Privatized Space Race

[Chak]

The Navy does something once a year called the Combined Federal Campaign which is a coordinated donation service that is mandatory for all sailors to turn in a form for either donating or abstaining from donating to a charity of your choice.
I have reviewed the manual and decided against giving to needy children in Africa, and feeding the homeless at home, and finding cures for cancers; call me heartless if you must.  But a discussion on the best charities to help the world is going outside the topic I am intending on.  I have for the past two years donated to a charity called the Space Frontier Foundation.

http://spacefrontier.org/

This is a charity for supporting the privatization and economic growth into outer space.  They appear to mostly support renewable rockets and other cost saving methods to get into space and create tourism and jobs in space.

But is privatizing space the way to go for us to prosper and grow, or am I just paying people to get wealthier?  Am I donating to the right group and cause?  What is going on the private and public sectors for the space race technologically and politically?  Should I even care about living in space someday?

NASA is paying Russia to send American 's to space for us.  This feels terribly wrong to me... I once loved you NASA where can I put my heart now?

[Bruke]

I know what you mean.  I was just reading about the new Chinese space station (c.f. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/29/world/china-space-launch/index.html?hpt=hp_t2) and I realized just how far we've fallen behind in the "space-race".  It's depressing.

[Mursharg]

Ironically the only thing I heard and liked from any of the Republican candidates this year was Gingrich's promise to have a permenant moon base within two terms.  I'm not sure I want for-profit organizations ruling the skies.  I'd prefer the government and the private corps both to work on it.  Why is it, that our only reason for expanding was a cold-war?  Why does no one realize the value of this expansion, merely for the sheer economic and intellectual progress it gives us?

[Bruke]

People are hard-wired to think of the short term.  Most people I've talked to about the subject seem to think in terms of, what will be the return for the investment tomorrow - when the real gains from space travel might be better seen over a span of years or even decades.  It's this sort of short-sightedness and small-mindedness that preclude real progress.

I was once asked how I could justify NASA's budget when there are people starving in the streets of our cities.  I replied, how can I justify a CEO paying himself millions of dollars in bonuses/profits while a company goes bankrupt?  The goal of making the world a fair place is a noble one, but there are plenty of more aggregious abuses than space travel; at least with space travel there is a chance that everyone will somehow profit from new technology while for so many other imbalances it's just a handful that benefit.

Of course, corporate greed is a "private" thing and funding NASA is a "public" thing... as if that really makes so much difference. 

Personally I think the idea of helping a charity space program is a worthy thing - considering that most "save the children" charities only spend about 10% to 15% of the money collected on the actual children (while pocketing the bulk for "operating costs"), I think the original poster's choice of charities is good.