Private spaceflight is phonier than a three dollar bill. Even if a few wanton persons wanted to take an expensive flight, that is not what the talk is about. Supposedly, private spaceflight should do something better than NASA could do.

The most extreme example is talk of going to Mars. The expense would be so monumental that NASA won't suggest it. NASA is planning for activity on the moon first.

But the expense isn't the only problem. Navigation and telemetry in space cannot be privatized.

A massive and complex infrastructure is needed for navigation and telemetry in deep space. Huge dish antennas are located in Australia, UK and other locations for telemetry. Charting the course requires physics departments to pinpoint locations at instantaneous points in time. Phalanxes of engineers must continually update location data and requirements with 30 second delays in communication, while mid-course corrections are made. Communications systems span the globe to get the information where it needs to go.

The taxpayers own that infrastructure. Private companies have no ability to link into it. They could do no more than put their name on the paper after the project is completed.

A major problem with space travel is that there is not enough energy in hydrogen and oxygen to get to Mars and back. The space shuttle required three fuel tanks, two solid fuel and one liquid, just to get into near-earth orbit. To go to Mars, it takes as much energy to stop at Mars as to get there, and then again as much to re-accelerate back to earth, and then again as much to stop at earth. Frictional tiles were used to stop the shuttle, but they weigh a lot, which means even more energy is required.

What then are private companies adding to spaceflight? Nothing but fakery for the purpose of mongering power. Power is mongered through fraud, not through objective reality, since objective reality condemns incompetents.