There is of course one problem with Mr Jain’s thinking: ‘private investment’ is not responsible for our present level of technology, be it rockets, robotics, 3-D printing or other technologies critical to space exploration. Even now the most innovative private actor in the industry, SpaceX, remains dependent on NASA contracts to fund its research and development. What Jain wants, as we see repeatedly with the powerful, is to socialise the losses of publicly funded research and privatise the gains.
