[RightWhale]

Thinking too small. It's a matter of scale. $200,000 to get Cousteau started. $20 billion to get space exploitation started. Tourism is nothing to start, not much return. Hollywood the same. Subdivision lots?

Look at the size of the world steel industry. That's the scale space operations will need. Eccentric billionaires don't have that kind of cash. Neither Las Vegas nor San Diego has that kind of cash.

[repentant_pundit]

Such pessimism. American steel and film industries were not built on the backs of the taxpayer...at least not originally. These ventures take time to grow. What's your hurry ?

Spain funded Columbus 500+ years ago, probably because it was in their defense interests to do so. That doesn't make it right. North America had already been discovered thousands of years prior, by unfunded primitive peoples with a BIG spirit for adventure (and a taste for wild game which they followed across Alaska from Siberia)

I agree about private property in space. Squatter's Rights !