[avar]

Countering "there's no economic reason to put humans into orbit" with "but look at these commercial programs 100% paid by the government" isn't really a rebuke, you're just making the OPs point for them.

It's only commercial in the sense that say there's say commercial manufacturing of ballistic missile submarines. It's just an implementation detail of how the US (v.s. say China) does manufacturing for purely state-sponsored projects, not something indicating that there's an economic incentive to put people into orbit outside of government sponsored programs.

[kobeya]

They (SpaceX at least) are not 100% funded by the government.

[avar]

And to the extent that SpaceX isn't funded by the government they have no plans to put people into orbit as a goal in itself, only as a staging area for launching to Mars.

So how is any of this a counterargument to stickfigure's "manned orbit is motivated by prestige, not rational economic behavior"?

[greglindahl]

SpaceX has said that they expect a space tourism market to develop. That sounds like rational economic behavior, even if the tourists are doing it for the prestige.

[krschultz]

That wasn't the argument.