Have you heard of Christian Apologetics? It is the branch of theology which specializes in the philosophical and scriptural arguments which support a particular religious belief. This is what these scholars call themselves, it is not a term of opprobium or a sarcastic reference to their faith. Look it up. An apologist for any belief is one who supports it and tries to marshal argument and logic in order to justify its program.

I am not opposed to capitalism, in fact, I support it because it takes advantage of every human being's desire to improve himself and to take risks, and because it rewards individual initiative. I also support it because capitalist economies are self-regulating in a way that no command economy can be. However, I am not an apologist for capitalism, in fact, I am a critic of it. If you look up "critic" you will also see that it doesn't necessarily mean someone who is totally opposed to something, just as a movie critic can like a film, or even be critical of parts of it and still recommend it.

I am a critic of capitalism because even though I support it in principle, I also believe that it is inherently unstable and prone to monopoly, and because it tends to extend control over governments to provide itself protection from the competition (free market) which is the only thing that prevents capitalism from becoming a monopoly. I believe that capitalism can only work if it is monitored and regulated by government, a free government that is not beholding to special interests and which is itself answerable to the electorate without lobbies or campaign contributions to sway elections.

I recognize that government control can also go too far, and it is a difficult tightrope to walk between too much regulation and not enough.
I think America has done a pretty good job walking this tightrope so far,
but sometimes I see it straying too far to the right, and I speak up. There are others who feel it may go too far the other way, and they usually are pretty vocal about it too. As long as both sides can speak up and argue without either being accused of being communists or fascists we have a pretty good chance of staying on that tightrope without falling off.

As far as space exploration is concerned, I am very much in favor of it, and I think at least 10% of the national budget should be devoted to it. I encourage private enterprise to get involved because they have demonstrated the ability to get results. But I also recognize that unless some way of generating a profit from space can be demonstrated, private enterprise is not going to be very interested. I know if I had capital to invest I wouldn't put it into space right now. However, capitalists are in the business of making money, not developing space, and if they can find a way to get government to pay for enormous space development projects which provide little or no benefit they will gladly suck up the contracts. This is the point I have been trying to make.

In my opinion, there is only one space technology right now capable of turning a profit, and that is communications satellites. Private enterprise is heavily committed to it. In the future, when other uses for space materialize, the capital will follow, but only when profitability goes up and the risks go down. Until then, I say let the government take the lead with science missions.