The “money” is not “available” — we are spending money that we don’t have hand over fist, by printing it. Meanwhile, a $17 trillion (and rising) national debt will ultimately bankrupt our country. Even if you confiscated all of the privately held wealth in this country, you could not pay your way out of the mess we’re in.

I happen to believe that a case can be made for it to be in the national interest to have a civil space program. But your analysis simply does not hold water. Enough of this redistributionist nonsense.-

I think we past, going to be bankrupt. We are bankrupt.
If mean we not going to tax our way out of this crisis. That is obviously true. It’s as false as idea that ObamaCare is going to save US healthcare.
The only way to get out of the situation of having the nation bankrupt
is to encourage economic growth.
Which good news, if you are space cadet. Because one can increase nation economic growth via opening the space frontier.
But let’s put the possible economic growth due utilization of space environment to the side. There lots of other ways to cause economic
growth. It is not difficult to cause our nation to have economic growth,
the question is it economic growth a priority. At the moment, obviously
it is not priority. Some like Obama don’t even want the US to have much economic growth- due to sick idea that it creates global inequality.

But as you say we going bankrupt, which what you mean is US is going to hit a wall or find in a swamp with no apparent way out. And I think instead, we reach pain threshold, which will cause the public to change their priorities. Unfortunately a lot damage can occur before it becomes apparent to the ruling class- before they start to feel the pain- which will only be transmitted by the class which being ruled. Washington DC is currently a boom town- they are in bubble of everything is going great.

But as I said the space environment is obviously one path to economic growth- though it’s a slow path. But public could be convinced it is path to growth, and public can have some patience with this slow path, as along as more immediate paths of economic growth are included.

The “money” is not “available” — we are spending money that we don’t have hand over fist, by printing it. Meanwhile, a $17 trillion (and rising) national debt will ultimately bankrupt our country. Even if you confiscated all of the privately held wealth in this country, you could not pay your way out of the mess we’re in.

I happen to believe that a case can be made for it to be in the national interest to have a civil space program. But your analysis simply does not hold water. Enough of this redistributionist nonsense.

Great spaceref article from 2010.

The horrific cost of spaceflight seems to be the salient point of contention. This myth that space is too expensive has been promulgated for decades and is more a political tool of manipulation than fact. The counterpoint to the cost of space exploration is the cost of defense which has a cloak of patriotic invisibility around it that precludes any comparison.

The 150 mt HLV is the sine qua non. I always try to mention the fact the Saturn V was built just big enough to get to the Moon and if not for an engineer named Houbolt we may have went with a much larger vehicle called Nova.

To build the habitats and industrial infrastructure necessary for first self-sufficiency and then manufacturing, a large one way cargo lander and at least monthly or bi-monthly launches would be the very minimum needed. Constellation suffered from budget limitations which made such a minimum effort impossible. Considering the funds required, for those who are outraged and express unending shock and dismay at how much money NASA wastes, there can never be any worthwhile space space program. Thus the short-sighted proposal.

The reality is the money is available and will be spent on something. What it gets spent on has more to do with profit than what benefits the U.S. and the entire planet. The promise of space does not include promises of reelection or higher quarterly earnings- it only promises risk.

I should point out that developing the technology for bases on the Moon and Mars will enable us to eventually establish ourselves in other solar systems, since there is no guarantee that we will quickly find habitable planets nearby. We will need to be a space-based civilization with space-based industry first before we can even attempt interstellar flight.

If I thought Mars was a good destination I would agree with you Marcel. IMO the main problems are too much gravity and not enough solar energy.

On low gravity bodies like the icy moons of the gas giants (and Ceres) it is not only far easier to land and take-off, it is also easier to construct underground circular “sleeper trains” that furnish one gravity. While there is no solar energy in the outer system there is thorium on the Moon and yes, this could be exported in the form of reactors.

So for these off world colonies located on natural bodies I would say the two prominent features would be tunneling machines and the torus habitats in the tunnels which would provide radiation shielding and one gravity. The tunneling machines are a big problem- they are massive. The alternative is using nuclear devices to excavate chambers but while you do not need a tunneling machine this concept has it’s own set of problems.

The one advantage Mars has is an atmosphere to use for Aerobraking. I do not think it is worth the trouble since the gas giants (except for Jupiter with it’s radiation hazards) can be used for braking also.

While that’s true for a microgravity environment, we currently don’t know if that’s also true for the hypogravity environments of the Moon or Mars. But we could quickly find out if we had a permanent outpost on the lunar surface.

Humans and other animals living at a lunar outpost just a year or two should quickly tell us if the Moon’s low gravity is inherently deleterious to human health. Having some mammals living and– reproducing– on the lunar surface for several years would also be of interest.

Finding out if humans and other animals can live and reproduce on lower gravity worlds without any deleterious effects is obviously of great interest for those in the private sector who dream of future human colonies on the Moon and Mars.

Marcel

A big project to be sure, but is there really anything that is so bizarre and unbelievable about this scheme to transmit power across distances without wire?

But to me the idea of a space elevator, even a lunar space elevator, is completely bizarre and impractical and I sense it poisons the well. I am seriously talking about a mega-project that I believe would make the world a much better place. Such mocking is not all in good fun.

But if some day I am proven wrong what an interesting universe it is.

Also, a lunar space elevator could be built with currently available materials like Kevlar.

Good grief, man! Who said anything about exterminating the poor? My comments referred to the economic growth that resulted from America’s space program and the resulting explosion of new technologies (and new jobs) in ceramics, metallurgy, cybernetics, etc. There have been thousands of productive spin-offs from our space program — which is why nations like China and India are now emulating America’s success.

As for the poor …

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Too many welfare and entitlement programs keep people in poverty — generation after generation. They add nothing to economic growth or social progress. The best social welfare program is a productive job, not a government hand out.

As Ronald Reagan said, “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”

That doesn’t mean that I’m not in favor of helping those who can’t help themselves. Helping the truly needy was a concept instilled in me as a boy by my parents and by my church.

But as someone who has volunteered countless hours mentoring young people over the years, I can tell you that there is no greater satisfaction than seeing a person make good use of his or her God-given talents and abilities — no matter how humble or modest they might be. You cannot replace the sense of pride one derives from a job well done with a welfare check.