You people continue to get it wrong, and I'm always amazed that you continue to get it wrong.
"Earth-to-LEO" orbit is irrelevant. "Halfway there once you're in Earth orbit" is irrelevant. Price-per-person-per-trip to orbit is irrelevant.
Until, and ONLY until, there is a COMPELLING ECONOMIC INCENTIVE FOR CORPORATIONS, SYNDICATES, and WEALTHY--VERY WEALTHY--VENTURE CAPITALISTS to fund such explorations, you ain't goin' NOWHERE.
The death of NASA would be the best thing that could happen to the future of space exploration. The agency ought to be broken up and its military role doled out to the appropriate branches of service.
Then, the government ought to tell the afforementioned mega-big-spenders that if they can figure out a way to get there and bring back the stuff, the gov. will supply SEED MONEY, maybe some rocket boosters, whatever.
Then, let the Invisible Hand take its course, as it inevitably did.
Where do I get this idea? Simple. From HISTORY.
Best Example: We tend to think of Columbus as having "discovered" America. Of course we all know he wasn't the first non-"Native American" to get there. But he is credited with it because HIS was the expedition that mattered.
How did he come to make the voyage? Again, it's simple: Greed, a.k.a. Adam Smith and "The Wealth of Nations" and all that jive.
You see, people who knew anything knew the world was round, of course, they had known it since Greek Antiquity. But they didn't realize it was as BIG as it turned out to be (even though Euclid estimated the true circumference of the Earth to a pretty good degree of accuracy).
They thought that all those reports of sightings of land on the other side of the Atlantic were of the EASTERN coastline of Asia. And Asia was a HOT, HOT market just then, because of the Spice trade. The Italian city states, particularly Genoa and Venice, had a monopoly on the overland spice routs to the Orient, and they sold their precious spices, which European cookery had decided it could not do without once tried, at a VERY hefty price.
So Spain, feeling left out, and desiring to make a splash now that they were solidly back in the mainstream of Christian Europe with the expulsion of the Moors, wanted to find an alternate route to the centers of spice production.
So in reality that was what Columbus was after: An alternate route to "the Indies", to "Cathay" and to the fabulous--and lucrative--Orient.
Cutting to the chase, we all know that they didn't get what they were after. But of course, they also got wealth of another kind in terms of precious metals and interesting crops and other foodstuffs, far in excess of what the Spice Trade would have meant.
Within a few years Spain became a European--and the first WORLD--power, whose hegemony would last, even counting its declining years, for almost four hundred years.
If you will do some checking, you will learn that no significant exploration of the unknown has ever occurred JUST "to see what was there." There was ALWAYS an economic incentive that served as the catalyst.
So, until you space-nerds figure out how to bring a SIGNIFICANT economic incentive into play, no one in the world is EVER going anywhere in space, because it will always be a case of a venture that CONSUMES capital rather than creates it.
Off the soap-box, now.
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Tell us all bout those economic incentives that men had from 12 to 50,000 years ago to explore north america. Or to go to australia, even earlier.
- You don't have a clue. Just a big fat opinion, of your own opinions.
So just killing NASA is probably not the way to go at this point. I want to see some private sector activities before that happens.
Man's spirit is restless, and our sole reason for living seems to be to push back boundaries.
"That a man's reach exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?"