Wither NASA?

I saw this recently: http://space.moonagewebdream.com/2010/02/01/obama-kills-nasa/comment-page-1/#comment-1729

Obama Kills NASA

Read the article first, and then read my response. I'll tell you right now that I agree with the article:

Rely on the private sector for space exploration? Are you kidding? The private sector does things for one reason only – profit. If it makes a profit, it will get done, even without NASA. The private sector doesn’t need one penny from NASA, if there is a profit to be made.

Do you know how you are reading this? The Internet, that’s right. You know who invented it? DARPA, via what was called ARPA-net. That’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. An agency of the US Federal Government, just like NASA is. There was no profit forseen, so it was left to a governmental agency to invent it. For fundamental research, for basic infrastructure that does not give an immediate profit, like moon shots and space stations and space telescopes, you need to rely on a large-scale agency. It needs to have congressional overview, which NASA does, but it’s got to be a governmental agency.

Telecom? Well, it was obvious that there was a lot of money to be made in telegraphs, telephones, and the like.

But the mail? Was there profit to be made for first-class mail? Not so sure. So, the government did it. But what about parcel post, or overnight? Ah, there *was* profit to be made, so we had UPS, Fedex, DHL, and the like.

I can go on and on with just about anything. If there is profit to be made, no one needs the government's money, they just need the government to get out of the way.

If there is no profit to be made, and the "thing" needs to get done, then the government needs to do it. Want more examples? Police, Fire, Army, roads (but not all!), regulation of certain things (medicines), etc.

Want hazy examples that both the governmet and private industry can do? Education is an excellent example. Think public elementary schools, but private Universities, and adult education. I've mentioned toll roads - in Israel we have Highway 6, which is run privately as a toll road. Health care - the US does this privately for the most part, but Europe has the government involved. Done right, there is profit, but this is a kind of overlap issue (I'll be spouting about my opinions on health care in a different blog). Besides, it's not really the point of health care.

In short, there are some things that private industry should do, and some that it should not.

Space exploration should be left, at least for now, in the bailiwick of government.