SpaceShipOne/Discovery Channel porn

G.R. Patterson III wrote:


Corky Scott wrote:

Tell me again what the point is in being lobbed into near space?


Well, I grew up reading Heinlein, Asimov, Blish, and the like. *We* were going
into space. Not some government clowns - *we* were going. Space stations would
be built by union tradespeople. Entrepreneurs would build shipping companies
that flew rockets.

Then NASA came along. During the 70s, they worked very hard at preventing any
private enterprise in space, and they very effectively killed that dream.

NASA didn't kill that dream. What killed it was that no one came up
with a way for those potential entrepreneurs to make any money in
space. The Heinlein/Asimov/etc. scenarios have the hidden premise
that the energy required for space travel is incredibly cheap and
therefore it's cost effective to mine asteroids, build micro-g
manufacturing facilities, establish lunar and planetary bases and
so on.