Yes, Burke’s old series- he was the BBC anchor for the Apollo flight during my years in Britain. The ‘series’ 1 & 2- are his personal take on the path of technological development. Some of them a stretch- some plausable. But his timing was pretty good- one take at the Voyager launch and he had to get it right.

As to government funded/managed HSF, it has been a success because it had to be. Private enterprise failed to step up to the plate to do it and cannot absorb the largess of the costs. Space exploitation is not space exploration. It has been governments in various guises and for military and geo-political motives which have propelled the technology forward, not private industry. Every time private enterprise has had the opportunity to take the lead in this field over the 80-plus years of modern rocketry- it has balked and socialized the risk on the many taxpayers. Red faced comrades like Simberg know it. Free market, ‘Reaganomics’ styled economics is never going to fuel human expansion out into the cosmos beyond LRO, which is a tickwt to no place– unless asteroids are made of diamonds or there’s oil on the moon (or uranium- as in Destination Moon, which for capitalists is still a good business plan.) Even Armstrong reitereates the necessity for government involvement in space projects of scale. There’s just no ROI for the largess of the investments in this era. That’s why government do it– and since 10/4/57, done it pretty well. Commercial HSF, not so much.

@Rand Simberg wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 10:13 pm

“….someone who stands up for free enterprise in space….”

Hmmmmm. Let’s review: Comrade Simberg advocates government funding of ‘private enterprised’ HSF firms, there by socializing the risk on the many to benefit a select few. That’s socialism, Comrade. And you’ve stated on this forum that hardware is more valuable than the safety of the crews that fly in it. Little wonder you’re red faced, having been denied by skeptical private capital markets and frustrated by government obfuscation A government protecting the public Treasury which has dwindling resources to finance existing civil, military and covert space operations from shills and raiders who cannot sell their proposal w/a limited market and little to no ROI in the private sector.

Thanks Windy.

Actually, it is,– at least the engineers at Matshshita kept telling uas this as a selling pitch in my dealings w/them back in the early 80s. But these small things hardly help in justifying budgets. So, unlike Comrade Simberg, we’re essentially in agreement.>>

technology is as the series “Connections” use to try and explain a continual line of interacting developments all of which seem to play a hand…the two questions one always has to ask is 1) would the product have been developed another way and 2) if it was an outcome of “a” was it worth doing a in the first place.

The issue with human spaceflight is the government program you so embrace has failed to have a reason for being after the era of superpower confrontation…and has for almost a half century (or at least four decades) been running on the inertia of that confrontation…there is no reason now to send people to do the job that robots can do even if robots are 1/10 as efficient or effective because there is nothing that justifies the several orders of magnitude more in cost.

As for Rand. Look I do a fair amount of name calling here and most of the time I regret it…but oddly enough I find for the most part both you and he have an entertaining view that is at least worth reading. Rand is many things…”comrade” is to harsh.

RGO

Well, the last time we did it we got the Gemini test program, the Apollo Moon program and a Skylab space station. So, I guess, according to you, none of that really happened:-)”

childish. It happened, but you apparently dont understand the difference between today and that era as far as NASA goes…in that era the Gemini program spent 5 billion (in today’s dollars) and flew an entire program..in our time Cx spent 15 billion and has nothing to show for it.

When you learn why…you will learn something RGO

So, the pseudonymous Marxist troll…

I think you’ve just insulted Marxists everywhere

—

Also, have a video* (via Bad Astrononomy) that shows nicely why Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an internationally acclaimed scientist, educator and space advocate who appears on television and is invited to congressional hearings, while people like amightywind have to settle with being a minor nuisance on an internet forum.

Because it borders on the grandiose and is vastly unrealistic for the austere times we’re in– and there’s been so many of these dreamy lists of sci-fi sounding projects that nobody- particularly a society clinging to their jobs, desperately trying to buy food and fuel and keep shelter- is going to take it seriously. It’s in Newt Gingrich -Moon President territory. you might get support for a nose-to-the-grindstone five year program to get a GP spacecraft adaptable for NEO and beyond use, capable of riding a top ELVs in inventory and adaptable for a HLV bird in out years. Solar sails and moon bases and Mars outposts are just not in the cards for a good half century or so.

So, the pseudonymous Marxist troll is going to continue to pseudonymously slander me, someone who stands up for free enterprise in space, as in all other spheres, as a Marxist.

Par for the course, I guess.

An error in memory- acknowlwdged and corrected as follows… but does it matter, no. Was she useless, yes. Did she drive out members, yes. Is she a lobbyist and advocate for commercial space? Yes. Was she a champion fo the ISS? Yes. For the record- Von Braun passed in 1977 when NSS was still the NSI. The NSS was established in the United States in 1987, as a result of a merger between two space advocacy organizations: the NSI founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun; and the L5 Society, based on the concepts of Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill. Garver served as the second Executive Director of the NSS, for nine years, leaving the organization in 1998—- the damage done.

Actually, it is,– at least the engineers at Matshshita kept telling uas this as a selling pitch in my dealings w/them back in the early 80s. But these small things hardly help in justifying budgets. So, unlike Comrade Simberg, we’re essentially in agreement.