Smells Like Teen Spirit

On Friday, May 16, 2003, at 04:04 PM, Ryan Z wrote:

> As for Russian launchers, yes they are cheaper then
> American counterparts.

Remember that much of the expense of launch is paying for first-class
engineers and technicians and their support staff (including
management). Such folk are far cheaper in today's Russia than in the US
or Europe.

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.