In response to my previous post citing Orson Scott Card’s Star Trek critique, Tobias Buckell takes issue with my comment (and Jim Oberg’s concurrence) about Trekkers’ interest in space:

Boy, I’d have to quibble with that. I recall ST folk being excited enough to beg NASA to rename the first shuttle Enterprise. That hardly smacks of ‘not being interested in space activities.’

This little episode, dating back to the late 1970s, actually makes my point, not his. OV-101, the test article for the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), was originally supposed to be called the Constitution, but the Star Trek fans were mobilized to rename it the Enterprise, despite the fact that it would never actually fly in space. Many (including me) attempted to make them aware of this, but they didn’t seem to care, and pressed on regardless.

It was kind of a drive-by interest, and whether or not the vehicle they were attempting to rename would actually be a space vehicle seemed to be of much less importance to them than that it be named after the Enterprise. If they thought that they could have pulled it off, they’d have probably signed a petition and sent in letters demanding that the astronaut uniforms be bell bottoms with boots, a la STTOS. If Mr. Buckell has any other data to indicate interest by Trekkers in space, or reality, I’d be interested to hear it, because this sure isn’t it.

Here’s more description of last weekend’s Space Access Conference with pictures (albeit insufficiently lit ones). There doesn’t seem to be very good navigation to previous posts, but if you’re checking this out in the future, check the later April and early May archives.

The most interesting talk at Space Access was a fill-in that was not blogged by Rand, but was by Clark Lindsey:

a CEV concept [was presented] that Boeing is investigating that involves commercial delivery of fuel to orbiting depots. This so-called “dry launch” approach would mean that vehicles for in-space and lunar transport could be launched without fuel and so, being lighter, they would not need new heavy lifters. This would open a great opportunity for the new launch companies to provide fuel to the depots.

It involves an alternative concept (see page 32) from Boeing. The idea is to launch the lunar transfer vehicle dry and provide commercial propellant delivery. This could result in thousands of metric tons of fuel needing to be delivered to LEO. This might bootstrap the commercial launch industry. There are also opportunities for “the last mile” because some launcher companies will not want to have to figure out how to dock with a fuel depot.

1000 metric tons of fuel would be a cool $3 billion unless someone can undercut Elon Musk. 9000 metric tons through 2030 would be $27 billion at current prices, but would likely spur a tech drive and a bidding war to compete prices down to $1000/kg or less.