Becoming a multi-planet species

elaurens.cox@... [spacesettlers] wrote:

> Why aren't we, publicly, is space yet,
> building the sorts of settlements that have been discussed here for
> years, mining the asteroids, etc, etc? Do technical and financial
> limitations really explain this huge gap that exists in the history of
> public space exploration? We were heading in that direction, then seemed
> to stop. Why? I think I know why. Who else thinks they understand this well?

I do.

There's no particular mystery to it: Apollo was an aberration, rushing
us to the Moon well before we were ready. Have you *seen* 1960s
technology? It was a really remarkable achievement, decades ahead of
its time, because it was a proxy for the Cold War.

Rushing it led to a number of missteps, particularly the
characterization of space as "hard" and something only government
agencies can do. Yet at the same time, the government agency by that
time was a huge bureaucracy, which existed mainly to funnel federal
dollars into certain congressional districts. It did this very well for
decades. Those who imagined the purpose of NASA was to advance space
colonization were missing the point. And technology was not yet
advanced enough for commercial entities to bypass NASA and do it
themselves. (It's just reached that point now -- something like the
SpaceX and Blue Origin landing rockets would not have been feasible even
a decade ago, I think.)

The bureaucracy still exists, and still primarily for the purpose of
spending large sums of money in key congressional districts (thus SLS).
But we're finally making real progress again anyway. The population
of people working and living in space will start climbing soon.

So we had a 50-year hiatus between first steps and real development. So
what? Columbus unwittingly discovered the Americas for Europe in 1492.
The first permanent European settlement was in 1565. That's over 70
years later. 500 years from now, most people won't realize there was a
pause between Neil Armstrong and the first extraterrestrial colony,
either. It only *feels* like a long pause to us because we happen to be
living in it.

Best,
- Joe

P.S. I'd like to suggest that maybe this group isn't the right place for
alien conspiracy theories. Surely there are other communities on the
net that would be more receptive.