THBT space exploration should be pursued by private companies rather than governments.

More suitable for space explorations? The opposing team makes the bulk of their arguments here. They make multiple argument here, some of which are contradictory. They initially state that "Government-funded space agencies such as NASA are more effective . .. in comparison to private agencies". However, the remainder of his argument does not focus on effectiveness - in fact, it opposes it. They argue that the JWST - something he presents as an almost utopian ideal of space discover - is an excellent example of NASA doing something the private sector won't, because the private sector "tend(s) to pursue profit rather than to benefit the entire society". I have two major issues here. First, I don't think this sort of project falls under the debate resolution, which focuses on space <em>exploration</em> - I do not think a telescope, no matter how fancy, falls under that category. It is not exploring, but <em>examining</em>. While this is not the major complaint, I think it is worth noting. Let's hypothetically assume it does qualify. The major complaint I have here is that I think the opposing team contracts itself. Why? Well, let's focus on the initial point - efficacy. They posit that government is simply more efficient at performing the task of space exploration. But in this example they give, even they admit it had "years and years of delay due to the immense research as well as cost overruns". How big a deal is this? Initial funding requested $1.6 billion. [1] That's a lot of money. The actual cost? $8 billion. [1] That's five times the original request. The opposing team is absolutely right when they say that a private company would have rejected this long ago. Why? Because they don't waste their own money. For business to work, you have to set a realistic cost in order to draw investors. If a space telescope is so useful, private companies would jump on the opportunity. NASA, bargaining with taxpayer money, doesn't have to. By the time they've squandered $1.6 billion, they can say "look, we've already spent this much. We can't stop now! ". This is a double-edged sword, however - NASA can never truly propose a great project in 100% honesty, because they lack a key advantage of private business: control of their own money. NASA can only spend what is allocated. Congress would never have approved an $8 billion telescope that takes 20 years to actually get off the ground. In this way, publicly-funded space exploration is inherently hamstrung by Congress; the project can never actually run under budget, because it is never sold honestly, and can never meet the lofty goals its creators set, because they have to go through Congress, not willing investors. . Private companies lack such restraint, and can spend however much they feel is needed. In reality, it is private business - not government - that is more effective. This doesn't mean no science can happen. That's silly. For the initial price tag of JWST alone, nearly 5,000 basic science projects could have been funded. [2] That's nearly 25,000 projects that could have been funded for the full price tag. The Economist noted that NASA's telescope obsession was inhibiting their ability to actually do other things - like, say, create a different telescope to investigate dark matter. [3] A similar telescope, Hubble, launched with a terrible defect that made its images useless and took hundreds of millions of dollars to repair. [3] The fact of the matter is, public funding of these sorts of things makes them >less effective and less useful - not more. Europe dealt with a similar issue and, rather than build a massive project, scaled it down to a reasonable cost and build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) instead. That project just so happened to make a major discovery - the higgs boson particle. [2] PrivacyThe opposing team argues, for national security reasons, space exploration has to be keep public. The major flaw with this argument is that we can easily fold any aspects that are military into the military, or use contractors. But most space exploration - like a trip to Mars or a science base on the moon - does not affect the military. Governments treat space similarly to Antarctica - no man's land, not for militarization. Instead, Antarctica is used for science. This model works for Antarctica, and works for space as well. Additionally, the use of nuclear rockets differs from nuclear missiles. My opponent spoke only of missiles, but their source spoke of rockets, as in the vessel launched into space. These are simply exploration vehicles that are powered by nuclear reactions, not nuclear weapons. Public Funding is NeededMy opponent argues that public funding is needed because. .. public funding is needed? It's a circular argument here - he says that because private companies have needed public funds in the past, they need them now. That's silly. They have not actually provided any real reasons as to why public funding is needed - they are just assuming it is. SizeThe opposing team argues that private companies are simply incapable of managing the number of people an organization runs - he points out SpaceX has 14,000 less employees than NASA. This argument fails on two points - first, it assumes centralized control - that is, one company will take over all of NASA. That's simply not the case. In a market-based economy like the United States, monopolies are either rare or not legally allowed. NASA's functions would naturally spread into numerous companies, many of which would be competing. Space exploration will become an industry, not a business, likely creating far more jobs than NASA has at the moment. Second, even if we assume a large company will absorb all of NASA's role, it simply is not very large. The top 100 companies in the United States all have over 72,000 employees. [4] These aren't just franchise businesses like McDonalds, but also single companies like Dell (100,000), Apple (97,000), Phillip Morris (82,500), Pfizer (78,300), Oracle (122,000), Comcast (139,000), Boeing (165,500), Walt Disney (180,000), and General Motors (216,000). [4] These companies seem to work just fine with such large staff counts. Surely a measly 18,000 employees is workable. References: 1. . http://www.nasaspaceflight.com...... 2. . http://www.science20.com...... 3. . http://www.economist.com...... 4. . https://en.wikipedia.org......