The bottom line is that someone needs to come with a business model that shows how to makes real profits from launching big stuff (not satellites) into space.

"Space is the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement..."
Californiacation, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Those startups already exist.

SpaceX (commercial lift, orbital to LEO/GEO)
XCOR (suborbital tourism)
Virgin Galactic (suborbital tourism)
Blue Horizon (VTVL suborbital tourism)
Armadillo Aerospace (VTVL orbital/suborbital tourism, lunar modules, Airforce contracts)
Bigelow Aeropspace (private space stations)
Stone Aerospace (lunar/orbital exploration gear)
??? (forget the name, but private space suits)
Rocketplane
Kisler
etc.
etc.

Be sure to Google the Space Access '08 Conference which was just held in March. Lots of good summaries of the current market conditions.

If those NASA engineers want jobs in the private sector, I wish them luck in unlearning a whole slew of bad habits I'm sure they've picked up working for a sluggish government bureaucracy. The private space companies move lean and fast.

@deckard97: What's wrong with launching satellites? They're a huge business, and lowering the cost to space will only increase the size of the comsat market.

Beyond tourism there are also big (potential) markets in energy and materials. Solar satellites could put an end to fossil fuels, and a single asteroid could supply Earth with stupid amounts of rare and valuable minerals. Plus there's just the science value of being in space, on the moon, etc.

I think just being in space will hold people over for a bit on the commercial side, but the real deal will either be point a to b travel through space at ridiculous speeds for short travel trips, or it will kick off once there is actually a space destination.

Also I want a space elevator, I think that alone could revitalize space travel and interest, because then we could focus on being in space, instead of just getting there.

Basically, build something big and effin awesome in space, and they will come.

I don't think the money will be all that hard to find. There are always eccentric people with too much money (and full of nerdly goodness) willing to invest in space and its associated travels.

@Brock: "Solar satellites could put an end to fossil fuels"

how, exactly, would you envision this energy getting back to the surface?

I think very long wires are the best choice.

@tetracycloide: phased array microwave transmission. A low power beam spread out over a wide enough area would be harmless to humans and animals but easily picked up by an antenna farm. Safe, efficient, no moving parts.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Man, I've noticed that for a sci-fi site the writers and commenters here doesn't actually seem to be knowledgeable on the "sci" half of things. Or willing to spend half a minute Googling it.

What the hell is wrong with this commenting system? I think I just lost a comment to its voracious hunger.

@tetracycloide: [en.wikipedia.org]

@tetracycloide: You can beam it down via microwaves.

And I doubt that anyone who has read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy will back a space elevator. Mass drivers (rail guns) are a safer choice.

When are we gonna actually go into space instead of just playing on the front steps.

@Garrison Dean:

Possibly never. Everybody but us geeks seem to think it's boring.

@deckard97:

"space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement"

-Kle.

@Brock: yeah, i'm familiar with the concept of microwave transmission and also readily aware of the fact that in order to be efficent it would require a structure to be built in space that is larger than most structures on earth.

@Klebert L. Hall: Actually, I think it seems mostly pretty boring, too.

Once they discover hot, green-skinned alien chicks, though--garaunteed we'll be in space in no time.

Ugh, people quoting Red Hot Chili Peppers? You should all be ashamed!

Sucks that the space shuttles are being retired, I thought that we were going to get a new shuttle ... something like this:

[www.popularmechanics.com]

@braak: and is making it with a hot alien babe not what man dreamt of when first he looked up at the stars?

@tetracycloide: It's what early man dreamed of when he looked at pretty much anything.

@braak: Strike the word "early" and change all verbs to present tense.

Fixed that for ya.

@Sihanouk-s-Poodle: Kim's space elevator was a lot more massive than it needs to be. A thin ribbon of CNT's only weighing a few oz. per mile would be sufficient. If it ever broke it would burn up in the atmosphere.

@tetracycloide: Then why did you ask the question?

@Brock: Well, I think he was suggesting that building a structure in space that was larger than most structures on Earth is pretty unfeasible, which would put a kink in the whole "Solar Satellite" plan. Maybe he thought you knew some secret, possible way of transmitting power.

Its more likely that those engineers get jobs at earthbound aerospace companies than wind up working for these vastly unprofitable commercial space startups. Even the ones with tons of venture capital will run out after a while, wind up displeasing their shareholders or stakeholders with a lack of results, and turn out as footnotes in aerospace history.

Let's not blame the engineers, here. The government can't manage to properly fund space science because political whim vacillates too quickly in Washington, and these private startups have a long way to go before they make enough money to make space travel worth their while (and trust me, they're not interested in space science or exploration either, and I guess they shouldn't be- they are businesses after all).

Until someone finds a way to make it much more affordable per pound to launch into orbit, we won't see much progress in the private sector beyond well-financed and wealthy dreamers launching balloons they try to call hotels. (And that's not to diminish space tourism as cool, I'd just love to see one business plan for space tourism that implies profitability sometime this century.)

I'm putting my hopes in the people at APL and JPL to get the cost down from its year 2000 $10,000/pound (including the Space Shuttle program) or $5000/pound (not including the Shuttle program) to NASA's $1000/pound goal.

The cost of throw weight hasn't come down in decades. That's what's holding up our colonization of space - it's still too expensive to achieve escape velocity and get stuff in orbit. There are some intriguing prospects on the horizon that might change that, at long last, but it's too soon to tell whether or not they'll work.

That said, commercialization is the way to go. NASA focused on certain technological paths because they were known to be fairly reliable, but that's not a good way to innovate. Get the private sector going, and you'll see lots of options. Some will fail spectacularly, but if one long shot pays off? It will so be worth it.

@braak: Maybe that wasn't his frakking question. RTFT.

As for cost to orbit, a lot of people are working on that. SpaceX wants to cut the cost by a factor of 10x. Longer term, but still using rockets, Blue Horizon and Armadillo want to cut it even further. A working space elevator or new rocket design (like a SeaDragon or Nuclear Lightbulb) could cut it even further.

@Brock: because the original statement had the coliary of replacing fossil fuels and, given the size of the space station that would be required to use microwave transmission efficently, replacing fossil fuels would not be possible without some other method of transmission.

@tetracycloide: @braak: Huh. Are they trying to imply that snark isn't the way to be productive about... well... anything?

Ah well, we'll just have to be snarkily intelligent. Oh wait, we are. Well at least tetracycloide is. Me, I'm just a sonuvabitch.

$500 round trip to the moon and mars please. *whispers*