Colonization of Space

On Feb 17, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Ed Minchau wrote:

> The advancements in computer technology lie in stark contrast to
> progress in space, with home coputers now equivalent to NASA's
> entire computing capacity in 1969. Computing cost has plummeted,
> but cost to orbit has stagnated. The discrepancy is impossible to
> ignore.

Information technology depends only on moving bits; which, in the
strict sense, have a mass of 0 or very close. Thus, there is a lot of
room for optimization. Getting a human into orbit involves
accelerating 70-80 kg to about 27,000 km/hour. Furthermore, the space
environment requires a lot of gear to keep the human alive so at least
a few hundred kg is needed, probably more. This leaves a bit less room
for optimization.

Also consider the number of trials. We have been able to make hundreds
of millions of computers. That provides many opportunities to learn.
There have only been a couple thousand orbital launches ever, the vast
majority by the USSR -- an organization that was completely immune to
any pressure from NASA.

>
> Slowly, the "space is hard and expensive, and only governments can
> do it" meme is dying out. However, it doesn't help that NASA's past
> business practices regarding competitors makes Microsoft look like
> corporate angels. Just ask the guys at Rotary Rocket.
>

Rotary Rocket, at least the rotary bit, could never have worked. It
was physical nonsense. Furthermore, many launch vehicles have been
developed in the last 40 years without NASA seeming to be able to stop
them. The Russians, Chinese, Europeans, India, and several US
companies have all developed successful launchers in the last few
decades. There was even a successful US startup company, Orbital
Sciences. They began a decade or two ago with nothing and now have a
corner on US small payload launches. NASA helped many, if not all, of
the US developers by providing test facilities, as NASA is currently
doing for X Prize participants. The notion that NASA has prevented the
private development of orbital launch is not supported by the facts.
On the other hand, NASA has failed repeatedly to improve on the
shuttle, a very capable but extremely costly vehicle.

We need much better launchers than we have. Bashing NASA is not likely
to help much. For an approach to orbital launch based on the X-Prize,
see the last section of http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/excerpts.html

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital 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.