why outer space?

Actually, most of NASA's budget goes to the human space flight program.
The science return for human space flight is really not very good. No
Nobel Prizes, few if any papers in Nature and Science. The real,
underlying reason for the ISS and shuttle are, I believe, the same urges
that drive space colonization.

"Combs, Mike" wrote:

> It might not justify using tax payer money for it, but it
> might
> justify the private exploration and colonization of space.
>
> Yeah, that's the rub. The problem is there aren't enough people in
> the whole world sufficiently passionate about this proposition to
> raise the money needed. So I hope for a profitable business plan
> which incidentally works to further space settlement, so that people
> with no particular passion for settling space will still put up money
> simply in the hopes of eventual profit.
>

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 2020
goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need
to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid
are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500
times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space
colonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their
colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.