Many people have answered with the generic benefits of space exploration. But your question is how does SpaceX's being able to land 3 rockets simultaneously benefit anyone?

Reduced cost. Reduced cost to putting up satellites. That is worth billions and billions of dollars simply on the commercial/capitalist side of things.

But reduced cost also is beneficial to science. Being able to get more Hubble Telescopes up, more weather satellites or anything else you can imagine.

And those are just the immediate tangible benefits. You may now fill in the remaining blank with whatever Engineering/Science/Futurism dream you may have. Giant solar panels beaming limitless energy ground-side (meaning nobody will bother sending troops to the Middle East) or whatever other fantasy you might have. Reality is there will be amazing benefits, and we probably haven't thought of them yet.

Dude, study up. I went the same path 15 years ago, right when the Dot Com crash happened. I studied my ass off, got a job doing the monkey thing, found cram schools to teach at, and as soon as I finished off my CCNP I've been employed ever since. I've got MCSEs in NT4, 2000, 2003, and Exchange, CCNA, CCNP R/S, CCNA security, working on CCIE written now (not a cheap test to study for, I'd have gotten it already, but spent years trying not to pay for study materials- the one month I've spent since ponying up has seen me get further than the past 5 years combined), and a few other certs.

The trick is to NOT brain dump. Use the exams as a self test. Especially the Cisco stuff. The CCNA test bank is like 1000 questions. CCNP isn't much fewer. It's far easier (IMO) to know the stuff than to cram the questions (although I've met plenty of offshore people who have crammed it all in, and are now 100% useless)

Your other option is to go down the Project Management side of things. I know a guy who did the monkey thing for 15 years, was facing layoffs and got his PMP. He is now the star Project Manager in the company who gets all the failing projects because he is the one guy who can turn them around. He does say he faces a ceiling not having a 4 year degree. But he is also facing ageism for being 55+ (He has had a very interesting and colorful life)

In other words, get off your butt, and show some motivation. If not, you'll end up like other people I've known that got laid off and could never find another job to save their lives. If you do, you'll NOT be lowly paid.

You watched this video, didn't you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I totally agree.

Check out the Fight For Space. It should be released shortly.

http://www.fightforspace.com/

It will go in depth with all the politics involved according to the leaders in space technology and exploration.

Nationalism.

Every country wants to be the center of the universe and the source of all things that matter. The bigger the country, the more this sort of nationalism gets claimed.

Try SAS (www.sas.com). My wife programs that for Kaiser. So it's all medical research. But there are plenty of non-academic jobs in medical science.

Outside of that... hmmm, Engineering? Not really science so much as applying science to solve problems.

Geology will end you up with a big oil company searching for more oil, or other natural resources.

Yes and no.

They care about ERM as it is what they see IT as doing for them. But don't forget that they need to be aware of the things that impact their ability to use it. Getting all 10 meg Hubs and running it on an old white box P3 will destroy their ability to do anything with it at all.

So things like the network and servers need to be described as important for it to function up to expectation. Doing this up front so they will be prepared to listen down the road is important.

Connectivity, availability and performance are dependent on things other than the software itself. You might mention them and tell them to expect they may need to upgrade certain part of the network to get this up and running. Disaster recovery is important as well.

Exactly! I do not understand why people are wasting their time writing about bringing this stuff back down the gravity well. We've got plenty of it here. What we don't have is any of it up there!

They'll make money from the volatiles (read FUEL) and selling it to satellite operators. Extending the life of satellite so they don't have to launch more would save these operators money and make Planetary Resources the money to keep the lights on until they are finished building a whole industrial complex and colonies from self-replicating robots/3-d printers.

I think many people are missing the point of what was being said in the article.

Cryptography is not just about keeping secrets, it's also about verifying identity. The article pointed out that if CAs are under pressure from their local Gov'ts to issue false certificates to them (happened in Turkey) the whole PKI is useless for identity verification as you can't trust any CA after that.

Sam,
The point that these guys are working toward is building a toe-hold economy in space. They really aren't interested in bringing it back down anytime soon. Much like the Europeans needed to build economies in their colonies long before they became economically valuable to them back home.

If you can send up a few self-replicating robots to build all this for you, it might not cost that much. It might take a long time, but once these things are up and building, that's all it is- a matter of time.

I think this girl will be there with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBP6yriRFiQ

I don't get why everyone here thinks that some Rich adventure people are the target market for Golden Spike!

The target is any gov't that wants to do this, but doesn't want to spend all the money on the R&D to do the Rocket. Did anyone read any of the articles?!

Just think how annoyed the Chinese would be if the Japanese got to the Moon first, for a tiny fraction of the money they're spending? And I think the Japanese KNOW IT!

1.4 Billion is not private citizen money. It's Gov't size money. Maybe Huge corporation size money if they can figure a way to get an ROI.

All this talk about someone with a fortune the size of Bill Gate's going to the moon is loony. Getting countries to send some people up for the national prestige is the point. AND I'll bet the guys involved here are thinking that if they can get Japan and a few other countries to buy seats it'll get the US off it's duff and back into the business again of expanding Human Frontiers just the way NASA used to do back in the '60s.

I"ve gotta stick in the video from Neal deGrasse Tyson here on this very topic of "The next big thing"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjY0vqgDMnE

Lots of people talking about hitching a ride with other people doing the research and work are foolish. You do that to catch up, not to lead. If you wait for someone else to pass you so you can follow them, you'll end up at the back of the line.

Docking with the ISS is like going where hundreds have gone before. This is the perfect place for a private business to go. The trail is blazed the risk factors known.

Getting to Mars with people is a whole 'nother thing. I hope he can do it, but I think it will take a lot longer and require a lot more ground work than some people think. I don't doubt he is aware of it, but I do think he's generated a fan boy base that isn't. Because another thing he has said is he wants to go there with NASA. Therefore, his estimates of getting there in 10-15 years if things go well include going there with NASA. If he can't get NASA to help I think it is easy to assume it'll take a bit longer.

Historically it has been governments that have sent out the trail blazers. Private businesses that can't estimate the costs and risks don't bother. They wait until the government has blazed the trail and then follow (East India company for example).

Poke around Youtube for Neil deGrass Tyson for an expansion on that last point. He puts it together very well. And while you're at it, sign the penny4NASA.org petition so NASA has the money go to Mars with Elon.