Offworld real estate (was Ethicists Tell NASA...)

On 4/12/14 4:10 PM, sailorbarsoom@... wrote:

> The reason we don't have business booming on the Moon is because getting
> stuff and people to the Moon is difficult, dangerous, and expensive.

Well, that's certainly part of it. But I don't think it's the whole
story. Half the things SpaceX has done (and more of what it's currently
working on -- like soft-landing a booster) were said to be impossible
before they did it, but they've done it anyway, mostly on the basis of
Elon Musk's fortune (earned elsewhere) and very personal desire to
develop space.

But the number of space-minded billionaire angels is low... sure they'll
get us there eventually, but we'd get there faster if there were clear
business cases to entice ordinary investment.

> We shouldn't act like it's easy-peasy and if only The Market were allowed
> to do Its thing we'd all have Lunar chateaus by now.

No, but we shouldn't assume it WON'T work, either. I say, we've tried
the communal-property approach for five decades now, and it hasn't
worked. Let's give the private-property approach a try.

Best,
- Joe