Hacker News Reader

Comment by stickfigure | Hacker News Reader

No private institution has achieved manned orbit.

That's because manned orbit is motivated by prestige, not rational economic behavior.

Not really, there are commercial agreements in place between both SpaceX and Boeing, and Nasa, as part of its Commercial Crew Programme. The current estimates are that they will not launch until 2018, three years behind the original schedule:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/09/01/nasa-oig-report-delay...

I also have customers who have been sold slots for their satellites on Falcon Heavy which is now 4 years behind schedule (the first demo flight was originally meant to be 2012, with the first commercial flight in 2013, as yet nothing has flown, with the current estimate being 2017). It's frustrating for these customers.

I point this out here just because HN can have too many credulous website designers saying [to the effect of] 'No but Elon will be on Mars in 10 years so we should just fund private companies' and the reality for everyone in the industry is somewhat different. The Indian Government is currently about the cheapest and most reliable commercial satellite launcher in the world with its PSLV vehicle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle

Countering "there's no economic reason to put humans into orbit" with "but look at these commercial programs 100% paid by the government" isn't really a rebuke, you're just making the OPs point for them.

It's only commercial in the sense that say there's say commercial manufacturing of ballistic missile submarines. It's just an implementation detail of how the US (v.s. say China) does manufacturing for purely state-sponsored projects, not something indicating that there's an economic incentive to put people into orbit outside of government sponsored programs.

They (SpaceX at least) are not 100% funded by the government.

And to the extent that SpaceX isn't funded by the government they have no plans to put people into orbit as a goal in itself, only as a staging area for launching to Mars.

So how is any of this a counterargument to stickfigure's "manned orbit is motivated by prestige, not rational economic behavior"?

SpaceX has said that they expect a space tourism market to develop. That sounds like rational economic behavior, even if the tourists are doing it for the prestige.

That wasn't the argument.

Whilst it's frustrating for the customers whose launches are delayed, I'm sure they're accepting the delay for rational economic reasons, otherwise they would switch to an alternative supplier.

Well the reason could be that they haven't gotten their money back.

Research (especially pure research) and innovation are many times initially incompatible with rational economic behaviour.

That's one way to look at it. The other is that a commercial enterprise will not do something in the name of science if it does not make a buck.

Can't perceptions of prestige help actors make market choices?

Research is irrational?

If personal, economical gain is your goal, yes.

R&D is a rational choice for many companies, and their motivation is generally economic rather than altruistic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com