food for thought.

Sorry Robin, I don't see a connection.

The original purpose of the Space Studies Institute was to do research
to promote colonization of space. Solar Power Satellites (consumed a
lot of early SSI research) were and may still be a possible commercial
bootstrap method for getting there but not the only possible path to
achieve colonization. Methods for achieving human colonization of space
are not restricted to commercial. We would all like to see more
commercial space activity because it tends to be more efficient thereby
lowering cost barriers. But it could be just as possible to achieve
space colonization solely through government financing as it might be to
achieve bootstrapping to space colonization through commercial activity.

It has become fairly obvious in the last decade that technology and
capital availability has advanced far enough that commercial space
companies could exist and are trying to exist. And therefore NASA
should be slowly stepping back from that activity. It would have been
silly to try to do commercial for the Apollo missions and in a few years
it will seem silly for any government to be building their own space
transportation systems except for military use.

However the transition to commercial space transport does nothing for
space colonization. There still does not exist a commercial reason to
bootstrap to space colonization. SPS's if built now will probably be
built using remote controlled robotics. Something that would have been
impossible in the time frame that O'Neil was promoting. Nor does there
exist a overwhelming popular reason for space colonization. I am fairly
certain that space colonization will never make the top 50 things that
voters are concerned about.

The reason that I support SSI is that at some point technology and
capital availability will reach a point where small groups of interested
people will be able to move forward without regard to government or
commercial interests and achieve space colonization. SSI's role as a
catalyst and instigator of focused research can move that date closer.

Mitchell James