What is the role of private companies in space exploration and utilization? Is there a bright future for tourist excursions to Earth’s moon, mining valuable resources from the Moon and from asteroids, and colonizing Mars?

The Budapest branch of the Common Sense Society hosted a panel discussion on these issues, where guests were  Tibor Pacher, head of the Hungarian private space travel company Puli Space Technologies (currently competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE), László Molnár, astronomer and blogger at “Knights of Cydonia Region” (in Hungarian)  and András Gschwindt, leader of the Masat group at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.  Zsófia Göde of the Common Sense Society moderated the discussion.

CNC Media prepared a short video and a good summary of the event (in Hungarian). The event was held in english, so You could enjoy the video summary:

About the Common Sense Society: The Common Sense Society celebrates the Western heritage, wherein the ideas of liberty and equality have been asserted, tested, and proven over the course of four millennia. This same history reveals that mankind does not progress inevitably toward freedom or justice. Indeed, many attempts to ignore history, deny human nature, and engineer a utopian vision have initiated some of the most horrific episodes in human memory. Because ideas have consequences, CSS continues the noble tradition of argumentation and debate by providing regular forums for the exchange of these ideas. We are not bystanders to the development of our civilization; we are participants in defining our future of sustainable freedom.

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