Chris correctly asserts that spaceflight in the world of Trek is undeniably less a matter of aviation than it is in the great naval tradition. He cites the government-commissioned exploits of Columbus and Drake as imperative trailblazers prior to the opening of commercial traffic, but it is here that the analogy falls apart.

Consider, for a moment, the reasons why monarchs such as Isabella and Elizabeth funded naval exploration. It is safe to say that the motivations of empire lie in greater imperial power through expansion and better eating. As romantic as it is to put the Vangelis theme to 1492: Conquest of Paradise on the stereo and imagine an equivocation between the Enterprise's exploratory mandate and the investments of the imperial treasuries, it is clearly not so.

The voyages under the banner of the Federation and their discoveries of new worlds and new civilizations carry no commercial benefit. The reason? A little thing called the Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive - that not only are Federation starships prohibited from establishing trade with newly discovered civilizations and setting up the odd East Cardassia Tea Company, but are not to contact them at all - is what separates Star Trek from what we know as human history. Under a policy of non-interference, Starfleet's exploratory arm acts as an information gatherer that in the stories we see on the screen, fill the role of diplomat by occasional necessity. Combined with what we know of the wholesale replacement of material wealth with abstract "credits" - the most capitalistic civilization one encounters is the Ferengi and their Rules of Acquisition, which are on more than one occasion portrayed as a less enlightened species still dependent on material goods - the portrayal of humanity's future is evidently a literalization of the "knowledge-based economy".

As anybody who has been reading up on his Alfred Thayer Mahan knows, the primary role of a navy is to secure its flag's dominance of commerce and communication. In Star Trek, we only see this as it pertains to the commerce of information, over which pioneering government starships like the Enterprise reign supreme. Beyond that point, Starfleet stops being a naval power in the military sense, and is no different than the de facto NASA monopoly on moon landings, Mars rovers and Voyager space probes.

Not only is privatization largely absent from the Roddenberry universe - one will note that even Deep Space Nine was government property manned by Starfleet officials - but in a world where there is no evidence of a causal relationship between state-funded exploration and the establishment of private commerce, it has little place.