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Private Spacecraft Prospects
mwallis writes "Space.com has an article on the recent Space Access conference in Scottsdale a few weeks ago. The article talks about the (slowly) emerging commercial space transportation industry with interviews and quotes from Space Access Society's Henry Vanderbilt, XCOR's Aleta Jackson, Armadillo's John Carmack and many others."
Look, of course the eventual goal is to do more practical things with the technology -- high-speed suborbital flights, orbital manufacturing, Lunar hotels, etc. But it's a big mistake to try to develop that kind of thing without taking intermediate steps.Agreed. But before the pioneers come the trailblazers. Right now, we're still at the Lewis & Clark stage; it will be a while before we can have a Space Homestead Act.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Ummm.... you really don't need space access to mess with satellites. In fact, matching orbits etc. is a real PITA - easier to do it from the ground.
Satellites are, in some ways, pretty fragile beasts. What do you need in the way of a concentrated radio blast to deafen a satellite? Or in the way of a laser to blind its sensors? Yes, I'm sure the military is taking these things into account, but its easier to escalate the ground-based technology than it is to retrofit something in space.
Cheaper space access may increase the worries, but a dedicated ground-based enemy could still damage a fair chunk of your space assets fairly cheaply. Of course, they would be bombed into the stone age immediately thereafter, but the damage woudl already be done.
You claim you're not impressed, but then you admit the true goal in your second-to-last sentence. Isn't the whole point of this to be ABLE, in the future, to get out of Earth's atmosphere and go somewhere else?
These companies are setting the stepping stones that others will follow. I hope to the gods of space and exploration that they make it before I die.
As for your point #1, apparently the "need" that exists for such a trip does not outweigh the costs to get it set up. No one wants to make the investment. What can you do, other than give it a shot yourself?
Chutes and waterlanding also menas you need a lot of vessels out on the water to pick it up, which will drive up the costs considerable.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.