Ofcourse, I’m not running things.

reading the last year’s news, we know the problems of the Ares-I design (too R&D high costs, very long timeline, budget cuts, etc.) that forced NASA to SHIFT the (already delayed) first manned Orion launch from the (planned) “end of 2014″ to the mid 2015, then, now (after suggesting MANY possible solutions of these problems in my past articles) I’ve published the “new Ares-I design” article that follows the same “money and time saving” philosophy: http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/023newAres.html

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I meant “sad” to describe the gap between the conviction that space is important for all mankind and the painful but undeniable fact that most of mankind doesn’t agree… which leads to desperate speculation about things that might happen to get them to agree.

More at:
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Which_X_Treme_Spacer_Are_You_999.html

— Donald

“Robert, maybe they were moving really slow, but they were moving.)”

It’s ok Donald…I believe the same thing for a very long time…then I realized that they were moving but only going backwards…

Robert

As I’ve stated before, I agree in spades. I’m only trying to salvage something out of what we all seem to agree is going to happen. I know it’s not likely, but it’s my nature; I can’t help it. (Robert, maybe they were moving really slow, but they were moving.)

I think I disagree with you about our aversion to risk. (Just travel in Europe where you can often open windows on high speed trains, versus here where you can’t even on our slow-speed ones! The attitude there seems to be, if you’re stupid enough to stick your arm out, that’s your problem, while all our agencies can think about is whether they are going to get sued. Or, look at the way Boeing won’t take the risk of trying to market the already-developed and paid for Delta-IV.) However, I don’t feel strongly enough about it to continue that debate.

Monte: There’s something a little desperate and more than a little sad about it

I agree. But, then, new frontiers are usually colonized by the despirate and / or sad (in the sense I think you meant it). People who are happy or comfortable where they are (e.g., myself) usually want to stay there and not go off to live on Mars . . . as opposed to a quick visit.

— Donald

By now I simply tune out all space commentary that starts with how far we’ve fallen from our sainted forefathers (in willingness to take risk, in flying the Mighty Boneshaking Saturn V, in National Vision, yada yada yada). First, like you, I often disagree on the facts (most space enthusiasts, as historians and cultural/political commentators, are… uhh… pretty good space enthusiasts).

Second, even if their laments were true — what of it? Politics is “the art of the possible” in space as much as anywhere else — and I’d much rather identify and support what can be accomplished than bloviate about How Great It Could Be if only there were a sweeping transformation of national priorities.

Surely you’ve noticed how often some people keep circling back to “maybe the Chinese will scare as us as the USSR did in 1957,” or “maybe that planet-threatening asteroid will turn up”… or these days, “maybe anxiety about climate change will lead to support for a Giant Space Parasol.” There’s something a little desperate and more than a little sad about it.

I agree with a lot of your argument, and it’s something I hadn’t thought about before. I do believe that the media is a new player that wasn’t as much of a factor in the past. If there’d been some sort of live coverage of every shipwreck with footage of flotsam, bodies, etc. or failed colony with the famine, disease, etc. I think that may have provided a damper on early colonization.

If you want to talk more, contact me through my website.

I’m a strong believer in the market place. Without it we wouldn’t have all that capitalist tax money to waste on Ares I in the first place

Unfortunately space is still largely dominated by the public sector especially when you include the DOD. One of the best ideas I have heard so far though, to help bring about a high volume competitive/commercial market for space without risking expensive spacecraft or lives, is LEO propellant depots. Given that LOX is almost half the mass of missions beyond LEO this would be a significant market. Launch mistakes are cheap (vs spacecraft and people) and the mission value of kg LOX in LEO is the same.