Planetary Chauvanism, and Zubrin-ites

From: Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]

> > One of the more frequent posters to the threads stated that Mars is
> more popular, and expressed the opinion this single fact overrides
> all other considerations.

Mars is not anywhere near as popular as space tourism.

I think the poster I was speaking of meant "popular" in the sense that there
have been several big-budget movies (and even more made-for-TV movies) on
the subject of missions to Mars, but I can only think of one Outer Limits
episode on the subject of space tourism. And there are coffee table books
on Mars, but not on space tourism.

But granted, Joe Average would place the odds of someday buying a ticket to
LEO much higher than being on a government-funded expedition to Mars, and
thus would probably have more interest in tourism.

What this poster was basically saying was that if you placed all of Gerard
O'Neill's books, all of T. A. Heppenheimer's books, and all other books on
orbital habitat themes in one pile, and all the popular books about Mars in
another stack, the Mars stack would outweigh the High Frontier stack several
times over. I freely granted that, but questioned if that was as suitable a
benchmark for determining our next steps in space as economical and
technical studies.

Space tourist
hotels would be a very nice first step towards colonies. Actually, if
some of the hotel staff like it enough to stay and have a kid or two, a
space hotel becomes a colony.

I must allow that space settlements may very well come about more in this
evolutionary way than in a revolutionary way.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From:
Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]
> > One of the more frequent posters to the threads stated that Mars is
> more popular, and expressed the opinion this single fact overrides
> all other considerations.
Mars is not anywhere near as popular as space tourism.

I think the poster I was speaking of meant "popular" in the sense that there have been several big-budget movies (and even more made-for-TV movies) on the subject of missions to Mars, but I can only think of one Outer Limits episode on the subject of space tourism. And there are coffee table books on Mars, but not on space tourism.

But granted, Joe Average would place the odds of someday buying a ticket to LEO much higher than being on a government-funded expedition to Mars, and thus would probably have more interest in tourism.

What this poster was basically saying was that if you placed all of Gerard O'Neill's books, all of T. A. Heppenheimer's books, and all other books on orbital habitat themes in one pile, and all the popular books about Mars in another stack, the Mars stack would outweigh the High Frontier stack several times over. I freely granted that, but questioned if that was as suitable a benchmark for determining our next steps in space as economical and technical studies.

Space tourist
hotels would be a very nice first step towards colonies. Actually, if
some of the hotel staff like it enough to stay and have a kid or two, a
space hotel becomes a colony.

I must allow that space settlements may very well come about more in this evolutionary way than in a revolutionary way.

Regards,
Mike Combs