Is commercializing space a good thing or a bad thing?

[Pipcard]

Recently, Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted this:
https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/1605414920304074752

A lot of people saw the words "commercialized space" and instantly jumped to thinking of dystopian sci-fi / cyberpunk scenarios of unregulated hypercapitalism, in which corporations rule over society and greedily control oxygen supply on space stations, advertising pollutes the night sky, and the ultra-rich escape into space to leave behind the poor and downtrodden on a dying planet.

While I'm no fan of Elon Musk (especially as of late), don't support hero worship, and don't think everything in society should be privatized and deregulated, I also see that firms like SpaceX have arguably lowered the costs of spaceflight compared to their alternatives and are aiming to lower them even further. There is also the argument that competition between private space companies has more incentives to save money compared to the cost-plus government-led model. But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

[TrevorMonty]

SpaceX is just one of many players helping to low cost of access to space. Five years ago access meant building complete satellite from scratch and arrange launch, now you just buy payload space on cubesat and manufacturer will handle everything from, launch and operation for you.

This will soon be case for payloads on moon if Astrobotics and their competitors are successful.

[Jim]

Commercialized space existed long before Elon was born.  Telstar-1 was launched in 1963.  Commercial satellites were routinely launched in the 1970's.   Launch vehicles were commercialized in the 1980's.  Spacehab was developed in the 90s.  Commercial facilities started in the 80's with Astrotech. 
There are many commercial players other than SpaceX
major players are:  Boeing, LM, NG, Maxar, L3Harris, Airbus, Thales, etc

[M.E.T.]

This is probably a thread I should just give a miss. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.

[Eric Hedman]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?  Most people probably don't know or even care if commercial spaceflight is going on outside of the space enthusiast community.

As for doing this by a worker owned co-op, name one life changing invention that wasn't developed by an individual or an organization, commercial or government that wasn't driven by a person with a vision and the authority to decide how it was done.  Karl Benz and Henry Ford revolutionized transportation by having the vision and the authority to do things their way and the capitalistic structure allowed them to.  Edison, Bell, Westinghouse and Tesla the same with early high tech.  The same method has driven the companies in Silicon Valley.  Lots of the leaders of these companies have been mean nasty people you wouldn't like.  But they have all had the drive and vision that is best supported by capitalism.  That's why this model has worked over and over throughout history producing cars, planes, phones, computers, etc.  The collectivist approach comes up with practically nothing new.  If you look at major developments from government organizations like the Manhattan Project, they too have had a hard nose leader like General Groves who drove people very hard and demanded performance with the authority to carry it through to a successful conclusion.  If Space-X was run like a co-op it would flounder and quickly be gone.  You may not like Musk, but it takes people like him to get revolutionary changes like electric cars and reusable rockets to go mainstream.

Co-ops are usually leadership by committee and can work fine for farm co-ops and things that don't require a visionary to change the world.  Human nature requires a smart, hard-nosed leader to carry out these tasks or they simply won't get done.

[Pipcard]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?

For example, almost every response on Twitter to the notion of commercial spaceflight has been negative.

I don’t think it has to mean laissez-faire corporatocracy, though.

https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1605648090232459272

https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/1605442364180271104

https://twitter.com/RothsReviews/status/1605430053768204289

[whitelancer64]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?  Most people probably don't know or even care if commercial spaceflight is going on outside of the space enthusiast community.

As for doing this by a worker owned co-op, name one life changing invention that wasn't developed by an individual or an organization, commercial or government that wasn't driven by a person with a vision and the authority to decide how it was done.  Karl Benz and Henry Ford revolutionized transportation by having the vision and the authority to do things their way and the capitalistic structure allowed them to.  Edison, Bell, Westinghouse and Tesla the same with early high tech.  The same method has driven the companies in Silicon Valley.  Lots of the leaders of these companies have been mean nasty people you wouldn't like.  But they have all had the drive and vision that is best supported by capitalism.  That's why this model has worked over and over throughout history producing cars, planes, phones, computers, etc.  The collectivist approach comes up with practically nothing new.  If you look at major developments from government organizations like the Manhattan Project, they too have had a hard nose leader like General Groves who drove people very hard and demanded performance with the authority to carry it through to a successful conclusion.  If Space-X was run like a co-op it would flounder and quickly be gone.  You may not like Musk, but it takes people like him to get revolutionary changes like electric cars and reusable rockets to go mainstream.

Co-ops are usually leadership by committee and can work fine for farm co-ops and things that don't require a visionary to change the world.  Human nature requires a smart, hard-nosed leader to carry out these tasks or they simply won't get done.

