But some undertakings are simply too big for private corporations, and require government funding and control.
I don't think it's the size of the undertakings as much as their time horizon. Corporate time horizons just aren't long enough to comprehend investing now in, say, a manned Mars mission in 2030. Even at a pretty low discount rate, the net present value in 2012 of resources mined from Mars in the 2030's is effectively zero to a corporate bean counter.
The problem is that government time horizons are even shorter. The TR article talks about NASA having the technical knowledge to send men to Mars; but we had that technical knowledge in the 1970's. The problem is that, since the Apollo program (which was, I think, an outlier in this respect), the US government simply hasn't had enough consistency of purpose to reliably fund ventures that last beyond a change in the party that controls the White House and/or Congress.
I agree the time horizon is different in other cultures. France took 20 years to get its economy running on 75% nuclear power. China has embarked on long-term infrastructure projects.
However, having a longer time horizon is not entirely a good thing either. It's a benefit if the long-term project you pick and commit resources to is a good idea; but it's much worse than the short time horizon case if the long-term project you pick is a bad idea. (Some posters in this thread have argued that the Apollo project itself is an example of the latter.)
I don't think it's the size of the undertakings as much as their time horizon. Corporate time horizons just aren't long enough to comprehend investing now in, say, a manned Mars mission in 2030. Even at a pretty low discount rate, the net present value in 2012 of resources mined from Mars in the 2030's is effectively zero to a corporate bean counter.
The problem is that government time horizons are even shorter. The TR article talks about NASA having the technical knowledge to send men to Mars; but we had that technical knowledge in the 1970's. The problem is that, since the Apollo program (which was, I think, an outlier in this respect), the US government simply hasn't had enough consistency of purpose to reliably fund ventures that last beyond a change in the party that controls the White House and/or Congress.