The mothings change...

I don't think this is necessarily true at all... It may be hard to see
the benefits because neither NASA nor ESA produce commercial products,
but they do license and sell the rights to the technologies for them..
Not only that but private companies pay these agencies to do R&D for
them.. They kinda have the market cornered in this area (for now at
least).. Both ESA and NASA have links to all kinds of business
opportunities on their websites...
I believe they make tons of money from these ventures.. How could they
not?? These people are not stupid..
How much it is annually and where it all goes to is anybodies guess.. I
assume it goes back into the budget as it should in any government
agency.. I doubt that's what really happens to it all, but that's
another issue..

The real winners are already the private industries and ultimately
supposed to be the people as far as the improvements that it makes in
our lives.. The cost for research in these areas is so tremendous that
it limits the involvement to only a few private companies even remotely
capable of doing it.. I think government funded agencies must pave the
way for the private sector to have something to build from..
That's really the way it's always been with expansion, and will probably
remain for any foreseeable future...

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ed Minchau
>
> This is the difference between the governmental space
> programmes and the private efforts. For a government
> program, there are only costs, no benefits, but for a
> private program there are profits to more than offset
> the costs (otherwise the company goes out of
> business). For a private company, it doesn't matter
> how much money things cost, as long as total sales
> exceed those costs. And that's a side of the equation
> that a government simply cannot balance.
>
> Ed
>
> --- ANTIcarrot dante_feditech@... wrote:
>
> > A ESA official called Gerhard Haerendel, who is
> > chairman of that agency's
> > exploration directorate's senior advisory committee,
> > has recently come to a
> > startling conclusion: That a return to the moon and
> > Mars could cost up to
> > half a trillion dollars! One can't help but wonder
> > if he took ninety days to
> > reach this conclusion.
> >
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/06/05/214397/moon-and-mars-pro\
gram