For or Against . . .

On Wednesday, September 11, 2002, at 08:47 PM, Jack Reynolds wrote:

> But nobody can say for sure that space is even
> profitable because we haven't seen anyone make a profit from space yet,
> right?

Although the industry is having a bit of a hard time at the moment,
communication satellites are quite profitable and have been for
decades. There are also companies making money with Earth observing
satellites, and quite a few companies are (or at least were until the
recent downturn) making money on launch services.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr. Tito
going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html