Scientists to Hold Bake Sale for NASA Saturday

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. Then why hasn't the private sector done it already?

Because there's no immediate profit to be made. There are some things private enterprise isn't equipped to do, such as taking on enormous long-term risk where the returns may or may not come for quite some time. What shareholders are going to fund that? There are very few like billionaire Elon Musk who risked hundreds of millions of his own money to build a space rocket. Most investors are more like Romney and prefer to risk someone else's money. Private enterprise is ready to collect taxpayer money by landing government contracts but they're not willing to go it completely alone, with no certainly of payoff. I'm all for private enterprise getting involved but the government has to prime the pump and establish an infrastructure in outer space by the mass shared effort of the taxpayers. It's the same as when European governments, the monarchies funded the first efforts to colonize the new world in the 1500s - 1600s.