At a conference in Washington DC yesterday both Russia and Japan announced the Moon as their next primary space exploration goal.
The new colonial movement: At a conference in Washington DC yesterday both Russia and Japan announced the Moon as their next primary space exploration goal.
If the U.S. gets a competitive private aerospace industry going — which seems increasingly likely — I’m willing to bet those companies will get to the Moon before either of these governments.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The new colonial movement: At a conference in Washington DC yesterday both Russia and Japan announced the Moon as their next primary space exploration goal.
If the U.S. gets a competitive private aerospace industry going — which seems increasingly likely — I’m willing to bet those companies will get to the Moon before either of these governments.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“If the U.S. gets a competitive private aerospace industry going — which seems increasingly likely — I’m willing to bet those companies will get to the Moon before either of these governments”.
SpaceX’s manifest shows that there is a sizeable market to support the commercial outfits. But isn’t the high upfront costs for a commercial lunar operation too high? Wouldn’t government funding beat commercial ventures in this case?
It may not be an either/or situation, though – I’m thinking it’s likely NASA would turn to SpaceX (or one of the other commercial ventures) & fund them for a Moon program (assuming Congress & the president were willing). After all, it was always private co’s like McDonnell/Douglas, Rockwell, Gen. Dynamics etc. that actually built launchers & spacecraft under contract from NASA and/or the U.S. gov’t. Some of the frequent contributors here probably have more inside dope on the situation than I do – I’m only an enthusiast, never worked in the industry myself, so I welcome any enlightenments or corrections if I’m misinformed…
I’m thinking that space exploration/exploitation in the 2010’s might be analogous to aviation in the 1930’s: government provides the initial incentives (mail contracts) for development of hardware, operating procedures, and infrastructure, after which companies acquire more business (passengers/cargo) and develop new routes and markets on their own.
Bingo for you, Blair! The development of the American aviation industry in the 1920s and 1930s is exactly the approach we should use now. And I’ve written and said this more times than I care to count. Free enterprise is what built the country, not government programs. When the government realizes this and acts to aid private enterprise instead of squelching it, the country prospers.
Having the government build the rockets and spaceships — as we have done for the past forty years — copies the Soviet model, which sadly has been proven to be failure, repeatedly. Remember, the shuttle didn’t reduce the cost to orbit as promised, and NASA never was able to get a shuttle replacement built.
Hopefully, paying SpaceX and others for transit will allow NASA to focus more of its budget on payloads and maybe even allow them to develop a true space ship for BEO.
People have hit on this a already but the real advantage to a COTS CCDEV approach is that NASA doesn’t control the launch companies, allowing them to sell their services to whoever has the money. Even if people or companies could afford to purchase launch services from NASA, they would never sell them.
Going forward it is important at every stage to remove NASA from control or match them with private capabilities. It will be great if NASA sets up a lunar base but worthless to the commercial community if they can’t access it for their own purposes. I just don’t see NASA building a facility larger than what they need or opening it up for others to use but maybe that is also a slim possibility.