Can't all space nerds get along?

On Aug 13, 2007, at 16:09 UTC, Xenophile wrote:

> Aviation didn't get popular until it got safer. We've been in the
> "more explosions" phase for forty years and more.

Agreed, but why? I think it's mainly because spacecraft have only been
done by large government programs. Aviation didn't develop that way;
NACA was a technology enabler, not an agency to "do" air travel for all
the country's needs. NASA has been just the opposite. Only now is
that changing, with a lot of serious commercial enterprises making a go
of it on their own. The key thing is to not over-regulate this nascent
industry, but to allow it to experiment and make mistakes. That's the
only way towards progress.

And these companies know that safety is crucial to their business;
they'll be doing everything they can to protect their passengers. We
don't need the government dictating exactly how they do that, or making
space travel in general so expensive and difficult (legally) that only
huge dinosaurs can afford to even try.

> I'm wanting to get basic to-orbit spaceflight out of the pioneering
> phase and into the rich jet-setters phase (actually, I want it in the
> mass-market phase, but accept that you probably can't jump from
> pioneering to mass-market in one step).

Well, sure, me too. But I think we still have quite a ways to go
before we get there, with lots of different things to try. By the end
of the 21st century, early 21st-century launch concepts will look as
quaint as many early aviation concepts do to our eyes.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...
Strout Custom Solutions, LLC