The space program
Nat at "Bad Thoughts" takes a break from his well-argued international affairs coverage to provide this bon mot on the President's moonshot proposal:
Bush works on space program, gets dizzy from model glue
W00t! In other news, the new issue of the Economist features a story on Bush's space plan that discusses much of what Buckethead and the rest of us have been talking about this past week (part 1, part B, part III, etc.). We should feel good: their analysis mirrors ours, and as you know the Economist employs smart-type people.
The only head-scratcher in an otherwise balanced and thoughtful article is this: "One expensive lesson of the Shuttle programme is that trips into space are too infrequent to justify building a re-usable spacecraft." Huh? All the shuttle program has shown us is that government trips into space are infrequent and expensive, and much of that depends on the nature of the Shuttle itself.
Later in the piece, the Economist staffers note the X-Prize and tout the potential profitability of private manned space flight, and the greater dividends yielded by confining NASA to the unmanned sciency stuff. Yet they don't put two and two together to see the grandiose vision that the members of this weblog unanimously espouse. Does that mean they're wrong and we're right? Damn skippy, it do!
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They certainly missed the
They certainly missed the boat on the shuttle - trips are infrequent because the shuttle is expensive. This argument would have prevented the construction of railways, because there weren't enough people riding railroads. If you build it, they will come. Another thing that people tend to ignore is that a workable, relatively inexpensive to operate SSTO would also provide a means of extraordinarily fast point to point travel on Earth - if you can get into orbit, you can just as easily (more easily, in fact) get to the opposite side of the earth in 45 minutes. I think that FedEx and United Airlines might come up with some profitable ways to use that capability.
I wish Buckethead or someone
I wish Buckethead or someone as smart could put this space business into language I can readily understnad/digest. Like, where would giant fighting robots and ray guns fit into all this?
And yes I said, "understnad"
And yes I said, "understnad" and that's what I meant.
GL, repeat after me: Nobody
GL, repeat after me: Nobody said ANYTHING about giant space robots. It's very important that you remember this in the weeks and months to come.
Hey, uh... how do you hold up under torture? Just asking, is all?