And I've probably been all over the spectrum about how I feel about it. I don't think we are going, because as you point out, there is no profit in it. There is nothing in space that we can invest in that will attract investors. Even our vaunted private enterprise space industry is primarily expecting to sell its services to government contractees.

This doesn't mean space can't create value and wealth, it already has. Communication satellites alone have transformed the world, have opened up thousands of new industries. They alone have probably payed for all our investments in space a thousand times over. When you add the benefit we get from earth observation and resources satellites, and the commercial advantages given to us by navigation satellites, there is no doubt space has turned a profit.

But these developments were piggy backed onto missions planned and executed for other reasons, primarily national prestige and defense. Phauxtrot is right. These are all spinoffs. But no one, myself included, is going to put his cash into a scientific satellite, deep space probe or expensive manned mission because someday some other mission like it might stumble onto something of immense commercial value.

Only governments do this, the day when a wealthy financier could bankroll a major observatory are over. I doubt anyone in the world today has the money to build a Hubble, and no company will ever get it past its board of directors.

Yes, yes, I know, basic research is where the big breakthroughs come, the world-changing products and technologies. But I don't see modern companies investing in the multi-billion dollar projects that will undoubtedly pay off down the line unless they have some reasonable expectation of making a profit. Basic research is undertaken without any idea of what it is you're looking for. And the chances that we'll accidentally stumble on new fundamental tech while trying to solve some routine problem in astronautics are not too likely.(Remember Tang? Ball bearing factories in LEO?, Growing crystals in zero-g?). We need government to send out the Pioneers and Mariners and Curiosities. Sooner or later they will find some earth-shaking stuff, but we have no way of predicting what it might be, or when, and no commercial enterprise can really afford that kind of speculation unless they have a reasonable chance of turning up something big, and soon.

Scientists first started following up on the laboratory curiosity that was radioactivity when astronomers realized that some entirely new source of energy had to be fueling the sun. The biologists and geologists were telling us the world (and hence, the sun) were millions of years old, but the sun would have burned itself out in a few thousand years if it had to depend on chemical energy.

It was astrophysical research carried out at philanthropist-financed observatories that showed that "energy can simply pour like steam out of matter heated to millions of degrees". In a way, private funding in astronomy did lead the way to the mapping of the atomic nucleus, but no one could possibly have predicted that, or the circuitous route it took to get there. Unfortunately, that's the way basic research works. You have no idea what you are going to find, and you have no way of knowing if it will be worth anything.

People settled the New World in search of gold and spices. What they really found was tobacco, sugar, furs and coffee. No one could have predicted that, and Columbus's backers never saw a penny's return on their investment. It didn't do them any good that someone else managed to cash in big time down the line.

THe only way we will go to space is if governments do it, justifying it as defense, science, national pride or some other excuse. The benefits will come, they are inevitable, but they are unpredictable. When they come, private industry will get the financing it needs and will do the job. Our best strategy is to continue as we are now, with governments pioneering new technologies, exploring new worlds, and learning more about nature in the process. History has shown that will sooner or later turn up something worth going after.

It may not require new physics. I've always fantasized a modest robot probe will find life somewhere in the solar system, the origin of an entire new bichemistry and a chemical industry based on it. Or maybe a new astronomy satellite will teach us enough about black holes that we can actually develop a new physics based on it. Or an orbiting radio observatory will make a SETI breakthrough. There is no
commodity in space worth going after. But there is knowledge there we can't find here. That's what will make it worth our while.

It's very expensive to go into space. But if what we seek is knowledge, it can be radioed back to earth practically for free.