“I’ve decided to launch an effort through my Share Space Foundation….Share Space Stakes! A sweepstakes or raffle. Proceeds benefit space related and scientific and educational goals. Donations open possibility of winning prizes. Starting with parabolic flights. Expanding to suborbital flights.
“Soyuz costs…millions of dollars…. The cost could be paid for by hundreds of thousands of people donating $50.
“We have not yet developed the rules, but it will be posted on our Share Space web site. Share Space Stakes is scheduled to be launched this year.
“Winners will have to be 18, satisfy certain health restrictions. This will be non-transferable.
“Space travel is poised to go from the few to the many. I hope to play a role with Share Space Foundation…. Who knows who will be one of the lucky winners about to take their own space adventure.”
Art Dula speaking at the Space Investment Summit in Manhattan today called for Congress to reform the Outer Space Treaty to cap the unlimited liability that signatory countries have for their nationals’ space accidents. “They don’t have this for oil tankers or airplanes.”
[Update by Rand Simberg]
One of the reasons they don’t have it for airplanes is the Warsaw Convention. Did he propose extending that to space?
[Update by Sam Dinkin]
He proposed getting an act of Congress passed to unilaterally limit the US federal government liability.
I feel your pain, Clark. You’ve done yeoman’s work in keeping us all informed on space stuff. The rest of us will just have to try to pick up the pace so that you can take a well-earned break, or at least, easing off.
And I agree with the commenters that we have to figure out a way to make this more remunerative for him.
Karl Gallagher as some thoughts on how too many requirements can kill a program. This happened to both Shuttle and station.
Unfortunately, because the way NASA has traditionally done things is so expensive, the assumption is made that they can only afford one of them (a National Space Transportation System, a national space station). That means that multiple requirements (often, or usually, conflicting) tend to get laid on them, to satisfy all of the political constituencies. The program as a result bloats, and becomes very expensive (in time and money), making the original assumption a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Clark Lindsey has an interesting post on the prospects, now that people more responsive than NASA are going to offer research opportunities. I’ve always been a skeptic on it, and thought it vastly overhyped, particularly with regard to how it was used to sell the space station, but at least now, it will get a fair shot. And I agree with how he opens the piece:
One of the unfortunate tendencies of NASA is for the agency to implement a good idea in a bad way and thereby discredit that idea. Prime examples include RLVs and space tethers.
Yes, when people ask what harm it is to have NASA doing its own thing, and to just ignore it while we do ours, this is the answer. Few people really understand how much damage NASA has done over the decades in this manner. X-33 by itself probably set back the cause of low-cost spaceflight by over a decade, and we’re only just starting to recover from that debacle, with the Air Force finally starting to take space transports seriously again, even if NASA continues to refuse to do so.
I haven’t said anything about Representative Calvert’s proposal to allow NASA to accept ads on its hardware to raise money for prizes, but there’s a good discussion of it at Space Politics. I have to say that I agree with “anonymous”‘s take on it:
At this very early stage of market development, the pool of private sector dollars for any space advertising and sponsorship is going to be extremely limited. And unlike, say, a more mature market like NASCAR racing, space activities simply don
Until Yuri’s night. It will also be the twenty-sixth anniversary of the first Shuttle launch. Unfortunately for me, it looks like the only Florida party is in Cocoa Beach–nothing in south Florida. Or maybe it’s actually not so unfortunate, since I’m not that big on dance parties.
Oh, and if you’re into virtual celebrations, and are a resident there, there will be one in Second Life as well. I might show up to that one, but I’ll remove my avatar’s legs, so I’ll have an excuse. I’ll also turn down the volume on the dance music, which is a nice feature in Second Life that Real Life doesn’t yet offer, short of earplugs.
My optimism about the long-term survival of life comes mainly from imagining what will happen when life escapes from this planet and becomes adapted to living in vacuum. There is then no real barrier to stop life from spreading through the universe. Hopping from one world to another will be about as easy as hopping from one island in the Pacific to another. And then life will diversify to fill the infinite variety of ecological niches in the universe, as it has done already on this planet.
If you want an intellectual principle to give this picture a philosophical name, you can call it “The Principle of Maximum Diversity.” The principle of maximum diversity says that life evolves to make the universe as interesting as possible. A rain-forest contains a huge number of diverse species because specialization is cost-effective, just as Adam Smith observed in human societies. But I am impressed more by the visible examples of diversity in rain-forests and coral-reefs and human cultures than by any abstract philosophical principles.
I agree. This is one of my fundamental religious beliefs.