[FPSPACE] Virgin Galactic - Beyond Space Tourism[Scanned by MAIL]

[Matula, Thomas L.]

Hi David,

Actually I was writing on it and issues related to it over a decade ago. Below are some references.

Matula, Thomas L. and Eric R. Pratt (1996),"A Proactive Approach to Building Public Support for Commercial Spaceports" in Proceedings of the First Conference on the Commercial Development of Space, 1996 Space Technology and Applications International Forum, Albuquerque, NM: American Institute of Physics.

Matula, Thomas L., and Darryl J. Mitry (2000), "Public Attitudes Toward Overland Rocket Flight," in the Proceedings of Space 2000: The 7th International Conference on Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space, Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 27 - March 2, 2000.

I also did a study for it as part of the orginal feasibility study for the New Mexico Spaceport.

Contributor, 1995: "Southwest Regional Spaceport: Technical Feasibility Report and Strategic Development" published by the Physical Science Laboratory, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces NM, March 1995.

So its not a new topic to me. Actually the old NASA CSTS Study in 1994 had one of the best economic write-ups on it. 

What is new is alt.space/New space firms being willing to pay NASA for research instead of having their hand out for money (i.e COTS). Also new is that they are only now focusing on Earth based markets in place of the orbital ones they have been locked on. That is also a sign of hope.

Tom





-----Original Message-----
From: fpspace-bounces at friends-partners.org on behalf of David Anderman
Sent: Tue 3/20/2007 9:14 PM
To: FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Virgin Galactic - Beyond Space Tourism[Scanned by MAIL]
 
Dr. Matula,

Its great to see that you have discovered space 
point-to-point transportation as a likely 
market.  Anyone who believes that there is a 
single Killer App for space (apart from those 
investing in such apps) is probably experiencing 
tunnel vision.  There are many paths for free 
markets to lead us to the day that space 
transportation will be commonplace.  Anyone 
trying to plan that web of paths is bound to fail, however.

DWA


At 06:52 PM 3/20/2007, Matula, Thomas L. wrote:
>But the long-term goal-going from A to B-is 
>probably where the larger market is," he added.]]]

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