[FPSPACE] Re: Your Message 10. Re: Re: More on myopic Vision (DSFPortree@aol.com)of FPS...

[DSFPortree at aol.com]

Gopal:

One of the big problems of planning our future in space is that there appear 
to be so very many ways to do it. It's hard to settle on one vision. In the 
human exploration community, for example, there's a huge split between moon fans 
and Mars fans. That's macro-scale - even at the small scale, there are many 
alternatives with energetic proponents.

We're building the CEV the way we are because it appears that we can do it 
relatively cheaply. We've decided to go the Soyuz route. Time will tell whether 
NASA engineering culture can produce a cheap spaceship. 

If we've learned anything these past few decades, it's that building and 
operating reusable winged spaceships is expensive. Plus, we're coming off the 
Shuttle experience - I have a feeling that reusable winged vehicles are going to 
have an image problem for a while.

I've written here before about my skepticism re: commercial human 
spaceflight. I don't see that as a panacea for all our spaceflight woes. Sorry. I think 
human spaceflight is mostly about exploration. There's little else it has to 
offer for the foreseeable future that justifies its cost and risk.

Just call me conservative.

Thanks for the Bille, et al., citation. I'll look that up.

David

David S. F. Portree
author & educator
dsfportree at aol.com
Flagstaff Arizona USA

DSFP homepage
http://members.aol.com/dsfportree/dsfp.htm

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their 
spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their 
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are 
suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of 
enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must 
have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning 
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at 
stake."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts