Your're definitely right about one thing, I was way unrealistic about my 10% figure.

I guess you support a totally laissez-faire economic policy, something like we had until about the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. Well, I disagree. I hear it was a pretty ugly time to be alive, especially if you worked for a living. The twentieth century benefited greatly from anti-trust legislation introduced by T. Roosevelt, a Republican, by the way.

As for our differences about government regulation, all I know is that when you discuss these issues the conservative position always seems to be "Let us do anything we want and everything will be OK. Just trust us." Please don't take this personally, but I don't.

If your theories are correct, then capital should be becoming available to put these off-world enterprises into effect. That is the only proof that counts in business. That, and the profit the capital is chasing. Time will settle that argument for us.

I am not an enemy of space exploration, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid growing up in the '50s, but except for a few very expensive and disappointing missions, very few people have actually gone into space during my lifetime. I had hoped there would be a permanent lunar colony and frequent missions to Mars by now, and that the exploration of the asteroid belt and the outer planets would be getting started. I don't think this hasn't happened because of interference by the federal government. I just think that except for ComSats, there just isn't anything out there worth going after, right now. I'm sure someday, there will be. I hope I'm still alive to see it.