Re:SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit
by nine_k on Saturday May 30, 2020 @09:31PM
(#23366440)
Crew Dragon is commercial in the sense that NASA wants to pay for it, and shopped around for a better vehicle than Soyuz.
But frankly, there is basically nothing that humans could do in space in a money-making way. Machines are just so much easier. They can fly for years via cheap orbits, don't mind the cold and the vacuum, etc.
The whole idea of colonizing Mars is not about commercial viability, it's about reaching a new land outside of control of Earth's governments. Very much the same as founding Massachusetts or Pennsylvania was not a commercial enterprise, but was an attempt to gain more freedom, even in utterly alien and inhospitable places.
But frankly, there is basically nothing that humans could do in space in a money-making way. Machines are just so much easier. They can fly for years via cheap orbits, don't mind the cold and the vacuum, etc.
The whole idea of colonizing Mars is not about commercial viability, it's about reaching a new land outside of control of Earth's governments. Very much the same as founding Massachusetts or Pennsylvania was not a commercial enterprise, but was an attempt to gain more freedom, even in utterly alien and inhospitable places.