The danger of coal - need SPS

[some examples from early in the last century, and]
> Government did not lay out the groundwork for space either: that was
> Goddard and Tsiolkovsky and von Braun.

By lay groundwork I'm not referring to initial invention, but funding
sufficient to bring an invention to practical widespread use through,
generally, private R&D. Just because you've come up with a great
invention doesn't mean it's ready for prime time. Since WWII government
technology funding, mostly federal, has been key to bringing jet
propulsion, computing, the internet, a wide variety of medical
technologies, etc. out of the lab and into widespread practical use.
That's what I was referring to.

>
> And today the guys laying the groundwork for space are not named
> Bush or Cheney or O'Keefe or Kerry: they are named Musk and Bezos
> and Rutan and Carmack.

But Musk is likely to find one major market in federal Dept. of Defense
contracts; the others are, despite valiant efforts, not exactly
speeding ahead in the technology arena - what they're doing is great,
but cheap suborbital flight is not quite what we're looking for to open
up space. Maybe the NASA centennial challenge money will help go
further there.

Honestly, $50 million or whatever the X prize people are spending is
not a lot of money. The last generation of CATS (orbital vehicle)
people failed at a larger scale - several hundred million dollars spent
- why couldn't we keep that spending up until they succeeded? At least
Elon Musk is shooting for orbit from the start. Maybe Bezos is too,
haven't heard much about his project.

Arthur