From Henry Spencer, over at sci.space.policy:

…as Jordin Kare noted a while back, the elevator people say they could give us launch cost of a few hundred a kilogram for a ten-billion investment… but there are plenty of rocket people who think they could match or beat that launch-cost number with a lot less up-front money. “They aren’t Boeing, but neither are you.”

And the nanotube materials that the elevator people need will do wonders for rocket structure, well before they’re good enough for elevators.

This post made me wonder–since so many people seem to prefer aisle seats, do they even care if window seats, or windows, exist? I’d be very uncomfortable sitting in a windowless aluminum tube going hundreds of miles per hour through the air, but I notice that many people in airplanes don’t look out the window at all.

I wouldn’t fly in an aircraft in which I couldn’t see out a window, at least somewhere (even if I had to walk forward in a cargo plane to find one). How many people out there are indifferent?

And on the subject of space, one of the costs of designing a passenger spacecraft is exactly this–the need to put in windows, which increase structural weight. This isn’t just because the view is a large part of the experience–I suspect that many space passengers would be just as psychologically uncomfortable in a windowless space transport as they would in a windowless aircraft.

Oh, one more thing. It’s very hard to get me into a glass elevator–there, I insist on not knowing what’s outside. The difference is that one is a vehicle, and the other is part of a structure (I’m acrophobic).

[Update on Wednesday evening]

Just to clarify, I’m not asking which seat people prefer. I’m asking how important it is that the airplane has windows, regardless of whether or not you sit next to them.

Phil Bowermaster is running an interesting poll. So far, my vote (for a private developer) is in the plurality. I’m kind of surprised that “Russia” isn’t an option.

And Stephen Gordon describes exciting advances in cancer therapy, improving the chances of many of us to visit or live on a lunar settlement, even if it takes longer than we hope.