What needs to be done is a change in the taxation policy towards the aerospace industries.
With the cancellation of NASA's lunar return program, the vision of establishing a research base on the moon seems to be receding. This feeling is strengthened in view of the fact that the space shuttles will soon be taken out of service and the US will be left without manned spacecraft. The only option it faces is to use the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and possibly wait for the expansion of China's manned launches. Options are not very encouraging. NASA in such a situation will depend on foreign American factors. A clearly undesirable situation. Even the plans that were on the agenda regarding the return to the moon until they were canceled were essentially conservative. They were nothing more than the Apollo Plus program.
At the same time, the private sector is beginning to show interest in manned space flights, for now only in flights around the Earth. An encouraging and noteworthy start. The impression one gets is that NASA has lost the vision and pioneering spirit that characterized it in the second half of the 20th century. Let's not forget that NASA is essentially a public body and as such depends on budgets. The budget that the government approves, she has to live with and often has to conduct lobbying campaigns in order to increase budgets and approve projects.
The direction to strive for is opening the entire door to private industry. The way will be paved by the aerospace industries. Neither the government nor NASA should invest in projects of this magnitude. What needs to be done is a change in the taxation policy towards the aerospace industries. In order for these industries not to flounder in the development of this other device, however important it may be, or to remain only in the space station's environment, a statement must be made that any industry that will enter into breakthrough technologies will be charged a tax rate of only 20%-30%. This will be an unusual incentive for all industries related to space. The direction to be headed is the development of spaceships that can be launched from any airport. Upon leaving the atmosphere they are accelerated to speeds of hundreds of thousands and millions of kilometers per hour. Reaching Mars in a week, two weeks and the asteroids in a few weeks. Asteroids are bodies in which minerals are found in inexhaustible quantities. Space exploration is becoming economic. There is no company that would not want to enter such a fascinating and adventurous field. The vision and the possibility to profit from it combine together and there is nothing better than that.
Such a strong break into the space will oblige these companies to recruit additional employees who will focus on the engineering professions of their types and will most likely develop new fields. To illustrate what this is all about, it is enough if we mention the fact that 3 million people worked within the Apollo program. Private industry will be able to recruit many more workers, which will give a tremendous boost to the American economy. This process will also affect other countries and will contribute to the establishment of international ventures. The other space powers such as Russia, China, Japan, India and the European Space Agency will adopt this concept, come up with their own ideas that will compete with the American space industry and there is nothing more successful than economic competition to give impetus to space exploration. A lot of romance, a lot of engineering and a lot of profitability - an unbeatable combination.
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Dear Haim Mazar
At least according to the article, you are a staunch capitalist-optimist. A bit out of date these days, when the memory of the fall of the capitalist markets is still fresh in our minds.
Indeed, the idea of reducing taxes is good and true, but....there are other areas, many different and important, that seek to lower taxes in order to increase their productivity, such as: higher education, education, health, and more and more....
Will you lower the tax on the salaries of the engineers in the space project and not do the same for teachers or
Doctors???
Another thing, the private initiative will look to invest in ventures that generate short-term returns. We can assure you that
If gold and diamonds are discovered on the moon in commercial quantities, private money will run there.
But, will the private initiative also invest the billions needed to launch space telescopes or,
In tracking asteroids in the solar system or, in discovering planets around stars?... I'm sure.
The capitalist vision is short-term. The capitalist vision is to make money.
Expecting merchants to be flag bearers of progress is something between naivety and stupidity.
In biblical language I would call this "a vision of the last days".
Research, science, enlightenment, education and humanism are a much broader and more comprehensive social vision.
Therefore, the responsibility for the promotion of these values falls on society as a whole.
Otherwise they will not exist.
