Inspiration 4 proves that we don't need big government to do incredible things.

It used to be believed that we need big government in order to do big things. Back in the 1960s, for example, we had the race to the moon.  Huge cash was spent, so big that only governments could do it.  Governments simply taxed the people to get the cash (or took on debt).  Without the need to earn money, AKA the profit motive, government was able to do things that no large 20 businesses of the 1960s would dare to do.  And for this reason, fools believed that we need big government to do big things.

So here is the truth. The reason that corporations didn't band together and go to the moon on their own is quite simple: it was a stupid idea.  Too much new tech had to be invented and even then it was barely up to snuff for the task.  Thus, it was ridiculously expensive and recklessly dangerous.  In fact, if it was a good idea then corporations wouldn't need any help from government to do it.  They would do it because it would produce a result which was greater than the input costs.

Now, for those who say, well, government led the way, etc. I can only say this: very, very little tech developed by the government in the 1960s and 1970s is used in today's space vehicles.  Why?  Because it is ancient technology, obviously.  

Today SpaceX launched Inspiration 4 which was a manned flight to the international space station.  They blasted off and got to orbit in what looked like a pretty comfortable ride.  The main engine casing fell back to Earth and landed on a small floating pad in the ocean where it will be cheap and easy to recover.  The cost of doing this today is FAR cheaper than it was in the 1960s, inflation adjusted, because as time has gone forward we learned new things as a species.  And when we had learned enough about enough things, Elon Musk realized that with government having thrown in the towel on space launches, the door was opened to private industry.  Even more interesting is that Musk's real goal is to get to Mars and he's just doing space station transport work in order to pay his way toward the real goal.

If big government is getting into something, providing sector stimulus and incentives, it can only mean one thing: the idea is just too damned new to be of any real value to we the people.  A good example of this is solar panels.  If the idea was any good then it did not need government support.  But government threw tons of money at it to no avail.  It was only once the cost and efficiency (power density) of the panels began to improve that it became a useful technology to humans.  Government didn't do anything but create a big boom and bust in the industry.  It would have moved ahead much faster if government had just stayed the Hell out of it.

Congratulations to Elon Musk and SpaceX for reminding us all that big government is not needed to do big things.