That’s quite a hed and URL of this NYT story about private space facilities. I don’t know why it would require fifteen weeks of training, though. I think that’s more likely to put wealthy people off than the price tag.
Some advice from Scott Hubbard. But here is the problem:
…the new administrator must provide NASA and the rest of the world much more clarity on the brief statement issued by Vice President Pence and the newly revived Space Council that the United States will “lead the return of humans to the Moon.” Studies of the future of human space exploration have for decades emphasized that Mars is the target of greatest interest for reasons of science and exploration.1–4 The last initiative that attempted to include both human landings on the Moon and eventually Mars, the so-called Constellation program, collapsed from its own budgetary (over) weight.
Two points: First, the assumption that human spaceflight is about “science and exploration.” I’ve written about this error at length. Second is the notion that Constellation collapsed because it was attempting to do both the Mars and moon. It wasn’t seriously trying to do either. NASA wasn’t seriously trying to do either.
Georg von Tiesenhausen died on Sunday, at the age of 104. He was the last of von Braun’s rocket team. Amazing that he lived so long after what he went through in his youth.
I agree that it’s probably the best we can do under current political circumstances, but if that’s the case, we should stop wasting taxpayer money on human spaceflight.