You try to shoehorn the Manhattan project into your box, but it really doesn't fit.

Development of the first nuclear bomb wasn't done by a single person but was a massive interdisciplinary group effort. Were there individuals who were key in directing the effort and getting funding secured? Yes, but no one person invented the bomb.

You can say the same for the development of modern vaccines, and a wide variety of modern medicines and medical technologies. They are the product of large groups of researchers working together, often in many labs across the country or even around the world.

A few other examples:

Nylon was the product of DuPont materials research, it was not invented by just one person.

The first laser was built in the Hughes research lab, not a product of a single person's work.

[TrevorMonty]

The subject is commercializing space not just spaceflight where SpaceX has had most affect. Commercial crew spaceflight was NASA lead and funded endeavour, SpaceX just happen to be one of competitors that NASA picked.

[freddo411]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?  Most people probably don't know or even care if commercial spaceflight is going on outside of the space enthusiast community.

As for doing this by a worker owned co-op, name one life changing invention that wasn't developed by an individual or an organization, commercial or government that wasn't driven by a person with a vision and the authority to decide how it was done.   

...

You try to shoehorn the Manhattan project into your box, but it really doesn't fit.

Development of the first nuclear bomb wasn't done by a single person but was a massive interdisciplinary group effort. Were there individuals who were key in directing the effort and getting funding secured? Yes, but no one person invented the bomb.

You can say the same for the development of modern vaccines, and a wide variety of modern medicines and medical technologies. They are the product of large groups of researchers working together, often in many labs across the country or even around the world.

A few other examples:

Nylon was the product of DuPont materials research, it was not invented by just one person.

The first laser was built in the Hughes research lab, not a product of a single person's work.

Sure, people work in groups to build larger and more intricate things.   I don't think that this invalidates that point that a single individual, with a strong drive and the ability to direct the crucial decisions is a powerful driver of innovation and invention

Also, you might need to check your priors, especially on vaccines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

[freddo411]

Recently, Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted this:

A lot of people saw the words "commercialized space" and instantly jumped to thinking of dystopian sci-fi / cyberpunk scenarios of unregulated hypercapitalism, in which corporations rule over society and greedily control oxygen supply on space stations, advertising pollutes the night sky, and the ultra-rich escape into space to leave behind the poor and downtrodden on a dying planet.

 But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

SpaceX better as a co-op?  IMHO absolutely no.   

But don't take my word for it.   Go make a space co-op; maybe I'm wrong and the co-op will be better than SX.  It would be awesome if I'm wrong then we'd have SX and a super successful and creative space co-op

I'm saddened to think that many people are trained to have negative thoughts about "commercialization" and "capitalism".    Capitalism and commercial efforts have contributed enormously to creating a healthy, stable, prosperous society.   It is foolish to miss this point.

As others have pointed out, much of any space effort in the US is composed of commercially built components.   

[Pipcard]

I'm saddened to think that many people are trained to have negative thoughts about "commercialization" and "capitalism".    Capitalism and commercial efforts have contributed enormously to creating a healthy, stable, prosperous society.   It is foolish to miss this point.

As alluded to before, there is a lot of dystopian sci-fi with anti-capitalist themes. Capitalism isn’t always good, and leads to exploitation and massive disparities between rich and poor people if left unchecked. But yes, there are reasons why I’m not dogmatically anti-capitalist either.

[Robotbeat]

It’s funny that people look back at the glory days of our supposedly socialist space program past when in reality it was (VERY for-profit) defense contractors used by the government to allow a few ubermensch (“naturally,” white dudes) to do heroic flag planting operations, saluting the American Way… while the program was led by some ex Nazis.

Commercialization means it’s commercial companies, not just defense contractors, doing the work, and they have hopes of expanding access to as many people as possible, not just a few government-appointed ubermensch. This is obviously an improvement.

[whitelancer64]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?  Most people probably don't know or even care if commercial spaceflight is going on outside of the space enthusiast community.

As for doing this by a worker owned co-op, name one life changing invention that wasn't developed by an individual or an organization, commercial or government that wasn't driven by a person with a vision and the authority to decide how it was done.   

...

You try to shoehorn the Manhattan project into your box, but it really doesn't fit.

Development of the first nuclear bomb wasn't done by a single person but was a massive interdisciplinary group effort. Were there individuals who were key in directing the effort and getting funding secured? Yes, but no one person invented the bomb.

You can say the same for the development of modern vaccines, and a wide variety of modern medicines and medical technologies. They are the product of large groups of researchers working together, often in many labs across the country or even around the world.

