A recent article questioned why today’s Space Programs (Commercial or Public) cannot benchmark off of existing technologies like Earth bound industries and bring Space Travel / Exploration into our daily lives. In the current Space industry – building and maintaining launch vehicles, satellites, and exploration rovers are very different from the automobile, computer or aircraft industries. This comparison is completely wrong due of the following reasons:

-‘Art industry’ vs. consumer-production commodity industries; one rarely builds a 2nd or a 3rd spacecraft similar to a previous one. It costs Ford, Dell, Toyota, and Intel millions of dollars to build their next new model.
-Space Programs do not buy the design ‘off the shelf’. They often insist on changes, and pay for the Non-Recurring Engineering costs.
-Companies rarely build any space-qualified items in anticipation of customers. They build only after receiving an order. The ones that do build before the order mostly lose money.
-Regulations (safety, NTIA, Environmental Impact, ITAR…) other industries do not have as many stringent, or as many restrictions.
-Limited competition, so lack of sheer volume of creativity and product improvements.
-Limited customer/financial base. Not many customers.
-Suppliers of key components are few - narrowing the differences amongst the bidders.
-Space industries are cautiousness and risk adverse. Insurance alone can be a barrier to this industry.

So teams competing for the Google Lunar X-Prize have multiple barriers before they write their first line of code or turn the first screw. But once all these barriers are addressed and overcome – our imaginations will take us to great places.