Can NASA develop a space economy that leaves capitalism’s problems behind?

[Elderberry]

Quartz by Tim Fernholz December 16, 2019

As the private sector sets its sights on doing business in orbit, space exploration is becoming space exploitation—how can humans use the environment around their planet to further their own prosperity?

With private spacecraft looking to ferry wealthy tourists to the International Space Station, and companies doing everything from aging wine to fabricating advanced fiberoptic cables there, there are concerns that the public will lose out as private companies take on a bigger role.

The good news is that we aren’t close to a world like the one depicted in the movie Elysium, where the ultra-wealthy repair to space and leave the rest of us behind. Our public and private interests will be far more intertwined, in part because governments have designed it that way. Most of the major space agencies are compelled by law in their home countries to support private economic activity, which means for example that NASA, by law, views the success of US companies in space as part of its mission, and not a distraction or a threat.

The reality is that public space agencies, particularly NASA in the United States, remain the largest spenders in space and control the conditions for private organizations acting in orbit. Their challenge—and opportunity—is to manage the transition to a new, multi-stakeholder world in orbit by successfully subsidizing new initiatives without letting the benefits escape the public at large.

More: https://qz.com/work/1767415/can-nasa-build-a-space-economy-that-leaves-capitalisms-problems-behind/

[bigheadfred]

The people who figure out how to do the cleanup work will make bank.


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[Fishrrman]

"Can NASA develop a space economy that leaves capitalism’s problems behind?"

The premise is pro-socialistic nonsense.
"Capitalism" will prevail in space, as it has here, not because of attempts to promote any particular ideology but because of "the invisible hand". Human nature doesn't change when gravity fades.

Socialism will fail "in space" for the same reason it fails right down here on Earth.

[roamer_1]

"Can NASA develop a space economy that leaves capitalism’s problems behind?"

The premise is pro-socialistic nonsense.
"Capitalism" will prevail in space, as it has here, not because of attempts to promote any particular ideology but because of "the invisible hand". Human nature doesn't change when gravity fades.

Socialism will fail "in space" for the same reason it fails right down here on Earth.

I caught that too... Capitalism is business in it's purest form - Voluntary transactions between parties... Anything added to that is necessarily coercion, and by definition, not capitalism any longer. It can literally have no problem if left alone.

[GtHawk]

Yes of course, they will zoom among the galaxies in 'starships' of the Enterprise class fleets of the UFP, and it will be a cashless society. And that is about as realistic a scenario as a space economy that leaves capitalism's problems behind.