So it seems one big barrier is aversion to risk. If NASA wasn’t so afraid, if the billionairs don’t chicken out, etc. (In regard to both traditional designs, and untested technologies). Sigh, it doesn’t sound like that’s going to go away any time soon, at least not in America. Our media won’t let it happen. If they can make a big, sobbing deal out of something, by god they’ll try.
But space elevators don’t seem so far off. If you get the nanotubes to work right, then that’s that, isn’t it? Obviously this requisite piece of tech isn’t here, but at least nanotubes seem to be finding many uses and so there’ll be active commercial research. Space elevators should exceed the wildest possibilities of rockets, so even if they arrive late for 2001, they’ll at least make up for the lost time.
Anyway, this whole space toursim business needs an injection of testosterone. You should earn cool points the riskier and wilder your ride to space is. That’s what’s needed for space tourism to succeed in the meantime and for tech to advance in a meangful way. Also, I’m afraid the sub-orbital space-hops, being so obviously lame, will cool people’s appetite somewhat. Why couldn’t the business start off taking it a notch higher? E.g. sky-diving from suborbit. It’s not really more difficult, and it sure is a lot sexier.
This is a part of the problem; for NASA, the risk of making a mistake means having funding cut off; paradoxically, the organization has created a culture of being both risk-adverse and risk-obtuse. Of course, they’re also charged with pushing forward the state of the art in space technology, and yet beaten up when those technologies don’t prove to be everything promised. Is it any wonder that NASA cowers like a kicked dog whenever anything screws up? For private investors–who want a return on their money–having a space company tell them, “We don’t know if this will work, or blow up on the way,” isn’t exactly a way to bring confidence.
Space elevators are a pipe dream for now. Aside from the problem of “get[ting] nanotubes to work right,” (and the longest we can make them now is still smaller than can be seen by the eye. A composite material made from carbon nanotubes as the fiber and some kind of high temperature, high tensile matrix may someday demonstrate the requisite tensile strength to hold its own weight to orbit but that’s not just around the corner, and the unresolved material science issues of making it survivable are complex. And even that being the case, you’re going to have to figure out how to practically manufacture, maintain, and protect such a structure, as well as boost the necessary equipment in orbit. Despite what some enthusiasts say, space elevators are decades, if not a century or more, away.
In any practical sense the tourist industry will lag space transportation, not lead it. A few millionaires can’t support an entire industry. However, if skydiving from orbit is your thing, check out the GE MOOSE, which would no doubt be quite a ride.
Very nice little aeroplane, Mr. Wright. But I just flew across the ocean in a SST in less than three hours. Explain to me again why your hundred-foot flight is impressive.
The kicked dog is actually a good metaphor, because such a dog is doing nothing but communicating its inferiority and submissiveness. A dog that’s respected and respects itself will instead act confident and tough when kicked.
I think that in large part NASA only makes this worse. It communicates throught its body language that there’s something to be upset and concerned about. If they would just hire a PR agent who wouldn’t do this foot-shooting or, better yet, actually try to spin it the opposite way, it really wouldn’t happen. At the very least, if NASA just picked up its balls and said, “No, it’s perfectly ok for the shuttle to blow up. That’s how we designed it and that’s what the brave men and women who ride in it fully understand” then the public wouldn’t argue. Instead they make a million press conferences whose only theme is “wow, what a tragedy” and launch a huge investigation that says “someone really screwed up big and we won’t forgive them.” It’s almost as if nasa gets a kick just having people care.
