NewSpace is a remarkably vague idea. Much of the usual corporate rhetoric is used. “Innovation” is in the same breath as “cost reductions”, etc. Not one single word about the future of humanity seems to be around.
To be fair, the hick-like, bean counting, obsessive, and polarized politics of the last few decades in governments is no great asset to humanity, either. The total lack of direction, focus and even basic comprehension of space is all too obvious. The United States has been dithering at policy level for decades. China is catching up, fast, and may well overtake the US in longer-range missions and ventures.
Also to be fair, some of the corporate initiatives come from very competent people. Jeff Bezos, for example, is hardly anyone’s idea of a hobbyist in business terms. The question is whether the rest of the rotting dunghill of corporate culture can be trusted with anything at all. Most people would be more than skeptical.
Some ACTUAL issues
The current pathetic 5-10% payloads and antiquated rocket technologies are barely adequate to deliver effective space travel on any scale. Profitable space exploration would require far better logistics, and much more reliable technologies to manage microgravity, radiation, etc.
America is the forum for meaningful discussion of space exploration. Very little has been said about the real problems with creating effective space travel, decent speeds, artificial gravity, and shielding, however. This may well be because talented people are tired of talking to people with minds like fence posts, but the almost total stagnation of these issues is critical. Either these problems are solved, or space exploration just won’t happen. It’s that simple.
Corporate ventures tend to like “great numbers” and mass produce them for that second of sycophantic approval. (Arguably, most of the mindless and seemingly endless increases in the costs of living are simply to deliver those great numbers.) In space, big numbers are a real issue. Just getting off the ground is hard enough. Sustaining support for even one mission, let alone millions, is also problematic.
Training for all involved, with or without robots, is also expensive. Someone may come to regret those insane college prices when they can’t get the skills they need. (Why are colleges and education policies creating an obstacle course for so many critical skills? It’s utterly insane unless someone’s thinking of moving back to the trees.)
Critically, how does a culture which rarely considers any kind of core issues other than something with a dollar sign attached run space exploration? If it were being done now, the short answer would be “badly or worse”. People who can’t be bothered complying with basic health safety regulations can hardly be expected to care about CAD specs, monitor quality, radiation, etc.
The corporate sector is rarely inclined to go along with any sort of requirement to do things right, even if it’s life or death. Space travel is all about getting things right, and if you don’t, you’re likely to be quite convincingly dead.
Another issue is law. Should corporate business be let out into space where there are no laws at all? Not a very nice question, is it? The answer may be much worse.
A trustworthy vision is required
My view is that corporate culture isn’t “grown up” enough to understand the basics. Space exploration is ultimately far more important than tedious rhetoric and grubby little self-important corporate shills.
There IS such a thing as a vision for the future in space. It’s not too well developed. Each new bit of tech and information evolves it, but it’s barely at egg and sperm stage now. The future vision is/was something like Star Trek, a society with no material needs. At least, something less groan-worthy than a sort of collective money psychosis and rampant, millennia-old social inefficiencies.
Can a corporate culture deliver anything of the sort? In the Boomer years, it looked like it did. There was genuine prosperity. As usual, the response was to “disrupt” that prosperity. It’s no accident that every single common sense approach to living on Earth is now almost impossible, thanks to that culture.
Now, with every boardroom a sort of wannabe crime scene, it’s hard to believe there’s a vision beyond the spreadsheets. The sheer hatred of the corporate mindset for humanity, particularly the poor and the sick, spews out every day. The world is now a sewer because of this culture.
Should this obscenity be allowed to go into space? NO. Either it grows up and acts responsibly, for the first time in its sleazy history, or it has to be under strict controls.
The Chinese could easily win this race. It will be because America simply refuses to recognize its massive devolution into a bitching session for the benefit of plutobrats. Space exploration isn’t for the timid, let alone drab little cosseted micro-brained peasants in suits. Get real, or get beaten.
