Subject:
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Re: NASA IS GOING BACK BABY
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sun, 4 Feb 2007 23:53:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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5458 times
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First off, (having missed the start of this thread), I really wasn't all that
shook up by the announcment for the simple reason that the announcement doesn't
mean anything. Any more than it did with the previous "we're going to Mars"
pushes.
> > I'm hoping that manned commercial space activity passes
> > NASA sometime in the next decade or two.
Well... I'm trying to figure out a good reason for manned commercial
spaceflight. Note that implies a commercial (profitable) reason. Space tourism,
to me, actually looks like the only bootstrap (well, most likely bootstrap -
resources is a nice thought, but your product has the annoying tendancy to be at
the wrong end of a very deep gravity well).
> > Same reason we don't see NASA building passenger airliners and
> > operating the national airline in the US.
Same reason we see Antarctica being populated and developed largely by
commerical interests... except wait a minute, that's right, it's not :-).
> I join Burt and Jeff in the idea that the most rapid
> technological progress will come not from "cooperating
> governments", but instead from competing enterprises of
> all kinds.
Which could actually be competing governments. I would agree, however, that
commercial (or other) competition is a great way to spark rapid development. But
it may not be in the direction you "want" it to go in (i.e., robotic in this
case, not manned). Two fun SF books on this topic are "Red Mars" (& sequels)
from Kim Stanley Robinson, and "Encouter with Tiber" by Aldrin (yes, *that*
Aldrin) and another guy whos name escapes me.
--
Brian Davis
(who briefly though he was reading rec.arts.sf.science)
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: NASA IS GOING BACK BABY
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| (...) Tourism will be the initial market for suborbital space transports. The prime example of this sort of craft will be Space Ship Two (Virgin Galactic). (...) Actually, I thought that there was already some concern on the part of scientists that (...) (18 years ago, 5-Feb-07, to lugnet.space)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: NASA IS GOING BACK BABY
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| "Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@rmspam...mspam.com> wrote in message news:JA4GuG.E05@lugnet.com... (...) Jeff, your post met my sentiments exactly. I'm really glad to see no national flags on the "Mars Mission" sets - and none on the "Life on Mars" (...) (18 years ago, 4-Feb-07, to lugnet.space)
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