Public versus private | What does it all mean?
A private sector enterprise is meant to distinguish from organizations that serve the public good , i.e. government enterprises such as the police, the fire station, the construction of roads and bridges. The list is getting shorter every year. For example, government used to include space exploration . Is space exploration an initiative for the public good or a private enterprise? NASA used to be exclusively responsible for sending rockets into space for scientific research and exploration. That was partly because no private enterprise could afford such a huge expense. Furthermore, the investment was assumed to be for the public good because new science benefits us all, right? When the government sends a vessel into space, the goal is to study the universe and add to our scientific knowledge about the universe. Well, no longer. Now we have SpaceX launching flights into space. The motivation is unclear. It doesn't seem to be driven by science. Perhaps the goal is space tourism...