As I point out in the book, one of the reasons space policy is such a mess is because we don’t have a national consensus on that question.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Space Mining
A good overview of the companies going after lunar and asteroidal resources. Expect to hear a lot more nonsense like this as the industry evolves, though:
Space exploration researcher Alice Gorman is based at Flinders University, Australia, and is an internationally recognised leader in the emerging field of space archaeology. Passionate about space, she believes both industry and academia underestimate the emotional investment people have in the night sky.
‘There is the view that it’s just unethical to destroy another celestial body… but then [people] also question if it is right for a profit-making company to make massive profits from this,’ she says. ‘Nobody doubts the investment will be monumental and some argue that those willing to take these risks deserve all the rewards as this isn’t for the faint-hearted.’
But, as Gorman also highlights, the world already has unequal distributions of wealth and some wonder if space-based industries could drive these disparities further apart. As she asks, could Earth one day comprise a terrestrial-based underclass looking up at the off-world wealthy.
We wasted six bucks Saturday night to watch Elysium on pay per view. It’s based on the same stupid socialistic fantasy premise.
The Diane Rehm Space Discussion
Marcia Smith has a good summary. This amused me:
Rehm exclaimed that she didn’t understand what Gold meant because the “language you’re using” sounds “proprietary” and one cannot own the Moon. Gold began answering, but apparently the show ran out of time for that segment (music began playing) and he was not able to fully respond. Rehm said it “sounds confusing to me,” and cut him off.
Diane Rehm always strikes me as someone who is easily confused. I’ve never understood her popularity, except that a lot of Beltway denizens share her propensity for confusion.
[Update a while later]
Monumental willful ignorance from Mark Whittington:
The cancellation of the SLS, unlikely in the current political climate, would mean the end of any hope of sending American astronauts beyond low Earth orbit for the foreseeable future.
If you can’t see beyond the next five years, perhaps. It’s the lack of propellant storage and transfer technologies, and landers, that is keeping bound to LEO, not lack of heavy life. Money wasted on SLS is trapping us there.
Expect him to show up shortly with his standard, foolish, “But you provide no alternative,” despite the fact that he’s been shown alternatives many times. We can explain it to you, Mark, but we can’t understand it for you.
Michael Belfiore’s Review
He’s got (rave) a review of the book, over at his web site.
A New 3-D Printing Kickstarter
I’d been meaning to mention this — Ben Reytblat has an interesting Kickstarter going. He’s already met his goal, but you might still want to get in to it.
The First 3-D Printed Liver
I’ll certainly drink to that.
Parachutes
Why commercial jetliners don’t have them.
I discuss this in the book. Many safety measures proposed for new space vehicles may be similarly pointless. Certainly the Shuttle “rescue pole” was. It was just for PR.
Israel On The Moon
Could they win the Google Lunar Prize?
All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
We’re Better Off Now
And we’ll be much better off in the future. At least technologically.
The Future Of Electric Cars
Another green (and Obama) fantasy, goes up in smoke. I do think there will be a huge move toward natural-gas vehicles, though, with the new cheap supplies from fracking.
[Update on Sunday]
Funny thing. Electric cars depreciate much faster than conventional ones. Huh.