I had a long telecon and exchange of emails with Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky a few weeks ago, to bring them up to speed on what is going on in space for National Review. This article would seem to be one of the first products of that discussion.
3 thoughts on “The Age Of Space Reconnaissance”
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I think the article contains a major typo, possibly spell-check related.
Based on the subject, and the history it mentions, I think the writer is referring to Renaissance, not Reconnaissance.
Aside: I recommend Eric Berger’s “Liftoff”, which I finished early this morning.
Never mind – my mistake.
Not sure how robust VG’s future is. George Whitesides resigned last week, and the company’s chairman, billionaire VC Chamath Palihapitiya, sold off all of his direct personal stock holdings (he still has 6.5% through his ownership interest in the SPAC that VG merged with to go public).
On the day Scaled Composites won the XPRIZE, I had a conversation with Erik Lindbergh in which I said “We have four, maybe five years to make this into a real space tourism company – and if it hasn’t happened by then, you won’t be able to get any more money.” Richard Branson then made his announcement in an adjacent hangar, and I felt relieved.
So much for my predictive abilities. Branson has been more tenacious than I thought possible, and has hung in even after an early disaster. Good for him. I think he’s done a tremendous amount of good for private space projects, and I hope VG is a success. But events like last week’s are disturbing.
The end of the National Review article is another reason I won’t renew my subscription. “Of course, eventually the new lords of space — like their Age of Reconnaissance forebears — will need to be restrained by national and even supranational government. Someone will need to determine the critical legal and economic issues of who owns what, who has the right to explore where, and what should be considered shared resources…”
Yes, all who are able to achieve a space Age of Reconnaissance should bow down to all those who are not able to do so, but wish to control everyone, everywhere. Well, fuck the controllers. All they can do is slow down – or even stop – progress. And National Review has become their bitch.