Private sector investment in human space exploration is preferable to public sector investment.

I am sure Con forfeited the previous round because of some private inconveniences of his own so I ask voters and readers not to count this act against him. But I will go on and bring about my arguments in order not to loose time and rounds. Con will now have to respond to my side as a beginning step. In my opinion, private investment should be preferred to public sector spending when it comes to human space exploration and astronomy in general. First of all, though, we need to establish that space exploration and astronomy is nothing but another branch of science and empiric data has shown that science in general is better off without government regulation, leadership, or involvement. Private laboratories are the ones that make the most efficient medications, private research institutes (such as universities) often make the best and most advanced discoveries, while governments distort, change, and manipulate science. In a wider sense, we just need to analyze the difference between the United States, where free market principles were applied to some sectors of science and incredible developments were achieved, and the Soviet Union, where the leadership's pseudo-science was applied in agriculture and caused the death of millions. That said, space exploration would be better off without any type of government red tape or direction. The very obvious argument would be that in times of financial and economic crises such as the ones we live in, more government waste and pursuit of debt and deficit spending is unnecessary and does nothing but hurt the national economy overall. Even if NASA and such astronomical research departments are very low on public budget priorities, they still represent billions of dollars that could be saved, thus billions of dollars that would not be taxed from the workers and entrepreneurs. Still financial-wise, a private human space exploration mission is definitely more cost-efficient than the long bureaucratic process. In our capital-based economy, it is important to target every dollar to its intended use and not to lose any dime in wasteful processes. Indeed, the capitalist economy works as a practical Chaos Theory example: any waste or wrong allocation of resources may bring about a larger cycle of unintended consequences. Also, a private sector-issued astronomy company would be much safer than a government program. Competing companies would fight to attract more consumers by adding safety to its attractive advantages. Nowadays, a human-inhabited mission explodes in the sky or in space, virtually no consequence may happen because the government has not to fear any competition or liability suits. But if a private spacecraft is destroyed, the company might go bankrupt, just like PanAm after the Lockerbie bombing. Finally, private space exploration would bring results much faster and development will be achieved at a speedier pace. An international competition of private astronomical companies, boosted by private investors interested in the future of science, will manage to accomplish things that the government cannot even dream of. Mars colonies by 2050? Man on Venus by 2200? Everything would be imaginable. But now I ask, why do you think it is my duty (as a taxpayer) to fund a space program? Why do I HAVE TO do so? Where do you find the deontological answer to John Smith, the coal-miner living off $8.15 an hour and struggling to put food on the table, who wonders why he has to pay taxes to fund an unsafe space program with doubtful goals?