>That Arianespace, a French rival of SpaceX, announced on the same day that two satellites it had tried to launch to join the European Space Agency’s Galileo constellation (intended to rival America’s Global Positioning System), had entered a “non-nominal injection orbit”—in other words, gone wrong—shows just how difficult the commercialisation of space can be.
>If spacecraft are so precarious, then perhaps investors should lower their sights. But not in terms of innovation; rather in altitude.
As if constraining ourselves to low-earth orbit were too ambitious. It is absolutely disgusting to suggest that, after we gutted NASA in order to make opportunities for private enterprise, we should just stop sending stuff to space altogether. We need to face it: we're never going to become a interplanetary, space-faring civilization under this current economic system.