New short story

Oh, of course I should have been saying Elon Musk, not Jeff Bezos, when discussing Starship.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2019 9:05 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] [spacesettlers] Re: New short story

Are you saying that from the point of view of, Gee, if only we could have?

I know one aspect of the plot of my story might imply to some that Im of the opinion that international cooperation yields more rapid progress than competition.

But Im really more of the opinion that we humans are at our best when were in competition with each other. And I think the moon race (as it actually played out in our reality) is a perfect example.

The ISS was an example of space feat as an exercise in international cooperation. And without denigrating the accomplishment, I dont think ISS ever soared quite as highly as Apollo. (And I mean metaphorically, nor orbitally!) Certainly Apollo moved forward at a much more rapid pace in comparison to ISS assembly. With the latter, delays on one side delayed the entire project, not just one side.

And look at Jeff Bezos effort in regard to Starship. He has two separate teams (one in Texas, one in Florida) working competitively on two different versions of the vehicle. Now surely thats more expensive than one team-one project. But who can doubt that, spurred on by the accomplishments of the competing team, each team will give their very best effort? Im sure it will pay off for Bezos in more rapid progress and higher levels of accomplishment.

Regards,
Mike Combs

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 8:29 PM
To: 'Combs, Mike' mikecombs@... [spacesettlers]
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] [spacesettlers] Re: New short story

On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 08:44:28PM +0000, 'Combs, Mike' mikecombs@... [spacesettlers] wrote:
> Yeah, probably without spoiling it, I can say I was inspired by something mentioned in one of the many Apollo documentaries I watched recently. A fact of space history so obscure that most dont know, and I think I only ever heard once before.

Yeah, I recently read about that fact too. Though I took the
opposite view :)

Posted by: destructionator@...