This is very essential... although when they manage to produce regular flights outside the atmosphere, things will run much faster.
sympathetic:
I didn't contradict what you wrote, but there is no end to the number of examples of significant breakthroughs in private initiatives.. for example, agriculture, printing, assembling the car, the airplane - these technologies in their beginnings were the idea and implementation from the stupor of individuals or companies.. of course governments and war gave a big boost.. but this not essential…
splendor
Big projects require big money. So far, big money has come from countries that have dealt with the best way to destroy other countries, for example find out how much the Manhattan Project cost. From the military technology there is a spillover of knowledge out that has been realized for example the computer was invented for military needs and today it has a lot of economic potential. The article mainly dealt with the economic potential of manned flights into space. These are projects that require a lot of money, adherence to strict safety procedures, and the profit on their side is marginal. There is a big step that needs to be overcome and it can only be done by funding from countries as soon as the threshold of flights to space is broken and regular flights to space will be commonplace then it will make sense to talk about the economic interests of companies.
sympathetic:
There is no doubt that military needs are a major push for technology... but they are not the only ones... also economic reasons (perhaps not exactly as described in the article) can and will push space exploration... already today satellites and even private flights into space are possible through various private companies and the economic potential in space even It has not started with implementation (in my opinion, skepticism like the one expressed by the respondents is the main obstacle to the fact that economic companies have not entered the field for a long time)
The beautiful idea in the article is the ability to barely see potential for the development of new means solutions - (there is no NASA there are private businesses) and this is a healthy and refreshing evidence
glacial
In my opinion, science should be distinguished from fantasy or imaginary science. There is currently no technology that allows reaching Mars within a week, nor does it appear to be on the horizon. On the other hand, you are right, there is no physical law that prevents this, but it is equally possible to make mistakes in the imagination of others (teleportation, estimating human life for 500 years,...). For entrepreneurs from the private market, practical things must be offered.
Ehud, my opinion is close to yours, but we are not exaggerating (or for the sake of accuracy we will be precise) to say that it is not possible to reach it within a week is an exaggeration, with the 'current' technology it is not possible to reach it, if we reach a material with higher durability we can break the ratio you are talking about, and more materials Resistants are discovered all the time, it's a process
The writer of the "article" is a complete moron
The space industry cannot be based on the private sector. Most of the technological developments in our world originate in the defense industry. Wars (including cold wars) produce technology: the internet originated in the cold war, nuclear reactors, and even the computer was originally intended for war effort. The great science (in terms of financial investments)
which is not funded for war purposes originates from international cooperation and is funded by countries for example the LHC super accelerator at CERN. Private companies will not invest in imaginary ventures such as mining minerals from asteroids, this is science fiction fantasy. The space industry requires a very high level of safety because malfunctions cost human lives, but the financial profit inherent in the investment is currently extremely marginal, certainly not motivating for private companies.
Regarding the scientific and technological fantasies:
It is not possible to reach Mars with a spaceship in a week, another science fiction fantasy. The speed of the spaceship is determined by the ability of its construction materials to withstand heat. The building materials determine how much energy can be produced in a given period of time to accelerate the spaceship. Condensation of the building materials means more weight and therefore more fuel is needed, again more weight. In my opinion, the article is completely fictional and unrelated to any reality.
Mr. Mazar is right!!! A national effort would have been appropriate during the 'Cold War', but now it does not appear that Obama (complicated in Iraq and Afghanistan) will allocate resources to this. Breakthroughs! And after all, breaking into the stars is necessary, because if we (humanity) do not leave the earth's 'belt' as soon as possible, 'space' will reach us in the form of asteroids and comets, and then it will be 'a little' late...
Not all of them worked at NASA, but Yesh Mayen spacecraft had to be developed and produced, launch facilities and control centers established and more - including all the pre-Apollo spacecraft whose purpose was to test technologies such as connecting in space. For this, they helped all the companies they could.
"As part of the Apollo program, 3 million people worked."
Really?
I think it was the population size of all of Israel at that time.
And that's about XNUMX percent of the entire US population now…
Do you have anything to support this claim of yours?
That sounds like a big number.
If it was that simple to reach Mars in a week, common sense would say that they would be working on it. Apart from that, there are also quite a few problems in turning space travel into a private matter, firstly a commercial company would not want to reach Mars, there is no financial interest in it, secondly the huge sums associated with huge projects such as a manned arrival to Mars is big even on Warren Buffett..