There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding between space "exploration" and space "business". I'd like to give my two cents on the matter. Space "exploration" isn't about finding "aliens". Never has been. Space exploration is about expanding scientific knowledge of the universe and looking for new resources for future use. Though most people tend to think of America's manned space program as part of space" exploration", it's really not. I would conisder the Apollo program as the only true manned space "exploration" program. The Shuttule program is not space "exploration". All the Shuttle missions were to low Earth orbit only. The majority of the true space "exploration" programs are the unmanned space probes that have been launched since the early 1960's. Some of the most famous ones include:
Mariner Program (1963-1973): Interplantetary research probes that flew by Mars, Venus, and Mercury.
Pioneer Program (1965-1798): Interplantetary research probes that flew by Venus, Juipter and Saturn.
Voyager Program (1976-1982): Two Viking landers studied the surface of Mars. Gathered an incredible amount of scientific data that was important for future Mars' missions.
Voyager Program (1977-1989): Probably the most famous American unmanned space probes. The two Voyager probes exploreed the outher planets.
I can go on and on with other programs. In the late 1990's two rovers landed on Mars. Another much larger rover in on it's way to Mars now. A few months ago a new space probe reached Mercury to begin the first in-depth study of Mercury. There have been various lunar missions over the past 15 years or so as well. Space exploration is important because it expands out understanding of our local "neighborhood", our Solar System. One day, perhaps later this century, humanity will push out into space. The scientific knowedged gained from these unmanned space probe will be invaluable.
Space "business" is something diffferent. They only sector of the space industry that makes any real money today is commecial telecommunications satellies. I happen to work in this sector. As more and more nations become developed they will require satellite communications to modernize their telecommunications systems (telephone, direct-broadcast cable TV, Internet, satellite radio, etc). My company is booming in business right now despite the economic downturn. We keep hiring new people to try to keep up with the work. There is a new kind of aerospace company, called alt.space, that is leading the drive to commericalize space. Space tourism is about to become a reality. College students are building and launching small cubesats into space. Companies like Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space systems are developing new, small, luanch systems in the hopes of bring down the cost of launch. We are living in exciting times as the push to open up space to a far greater number of people is going full bore.
The government will never be out of the space "business" entirely. Government plays a key roll in creating incentives to create new space technolgoies. This is very important. annually, NASA grants Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants to small compnaies to develop technologies that NASA consider key future technlogies. This creates great incentives for small companies to work towards developing new space technologies.
And government isn't the only entity creating incentives. Private groups like the X-Prixe Foundation are also driving innovation. In the late 1990 the Ansari X-Prive was created offering a $10 million prize to the first wholy private (non-govermental) team to develop and luanch a sub-orbital spacecraft. The prive was won in 2004 when Sclaed Composites launched SpaceShipOne. This led to Richard Branson to partner with Scaled Composites to create Vigin Galatic. Virgin galatic is building SpaceShipTwo that will eventaully career tourists into space.
The X-Prize Foundation continues to offer prizes in various fields, including the Google Lunar X-Prize. This is a $20 million prize for the first wholy-private team to land on the moon, take photos and nrea-real time video. Over 20 teams from acorss the world have paid a $10,000 entry fee to compete for the $20 million prize.
