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Originally Posted by Ara Pacis
I'm not sure I understand the point of the disagreement. What you describe as "multiple resources being shared and paid for by multiple people" would seem to be the goal in or evidence of a good economy. Ya know, specialization and economies of scale and efficiency savings. If we all worked as jacks-of-all-trades for a subsistence level, then we wouldn't be very advanced.
Or maybe I'm not following your point about parasitism. A space infrastructure project can be more than make-work. It could have real goals that would generate a profit structure for private business that rides along that infrastructure.
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It's not a matter of make-work, but rather, when a portion of work is circular, failing to add to the bottom line, and usually robbing from it. An oft-quoted example is one where an unnecessarily complicated tax code requires hiring tax accountants and tax lawyers. While some argue that creates jobs, the truth is that those jobs are paid for out of net profits that would otherwise have been reinvested in the company had the tax code been simpler, and the freed-up labor could have been put to better use either improving or marketing the product than simply complying with unnecessarily complicated tax law.
As for economies of scale, one of NASA's goals has been the sharing of information. Indeed, their airfoil research is heavily embedded in all modern airliners.
Another example of an economy of scale is to use the Shuttle's SSMEs, proven, reliable engines, in various configurtions. For example, DIRECT calls for the three SSMEs, but a beefed-up external framework could be added to the main tank, allowing for four or five SRBs. A larger external tank could feed seven, or even nine SSMEs, for a vastly imcreased heavy lift launch capability.