Let's Play Politics

Mark,

I'm writing a proposal on reducing the cost of space access. I can
rearrange it to make it into a report or a presentation that you could
use, however, it will only have details on one particular method. I
don't know much about solar power satellite construction, but I would
be willing to go through the large amount of information that's already
available, including cost estimates, and combine it with the
presentation and/or report.

Maybe someone else on this list could volunteer to put together
summaries of competing plans, e.g. the mars landing? I don't know
anything about it and don't really care to. (If no one volunteers, I
might be able to conscript someone that I know.)

I can also provide a portable electromagnetic launch demonstration if
you think that it would help. We have political visitors to our lab
fairly frequently - yesterday we had people from the British Embassy,
including the Counsellor of Global Issues and coordinator of the UK's
Science and Technology network across the U.S. - and they usually seem
to enjoy seeing the demo quite a bit.

Assuming that we produce a report, do you think that cost numbers
coming from SSI are sufficient to make a credible case to the
congresspeople that you know, or should we try to have the report
endorsed by another organization?

Phil Putman
Research Assistant Professor
Texas Center for Superconductivity and
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-4006
713-743-9481
pputman@...
http://homepage.mac.com/pputman/