In 1944, a New York woman invested $5000 - one time - in a stock portfolio. At the time of her death 51 years later, her estate, based on that growth of that single managed investment, was worth $22 million. A $4000 investment in Coca-Cola in 1919, just after it's reorganization, would today be worth over $600 million. These are not "fluke" data. Despite a major depression, a world war, 3 other major conflicts, a Cold War, and several recessions, the US stock market gained an average of 10.4% per year over the entire 20 th Century.

It is the nature of governments to spend wastefully, rather than truly invest for the future. All government bureaucracies, NASA included, are forced by the D.C. budget process to spend their allotted budget, in order to maintain funding commitments the following fiscal year, in a “use it or lose it” policy. Could such “waste” be measured, and had it been consistently invested in growth equity markets over the last 30 years, NASA could be almost self-sustaining today!

Despite a record-breaking period of economic growth, the author will show figures to prove why the cost of the colonization of Mars will never be borne by the U.S. government alone, heralding the call for global partnering, and as quick a move as possible to private sector entrepreneurial firms and investments.

The author will show common-sense methods by which small investments made now, by increasingly larger groups of people, can yield vast rewards for future generations – such as seed funding for a Martian colony. The key, as in any worthwhile endeavor, is patience and perseverance.

Private Funding and Commerical Investment