Category Archives: Technology and Society

Good Night, Moonshot

Matt Welch has some thoughts on the mission creep of the “If we can put a man on the moon” analogy. It’s also an introduction to this month’s issue of Reason magazine, which is focused on space. It’s on the stands and in the mail now, and other pieces in it, including my own, and contributions from Greg Benford and Bob Zubrin, will be going on line over the next couple weeks.

[Update a while later]

I have some related thoughts over at Open Market.

One-Way Trips To Mars?

It’s actually the only way that makes sense right now:

The hard part, he says, isn’t subsisting in a hostile environment millions of miles from home but changing the Space Shuttle-era culture of timidity.

It would be easier to just ignore NASA than to change it. I’m working on an issue paper on risk aversion and reward, and how we have to stop fretting so much over killing people if we want to open up space.