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Some additional thoughts.There are 4 billionaires spending a lot of private money in contradiction to your judgement on the value of their activities. Musk in particular is betting that launch cost is key to opening space and that space transport design can follow traditional architectures used for airlines. Bezos is taking a similar but slower path although he is at the lead for suborbital space tourism. Bigelow is betting there is a big future for orbital space tourism and Branson agrees but like Bezos is starting with suborbital flights.In contrast, I don't expect any billionaire will see a compelling case to self finance the Hercules lander. That project will rely on bureaucratic impetus and taxpayer funding. As with the SLS, I would oppose it and for similar reasons.I did not address the issue of how government has shaped (restricted) space development in my previous post. Space had been a reserve of government other than the communications business. No entrepreneur (or corporate aerospace) would step forward to provide an alternative. In this environment, bureaucracy was king and defined the limits of acceptability. 40 years of stagnation, escalating launch costs and diminished expectations have been the result. Musk et al are not doing anything startling or new. They are simply doing (at far less cost) what could have been years ago albeit in a manner no bureaucracy would tolerate.
Some additional thoughts.
There are 4 billionaires spending a lot of private money in contradiction to your judgement on the value of their activities. Musk in particular is betting that launch cost is key to opening space and that space transport design can follow traditional architectures used for airlines. Bezos is taking a similar but slower path although he is at the lead for suborbital space tourism. Bigelow is betting there is a big future for orbital space tourism and Branson agrees but like Bezos is starting with suborbital flights.
In contrast, I don't expect any billionaire will see a compelling case to self finance the Hercules lander. That project will rely on bureaucratic impetus and taxpayer funding. As with the SLS, I would oppose it and for similar reasons.
I did not address the issue of how government has shaped (restricted) space development in my previous post. Space had been a reserve of government other than the communications business. No entrepreneur (or corporate aerospace) would step forward to provide an alternative. In this environment, bureaucracy was king and defined the limits of acceptability. 40 years of stagnation, escalating launch costs and diminished expectations have been the result. Musk et al are not doing anything startling or new. They are simply doing (at far less cost) what could have been years ago albeit in a manner no bureaucracy would tolerate.