A few other examples:

Nylon was the product of DuPont materials research, it was not invented by just one person.

The first laser was built in the Hughes research lab, not a product of a single person's work.

Sure, people work in groups to build larger and more intricate things.   I don't think that this invalidates that point that a single individual, with a strong drive and the ability to direct the crucial decisions is a powerful driver of innovation and invention

Also, you might need to check your priors, especially on vaccines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

Single individuals can still be drivers of innovation, but group efforts make innovation far more likely, since more people working on the same problem.

I specifically said MODERN vaccines.

[Jim]

It’s funny that people look back at the glory days of our supposedly socialist space program past when in reality it was (VERY for-profit) defense contractors used by the government to allow a few ubermensch (“naturally,” white dudes) to do heroic flag planting operations, saluting the American Way… while the program was led by some ex Nazis.

Going nip this one in the bud.  The Germans did not lead the Apollo or Amercian space program.  They were basically located at one NASA center and only were involved primarily 3 manned launch vehicles. 

Commercialization means it’s commercial companies, not just defense contractors, doing the work, .........

No, commercialization means any company from any sector selling their own space related products on the open market.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It has nothing to do with "hopes of expanding access to as many people as possible".

SpaceX is defense/gov't contractor.   Boeing is a commercial company as much as SpaceX is.

[edkyle99]

Commercialized space existed long before Elon was born.  Telstar-1 was launched in 1963.  Commercial satellites were routinely launched in the 1970's.   Launch vehicles were commercialized in the 1980's.  Spacehab was developed in the 90s.  Commercial facilities started in the 80's with Astrotech. 
There are many commercial players other than SpaceX
major players are:  Boeing, LM, NG, Maxar, L3Harris, Airbus, Thales, etc

And Orbital Sciences was, I believe, the first to develop its own commercial orbital launch vehicle largely from scratch, first flying Pegasus in 1990.  Other commercial launchers (Delta 2/Atlas 2/Titan 3 Commercial) were derivatives of already-existing, originally-government-developed Thor/Atlas/Titan vehicles.  SpaceX is first at many things, and highly innovative, but is far from first to "commercialize space".  Tyson surely knows this fact.

 - Ed Kyle

[Eric Hedman]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?  Most people probably don't know or even care if commercial spaceflight is going on outside of the space enthusiast community.

As for doing this by a worker owned co-op, name one life changing invention that wasn't developed by an individual or an organization, commercial or government that wasn't driven by a person with a vision and the authority to decide how it was done.  Karl Benz and Henry Ford revolutionized transportation by having the vision and the authority to do things their way and the capitalistic structure allowed them to.  Edison, Bell, Westinghouse and Tesla the same with early high tech.  The same method has driven the companies in Silicon Valley.  Lots of the leaders of these companies have been mean nasty people you wouldn't like.  But they have all had the drive and vision that is best supported by capitalism.  That's why this model has worked over and over throughout history producing cars, planes, phones, computers, etc.  The collectivist approach comes up with practically nothing new.  If you look at major developments from government organizations like the Manhattan Project, they too have had a hard nose leader like General Groves who drove people very hard and demanded performance with the authority to carry it through to a successful conclusion.  If Space-X was run like a co-op it would flounder and quickly be gone.  You may not like Musk, but it takes people like him to get revolutionary changes like electric cars and reusable rockets to go mainstream.

Co-ops are usually leadership by committee and can work fine for farm co-ops and things that don't require a visionary to change the world.  Human nature requires a smart, hard-nosed leader to carry out these tasks or they simply won't get done.

You try to shoehorn the Manhattan project into your box, but it really doesn't fit.

Development of the first nuclear bomb wasn't done by a single person but was a massive interdisciplinary group effort. Were there individuals who were key in directing the effort and getting funding secured? Yes, but no one person invented the bomb.

You can say the same for the development of modern vaccines, and a wide variety of modern medicines and medical technologies. They are the product of large groups of researchers working together, often in many labs across the country or even around the world.

A few other examples:

Nylon was the product of DuPont materials research, it was not invented by just one person.

The first laser was built in the Hughes research lab, not a product of a single person's work.

The3 Manhattan project does fit the example.  General Groves and his staff coordinated all the different groups and kept them focused.  He may not have invented the bomb, but he was the driving force with the vision on how to pull the whole program together.  He reigned in the groups when needed.  Without him or someone like him, the project would never have been done anywhere near as fast as it was.

[whitelancer64]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing. Alternatively, would SpaceX be better if it was a worker-owned co-op?

