OT: Governmental Space Agencies or Private

[dogscoff]

The money for space exploitation in today's global economic climate can only ever really come from the private sector. Governments- even rich ones- are only prepared to put a very small amount of their cash in to such projects.

However, they MUST be tightly regulated in terms of safety, and in such a way that they can't just avoid the regs by moving their launches to some other part of the world. It's all very well cutting a few corners to return an extra few $$$$ to the shareholders, but something falling out of orbit can do a LOT of damage.

'Pollution' in space must also be looked at very carefully. Sure, space is ridiculously big, but Earth orbit isn't, and the planet's resources are also finite. We need to get off on the right foot and get ppl in the right habits from the start.

As for putting advertising on the moon- it would be the biggest PR botch any company could ever make.