Space development investment ( StarBound)

> [major snippage] 4. A plausible story
> Along with the business context, it seems we have gone a long time
without an overall picture of future space development. The High
Frontier was written in a time when the government-run Shuttle was the
promised low-cost system. Without a sense of a space development
future history, we have NASA's standard story of 'Leave it up to us,
and someday, in a couple hundred years, others can fly..' or you have
the Mars Society with 'spend a few billion on us, so we can settle
Mars'.
>
> We don't seem to have anyone presenting future scenarios that put
all these different activities in a broader context. Reporters or
authors who write about the future of space development can describe
lots of ideas for space activities, but it is hard to know what might
happen soon and what may take a while. I think the lack of this simple
conceptual 'story' provides another barrier that keeps other groups
from taking space development seriously. [snip]<

I hate to do anything that sounds like a plug, but if it's a /story/
you want, The Millennial Project by Marshall Savage has one that ties
all the pieces together and gives them a mythic aspect. (There are
some major technical flaws; Entering Space by Robert Zubrin is much
better in that respect, but lacks the mythic aspect.) I wanted to let
you know in case you truly are looking. [Disclosure: I am a member of
the Living Universe Foundation, so my opinion on this matter is
definitely biased.]

--JohnWheeler