I work in the space industry. I feel like I should be celebrating this, but I just find it hard to be enthusiastic about the commercialization of space.

I didn’t get into this to build hotels, and mine asteroids. I feel like as a species we should continue to explore, and push the boundaries.

I just can’t get behind private industry on the moon. This is a bad move for humanity overall.

Space is expensive, and never gets the attention it deserves. Only a handful of countries could do much space exploration and as they try to explore more it rapidly gets more expensive, longer timeframe. We need to face that from a societal perspective it just doesn’t scale.

Commercializing space doesn’t just mean silly things like orbital hotels, but it means more, better, cheaper access to space and space resources. It means distributing efforts for better scalability. It means multiple funding sources so we’re less dependent on the whims f politicians. It means someone else can take care of the “easy” stuff, so NASA/ESA/JSA/CSA/ASA/etc can focus on the bigger challenges of exploration.

More international cooperation is also a huge part of this. We need to continue the model of cooperation from ISS, so we can all build on each other’s efforts, and reach out into the solar system as “humanity”

You do realize these “commercial companies” such as SpaceX are funded by government contracts right? You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. And you’re also not going to change my opinion. Space isn’t meant to be the next capitalist playground, which is what we are trying to do.

You do realize these “commercial companies” such as SpaceX are funded by government contracts right?

Yes, but it will be cheaper for NASA to outsource cargo and crew transport than if they did everything themselves. Just look at the success of the NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services and Commercial Crew programs. Cygnus, Dragon, and Falcon 9 are way cheaper than Orion and Ares I would have been for low earth orbit.

This leaves NASA with more resources to devote towards interesting science and exploration missions. I don’t see why lunar exploration would be any different.

This argument gets made a lot when talking about privatisation. Lots basic and essential services have gotten privatised over we decades, and none of them got better or cheaper.

The only way you can benefit from privatizing something is when you make others pay for it. In this case, SpaceX is burning other people’s venture capital like rocketfuel. I prefer that over spending public money, but unfortunately, they’ve also spent 1.9billion on a moon lander, with nothing to show.