Space missions are too important to be left to private companies, as such, they should be left to governments. It is only when governments take the lead that the main force is human curiosity, not private interest, and important discoveries will not be kept from the people. Keeping important discoveries from the general public is not right.

Private companies should have the right to go to space, however, they should not have control over space missions. Because governments are generally more reliable and stable, things usually go to plan and nothing bad happens. In contrast, private companies can sometimes use their own funding for space missions, which could be bad because they could patent basic things that legally prevent other companies from doing it, which is bad because then people will get into arguments, and they will spend more time and money on lawsuits rather than real improvement in space.

Safety is another important issue. While governments enforce strict rules that cannot be changed, protecting astronauts’ lives, private companies usually have a tight deadline, causing them to worry about things other than the mission, potentially endangering their astronauts and the environment. Sometimes governments have tight deadlines too, but they manage it well by building and testing different parts of the spacecraft simultaneously to save time. Additionally, most projects have a time for when if something goes wrong and they need to fix it.

Furthermore, governments having a hold over missions has another positive effect on the public, such as the prevention of potential wars over land on the moon or holds over other planets. On the US Department of State website, it states that when governments lead missions, they are regulated by a global treaty, which says that space is an area meant for all mankind and countries are legally responsible for their actions in space. On the other hand, private companies are not required to follow those terms and can do whatever they want, and won’t have to take responsibility.

Lastly, it has been shown that private space missions actually hurt taxpayers, though they supposedly have their own private funding. The DCReport says that NASA has spent over $15 billion on contracts with SpaceX. Also, because private companies focus on profit instead of open discovery, they hide valuable space data behind walls rather than sharing it with scientists who use it for research. This is why private companies should not be able to have control over space missions intended to help the world.