Just out of curiosity

[den]

What was stopping private companies from developing re-usable orbital vehicles before the X-Prize came along? Why are we seeing this now after 50 years of humans in space?

Comments

why space flight seems to be in decline

[sheramil.livejournal.com]

http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/FSF_columns/fsf.01

the gist of this is that the idea of getting into orbit by sitting on top of a giant kerosene bomb is kind of fifties and outdated.

with enough intelligent application, our current technology can sustain us for tens of thousands of years. it would just be a lot *easier* to go into orbit and get cheap solar power, mine the gas giants for hydrocarbons, etc.

i have to admit; when i consider E.E. "Doc" Smith's space opera with its WASP heroes zooshing about the galaxy and bringing enlightenment to the natives, i start to think about Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", or, even less charitably, his story "An Outpost of Progress".

even Trek seems unfashionably colonial. at least B5 didn't pretend that the aliens were all primitives who needed to learn from the human example in order to succeed. at least, not very often.

SF never really recovered from John Campbell's endless preaching of "Mankind's Unique Potential".

rant rant rant.

sheramil
--
LESS HUMANS!
MORE ROBOTS!

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Re: why space flight seems to be in decline

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

So far all our exploration of extraterrestrial planetary systems has been by robots. That should bring your ICs above ambient temperature.

The Ships tell me they are still only machines, but you work with what you've got. *shrugs*