I would be interested in reading the article you mentioned in your previous post, however the email keeps bouncing back to me. Could you please email me a copy of the article? Thanks.

Goal 1: Private & public movement of people and cargo within a planetary system.
Goal 2: Private & public movement of people and cargo between planetary systems.
Goal 3: Private & public movement of people and cargo between stellar systems.

I would guess 50 years to have affordable private access to the moon. 75 to 100 years to have affordable private access to another planet. 200 to 500 years to have private access to another star system. Affordable meaning a middle class American could travel for the price of a cruise.

I doubt Congress or any President would ever use the ‘C’ word. I believe expansion of the human race off our planet will help in solving many of the problems on Earth. That isn’t a call for a list of people that should be sent off-world.

My email to you bounced back, but I’d like to read that editorial.

BTW, I am now the American correspondent for a new British publication called International Space Review. In it, I discuss what I view as the “lessons learned” in the X-prize’s success. (It also contains a rather anti-American editorial that I do not particularly subscribe to.) If anyone is interested in a European prospective on space policy, send me an E-mail, and I’ll return a free sample issue as an Acrobat file.

— Donald

Dwayne Day’s points include the observation that the VSE is really only about the Moon and therefore media reports about Mars missions are another example of myth. Continuing ambiguity about the goals of the VSE is one of the continuing problems with the VSE.

By the way, Robert Zubrin is now a vocal proponent of using lunar oxygen to fuel direct return flights to Earth. Land a large vessel with a methane fuel supply but no LOX. This allows a much larger lunar payload and presence and will test equipment that can be used for Mars.

Lunar advocates generally have no problem with Mars. Mars is one (or 3, including its moons) of hundreds of thousands of useful destinations for humans in the solar system, and it’s hard to understand why Mars advocates are so bent on asserting that it should be the “one and only”.

If “inspiration of future generations” is your highest goal, wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper and more effective to fund a few Hollywood movies? I’m sorry, that one just doesn’t wash any more.

People who downplay the importance of the Moon strike me as being blinded by its obviousness. It’s there in the sky most nights, easy to spot – so obviously close – a country we can see, so why aren’t we there? Barker asks “why is there no focus”, but in fact there is a focus to the new exploration vision, along with all the specific propulsion and vehicle work, one which was stated explicitly by Bush from the start: using the resources of space, first on the Moon. That’s what we absolutely need to learn how to do, and the Moon has plenty of physical material resources to get us started.

“Great nations do great things” doesn’t seem to be inspiring very many people.

Tumlinson’s comment that “Moon-Mars should be one word, not two” and building from an O’Neillian foundation reflect my personal opinion on how and why we should enter space yet to my knowledge neither Congress nor the American people have had this discussion in any depth.