Re: Final shuttle goes up - US manned missions to space over for a whi
The problem with Space is that there's nothing profitable out there yet, beyond sticking objects (not people) into various Earth orbits. That's not to say it can't be insanely profitable in the future, but it's not looking likely in the medium-term.
I don't think so.. there's tons of stuff being researched only in space where no gravity or microgravity is very important to the result and in long term leads to new products here on earth.. one of the best known examples is Teflon which originated in the space program. It is very vital to our scientific progress and thankfully there's still the ISS even if the (outdated and failing) shuttles are being decommissioned.
Actually, the idea that Teflon was created because of the space programme is a complete urban myth.
Teflon was invented
decades before the space programme, quite accidentally, as part of experiments into CFC refridgerants (you know, those nasty ozone-busting chemicals). However, it was later used widely within the space programme, that is true, and the glamour of close association with that programme was indeed used in advertising to sell products with Teflon. That so many people believe Teflon was created by the space programme is a credit to DuPont's PR department.
But leaving that correction aside, I would of course agree that technological advances involved in developing space travel can then be profitable, just as the technological advances of, say, Formula 1 racing, eventually filter down to production saloons. But these are incidental by-products, not reasons for any investor to put money into developing space travel itself.
[A major disaster] has never brought transportation to a standstill and it never will.
Quite true. However, that is primarily because people still needed to get to the destination, for economic reasons, so the risk was worth it. This doesn't apply to space travel, in its current model.
Suborbital tourism is unlikely to result in, say, orbital hotels, thus creating a
destination worth visiting and worth investing in.
In time, I do think the economics will change, but for now (and IMO for at least 25+ years), I can't really see there being a major difference. You need to either find a useful extraterrestial mineral that cannot be obtained on Earth more cheaply, or find aliens to trade with, or require terraforming/colonisation of an off-planet home to replace a degraded Earth, or have an active security risk requiring occupation of space.
The last of these is probably the most likely within the medium term, but even that I feel is a fairly remote possibility.