How do you know a lot of people think commercial spaceflight is an inherently a bad thing?  Most people probably don't know or even care if commercial spaceflight is going on outside of the space enthusiast community.

As for doing this by a worker owned co-op, name one life changing invention that wasn't developed by an individual or an organization, commercial or government that wasn't driven by a person with a vision and the authority to decide how it was done.  Karl Benz and Henry Ford revolutionized transportation by having the vision and the authority to do things their way and the capitalistic structure allowed them to.  Edison, Bell, Westinghouse and Tesla the same with early high tech.  The same method has driven the companies in Silicon Valley.  Lots of the leaders of these companies have been mean nasty people you wouldn't like.  But they have all had the drive and vision that is best supported by capitalism.  That's why this model has worked over and over throughout history producing cars, planes, phones, computers, etc.  The collectivist approach comes up with practically nothing new.  If you look at major developments from government organizations like the Manhattan Project, they too have had a hard nose leader like General Groves who drove people very hard and demanded performance with the authority to carry it through to a successful conclusion.  If Space-X was run like a co-op it would flounder and quickly be gone.  You may not like Musk, but it takes people like him to get revolutionary changes like electric cars and reusable rockets to go mainstream.

Co-ops are usually leadership by committee and can work fine for farm co-ops and things that don't require a visionary to change the world.  Human nature requires a smart, hard-nosed leader to carry out these tasks or they simply won't get done.

You try to shoehorn the Manhattan project into your box, but it really doesn't fit.

Development of the first nuclear bomb wasn't done by a single person but was a massive interdisciplinary group effort. Were there individuals who were key in directing the effort and getting funding secured? Yes, but no one person invented the bomb.

You can say the same for the development of modern vaccines, and a wide variety of modern medicines and medical technologies. They are the product of large groups of researchers working together, often in many labs across the country or even around the world.

A few other examples:

Nylon was the product of DuPont materials research, it was not invented by just one person.

The first laser was built in the Hughes research lab, not a product of a single person's work.

The3 Manhattan project does fit the example.  General Groves and his staff coordinated all the different groups and kept them focused.  He may not have invented the bomb, but he was the driving force with the vision on how to pull the whole program together.  He reigned in the groups when needed.  Without him or someone like him, the project would never have been done anywhere near as fast as it was.

Yeah, that's what project managers do. Any big project has to have at least one person like that. If it wasn't Groves, it could easily have been someone else.

So the point stands.

[su27k]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing.

These people are idiots, they should be sent back to China/Soviet Union before the reforms and get a taste of the world without commercialization, then they'll know why their beliefs are freaking insane. The fact that this even needs to be discussed is a sign of significant failure of education in the society, and ties into what Elon has been complaining about recently and why he seems to be less focused on Mars nowadays. How can one even hope to build a Mars colony in a world where people want to kill commercial spaceflight?

[Pipcard]

But a lot of people still think commercial spaceflight is inherently a bad thing.

These people are idiots, they should be sent back to China/Soviet Union before the reforms and get a taste of the world without commercialization, then they'll know why their beliefs are freaking insane. The fact that this even needs to be discussed is a sign of significant failure of education in the society, and ties into what Elon has been complaining about recently and why he seems to be less focused on Mars nowadays. How can one even hope to build a Mars colony in a world where people want to kill commercial spaceflight?

Some of them even advocate for something called "degrowth," which is a deliberate shrinking of the economy (because they think economic growth is inherently bad for the environment, ending it is the only way to stop climate change, and Earth is the only place where humans can ever live on). There are ways to decarbonize without sacrificing prosperity, such as nuclear power, and in the longer term, moving people and industry off Earth.

[M.E.T.]

So difficult to not dip my toe into this cesspool of a debate. The intention is always a brief, pointed contribution, but no doubt it will be like crossing the event horizon, leaving one no choice but to be sucked in completely thereafter🤷‍♂️

Anyway, the critics of techno-optimism and its inextricable link to capitalism will never be convinced. So best to just ignore them while the SpaceX juggernaut steamrolls them into oblivion.

The quadrillions of future humans who will be born and populate the galaxy over the next 10 billion years, because Elon Musk pushed us to make the leap to multi planetary existence before we lost the ability to do so, will have him to thank for their very existence.

Twitter debates from a brief period at the turn of the 21st century will be long forgotten and utterly irrelevant to the 99.9999% of humanity who will live between now and then.

Edit

And at risk of stating the obvious, the commercialisation of space is of course a necessary prerequisite for the above.