Submitted by Master-Strawberry-26 t3_zz8cc6 in space
cartoonist498 t1_j2ee0uf wrote
Reply to comment by SenateLaunchScrubbed in SpaceX caps 2022 with record-setting 61st Falcon 9 launch by Master-Strawberry-26
> stalled progress for decades.
You're just making this up. It's pretty much the consensus that World War 2 advanced human technology by leaps and bounds in a way that wouldn't have happened without it.
Unless you're arguing that the private sector would have increased advancement by the same amount, or even anywhere close to the same amount, the rest of what you're saying is built on a house of cards and what seems like a hatred of government funding that's unfair to bring up because it's not based on logic.
Space travel being difficult is the reason it took so long, not government bureaucracy. I'm not seeing your POV which is basically saying humans would already be on Mars if it wasn't for the government. In no reality would that have happened.
The same example you provided, SpaceX, disproves your point that an impenetrable oligopoly is always the end result because a brand new company has entered to challenge the big players in the space launch industry and successfully disrupted the market, and probably will become a leader in the industry by later this decade.
And all this progress built on the back of 70 years of government funding long before any private investor would touch it.
SenateLaunchScrubbed t1_j2eeji9 wrote
But that isn't a fair assessment. The world was in chaos during the entirety of WWI, and then afterwards with the great depression, and afterwards because of WWII. So it was a messy time, bad for business. Governments destroyed the world, and your argument is "but private industry wasn't doing so well back then".
cartoonist498 t1_j2efp6z wrote
That's why I said it's uncertain at best, at which point you replied that you're certain. Obviously we can't look into alternate realities so I don't know why you'd reply that you'd be certain.
I gave specific examples, fusion power and space travel, where government bootstrapped the research and development 50 years before any private investor would touch it. At any point during the last half century a private investor could have taken the reigns but that never happened.
"Governments destroyed the world"? It really feels like I'm getting into a political argument here with no clue what your politics are. Government and private industry aren't blood enemies in some epic battle of good vs evil, most of the time they work hand-in-hand to build a functioning society with pros and cons of each. The pros of government funding is that they'll fund advanced technology long before any private investor would.
SenateLaunchScrubbed t1_j2egaps wrote
>That's why I said it's uncertain at best, at which point you replied that you're certain. Obviously we can't look into alternate realities so I don't know why you'd reply that you'd be certain.
Because we have history. We've seen what happened previously to other developments the government didn't mess with, and the private market doesn't drop things like the government does. It doesn't find something new and then puts it on the backburner for years. The government does. All the WWII up to Apollo progress was then made up by decades of stagnation.
>I gave specific examples, fusion power
That has gone nowhere and will most likely never go anywhere.
>and space travel
Which was in the hands of private individuals before, until the government took over, and then they took care that nothing happened in it for decades, and only now we're rescuing it from the government's incompetent hands.
>"Governments destroyed the world"? It really feels like I'm getting into a political argument here with no clue what your politics are. Government and private industry aren't blood enemies in some epic battle of good vs evil, most of the time they work hand-in-hand to build a functioning society with pros and cons of each. The pros of government funding is that they'll fund advanced technology long before any private investor would.
The government is everyone's enemy. There are no pros to government funding other than cronyism and corruption.
cartoonist498 t1_j2ekjaq wrote
> decades of stagnation.
So do the moon landings themselves don't count as significant government progress?
Even after that, you'd really consider the launch of countless satellites into low earth orbit which revolutionized earthbound technology including communication and GPS for everyone on the planet, an international space station, countless probes to the furthest reaches of our solar system and probes entering interstellar space, and space telescopes that have revolutionized our understanding of the universe "stagnation"?
You're seriously in a space enthusiasts sub saying that there has been no significant progress in space technology for the last 50 years?
Have a good day.
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