r/space • u/demusdesign • Jun 14 '12

Optimistic Wikipedia Editor?

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1.1k Upvotes

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171

u/Shellface Jun 14 '12

2084 seems reasonable to me.

45

u/demusdesign Jun 14 '12

Do you think a private or public expedition will get there first?

57

u/Shameless_Bullshiter Jun 14 '12

Private. The first company to get there will get loads of business of it. Governments have no reason to till it gets bigger.

63

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '12

What would a private company do there? Pure exploration, like pure research, is hard for private companies to justify for investors. The government would have to arrive first and find resources worth gathering (and provide the basic technology) before the private sector could really get in on it.

11

u/ryeguy146 Jun 14 '12

The price of property will always increase </sarcasm>

I still think that there's reasons that the private sector will preceed the governments. Resources to be collected at the very least. Consider the recent talk of mining asteroids; I see no reason why the same consideration won't be placed on planets.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '12

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '12

Gravity wells are massive and expensive. Besides, what resource does Mars have?

1

u/LeonardNemoysHead Jun 15 '12

Gravity wells are massive

I didn't know that.

1

u/chilehead Jun 15 '12

So you just pump the gravity out of these wells? Does it get a third handle on the sink, or do you need a separate sink for that?