Answer to Ian Wollard

Of course I expect that (actually, I work for a NASA contractor). The issue at the time was net cash flow of the world's space program. The point was that it is negative -- which is ok. Eventually, itshould be extremely positive and our investment will be repaid millionsof times -- just like the government investment in the internet over decadesis now being repaid many times over.
Ian Woollard wrote:
Al Globus wrote:
> The government
> space program is definitely cash negative (lots of expenditure, very
> little income),
Um. Urrr. Excuse me; what did you expect them to do with your
tax money? Do you actually know of ANY government EVER that
made a profit? They don't have to make money, except for
the national mint of course, but that doesn't count ;-)
In fact NASA cannot make money. Any money they make goes
straight back into the government coffers. NASA cannot
grow, hence it will eventually die.
Another way to look at the same thing, the governments of
the world are investing in the future of this planet. Of
*course* they will make a loss in the short term.
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.
I think we should:
1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failurerate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels willneed to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.
2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroidare
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about500 times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand spacecolonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.
3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need theircolony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearbystars.
Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.