I once had a research group leader who was like that. She just attacked problems directly and solved them. Sure, there were some nifty inventions, and a couple of big ideas, and some trial and error when you iterate, but most of the time it was “it’s so obvious, why didn’t anyone think of it before?”

Our world is still so much built on irrational assumptions, that many problems are much harder than what they seem, since the whole approach to them is completely wrong. Perhaps the approach is wrong for historical reasons, or due to some misunderstanding. Once you realize what the problem really is, the solution is straightforward.

With spacefaring, the problem is launch rate – a low one prevents RLV:s. Everything else is just small rational steps.

Korea, Japan or Russia would probably be sending postcards from Europa or Enceladus now if they had sustained HSF budgets of $4B a year over a past few decades.

This was so good I just thought that it should be repeated. Just about spewed my water on that one.

Hey, a Singapore flagged EML-1 transfer station complemented with RLLs could help facilitate that result.

This was so good I just thought that it should be repeated. Just about spewed my water on that one.

First off, this was the preliminary version of the chart, and after it was presented they had some in-depth discussions which led to many of the numbers being changed. Also, the definition of “sustainable” was a little funny, having to do a lot more with the likelihood of it getting initial congressional support, rather than economic sustainability. I think Jeff Greason made a comment about how it shouldn’t really be described as sustainability, because if you overcome the initial congressional resistance to transformation, it doesn’t become something you have to worry about in the long term. The economic sustainability aspect probably falls more under the “economic expansion” criterion.