“A Space Program for the Rest of Us”, a brief history of the American space program to date and an interesting case for why the next step should be the development of an open and robust space refueling infrastructure, instead of recycling the technologies and methodologies of the Apollo program.
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2 Comments
I found the article rather heartbreaking. A lot of it is thought-provoking, though I’m not sure that I agree with the corporatist sentiment that keeps peeking through his attempts at third-way posturing.
While I think it’s an interesting idea, I’m not sure how it would help to reduce costs for reaching low-Earth orbit. Once you’re in orbit, you don’t need fuel unless you’re attempting to go further, and we’re having difficulties advancing even that far. Perhaps a space elevator is in order…?
I thought the author engaged in a bit of “the market will do it” hand-waving occasionally, too.
But his argument is that we ought to become a space-faring civilization, and for that, developing an extraterrestrial refueling infrastructure (whether in low orbit or on the moon or further) does seem essential. Whether that’s a good goal or not is an entirely different matter (and one that I don’t really have any way to evaluate, as I know very little about how realistic a goal it is).