Well, maybe… all I need is money, see, and with ten thousand of us, there’s gotta be a few multi-millionairs… heheheh
Seriously, in the US I feel that many of the problems that our society (and the world) face can be fixed with the proper exploitation of space.
Non-polluting orbital factories.
Foodstuffs grown in orbit or in the moon (see Moon is a Harsh Mistress, R.A. Heinlien for details)
Orbital research stations.
Tourism.
And of course, elbow room.
The problem seems to be that no-one has the stomach anymore to face the risks necessary. People die every year doing wildcat drilling, or Arctic Ocean fishing, but it’s not a big deal to the general population. If we can get folks to understand that working in space is the same as any other high risk/high pay job, I think it would help.
In the US, we’ve become over-enamored of the Space Shuttle, which did a good job, but is insanely wasteful, from a financial aspect. The reason we almost lost the space race is the USSR was able to use cheap, easy to make rockets, and get several launches to our one.
What I would like to see is a large private space industry. I mean large. Build our own space-port in CA or Florida kind of large.
Privitization of the Space Industry is essential for proper growth. What do you guys think?
Groovy… I would almost be tempted to call it Harriman Enterprises, but folks would want to know who Harriman was, and telling them he’s a fictional character would get me in trouble…
in the meantime… furiously drawing up a prospectus
It seems that most rocket launches in U.S. are done by companies such as Boeing, Locheed-Martin or Orbital Science. They often carry communication satellites made and used by private companies. Why are they not considered privatized? Are they still heavily subsidized by the government?
Anyway, I’m a big advocate of space as any, but I think it’s too soon to completely privatize space. With the exception of telecommunications, there isn’t much money to be made by going to space, which means nobody would invest in it. Nobody but the government, that is - and that’s what they are doing.
Anyway, there are some companies doing exactly what you suggest. Beal Aerospace is developing a conventional expendable rocket, with very simple designs to reduce cost. They successfully tested their newly developed engine earlier this year. Kistler Aerospace is developing a 2-stage reusable launch vehicle. Rotary Rocket is even more ambitious - a manned, single-stage-to-orbit rocket which uses a helicopter-like rotor for landing instead of wings. Unfortunately they seem to spend more time looking for funding than actually doing development, but they successfully did a hover and landing test using a full-scale vehicle.
