to be profitable, it will be abandoned. The only way the private sector will continue humanity chase after space flights, if it would prove to be profitable.
What are the ways, a space flight can be profitable. Let's review some of ideas.
There are plenty of people out there, who would pay enormous money to see the earth from space. If the ticket would cost $100k, than a company offering space flights, would have a constant flow of customers. To get near this amount the spacecraft needs to be able to repeat flights over many years with constant, high level safety, but it doesn't have to remain on the orbit. Burt Rutan's idea seems to do the trick, s if he will tune up some details, we may see such a offers in US' travel agencies. Would it drive space flights further? I seriously doubt it. Would people want to go to the Moon, Mars or Jupiter's moons? At the price $100k certainly, but it doesn't seem achievable in near or much further future. Even to the Moon? To the Moon, who knows, but is the Moon such an attraction? The other planets will be out of reach for tourists for a very long time. Why? There is barely anything we can do about travel time. There is a risk of space radiation, and preventing that is incredibly costly. Not too mention, that cost of obtaining orbit twice and changing a solar orbit is just cosmic. Yet if the tourism will drive the costs of getting to an orbit, that would be a huge step.
The next step might be a need for raw resources. The radioactive elements are probably the first ones to end up on Earth, yet they might still be needed in 100 years or so, since work on Fission reactor is progressing very slow. On the other hand a fission reactor may give it a boost anyway. If you would build an automatic mine base on the Moon, with an automatic "fuel station", than the costs of transporting many raw materials would be most probably low enough, thanks to low gravity of our sole natural satellite. Gravity of nearest planets and travel time seems to be to much obstacle for a private sector.
What about energy? Under the condition, that the only workable fission reactor requires a great gravitational force. Meaning fission reaction, that produces more energy than requires to be sustained, happens only in stars. Obviously it would be a waste if we wouldn't harvest it. One effective way to do it, is to put a solar panels in space. Just putting panels in space is not harder than visiting the Moon, but since it requires more travels from the surface of the Earth to the near and far orbits, a space ladder might be absolutely necessary for it to be profitable. There is no way any single company would afford the costs of building space ladder, but the obvious advantages of such construction is so huge, that governments can step in, if only a political and economic support for such solution will be enough. At this time I don't see how solar panels in space would be more profitable than any other energy source, not to mention, that I am strongly convinced, that fission reactor is possible. Even if it did happen, it won't help the above.
The private sector has a quite space to fill, but can he achieve more than that? By themselves this is as much they can hope for. However there is another foreseeable milestone, that the governments might be forced to accomplish. Colonizing Mart and/or Venus. A fear of going extinct my get us to these two planets. Both of these planets have features, that make them ideal targets. The most important is possibility of terraforming. Extremely costly? Yes, but who cares? We have to do it some time in the future. When that happens, the private sector will have another huge area to thrive. Interplanetary crafts, space ports, space safety. And to what will our governments be forced to after? Space elevators, space vacuum cleaners? How much we have to fear to create enough impact on governments? A lot. It may take centuries, before the technology will be cheap enough and our voice loud enough. If we survive until then, it will happen, no doubt about it.
Such a great future awaits us, but the private sector is not enough. There are milestones in our space exploration, which can be reached only by governments. Not because people without help from state wouldn't achieve it, but because people need to feed. Some milestones are to big steps to be crossed for economic reasons. Sometimes we must be organized by officials, forced to be taxed, so enough people would be able to work on reaching the goal, we all know has to be reached. The free market is great at micromanagement and steady progress. Private sector can only take small and relatively inexpensive steps, which need to bring it some profits. Not everything can be achieved in small steps.
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