More thoughts from Mr. Papadopoulos. I don’t have time for a detailed critique right now, but I find it amusing that he thinks Neil Tyson is a reliable source about the history of exploration:
“In the history of civilisation, private enterprise has never led a) large, b) expensive, c) dangerous projects, with unknown risks,” said astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, during a talk for Big Think. “That has never happened.”
That is just nonsense on stilts, based on apparently a grade-school understanding. Columbus himself had already raised half the money privately. Cabot’s expedition was privately funded, based on a patent from Henry VII. Hudson’s expeditions were funded by British merchants who were seeking the Northwest Passage. The mouth of the Columbia was discovered by a seal trader. The vast majority of exploration of the Americas and the West was privately funded.
For those who have been waiting for an electronic version, it is now available at Google Play, currently priced at about eight bucks. For those who don’t do Google, I’ll be getting it up for Nook and Kindle (and possible iTunes) as well in the next few days.
To the degree that people have learned the false lesson from it that we cannot go beyond low earth orbit without building giant rockets, it was a setback.
Hey, Chairman Palazzo. It was George Bush, not Barack Obama, who made us dependent on Russia for access to ISS. And it’s your unwillingness to properly fund the “costly and complex distraction” of commercial crew that keeps us that way. But don’t let reality get in the way of your pork.
Dennis Wingo has the 2014 edition. Long but worth a read. I disagree with him on the first flight for commercial crew. I think it may happen as soon as next year.