Mishaps in Space: Failures and Foul-Ups:
The trials and tribulations of exploration at the high frontier are many. In compiling their book, Harland and Lorenz encountered a feeling “of growing surprise that anything works at all!”For example, following a string of failures—a Titan 4A booster, the loss of the Mars Observer, a weather satellite, as well as a Landsat remote sensing spacecraft—a panel of experts in late 1993 that studied these catastrophic accidents blamed “too much employee turnover, an unclear organizational structure, and a breakdown in accountability.”
In one other instance, a thermal wrap and tape were misapplied, preventing a clean separation of rocket stages. The result: Loss of an expensive Defense Support Program satellite.
The authors also note one incident involving a Titan 4 that had sat on the launch pad for over 1,000 days, with a frustrated Air Force commander threatening to mount a plaque on the booster that tallied the $3.5 million-per-day of delay bill for the U.S. taxpayer.
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I think the final solution will come (decades from now) when they replace the current ‘space belongs to all mankind’ communal ownership system, with some kind of homesteading/salvage private ownership rights. Where if you can put anything in space to some kind of use, you get a title to it.
I don’t think tourism is enough of an incentive for significant private space travel (outside of the limited high-end novelty value). But the promise of laying claim to real estate on a moon or mining an asteroid made entirely of metals would be huge!
But as it stands now, there is probably more profit to be made on earth (feeding and clothing humanity) than in space… for awhile.
NASA is a perfect example of the quasi-religion inherent in Statism. All anyone wants to see is the fuzzy Good in space travel, conquering space, et al. And yet it is really a rickety edifice that fails more than it succeeds, and the fruits of the success (under collective statism) is debatable.
To echo the previous commentator, space will only be ‘conquered’ when a true use for its materials can be found through human intellect to meet needs, not wants, it is more efficient to do so.
Statism never succeeds at its aim, and rots away other mechanisms that could.
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