🚀 go-pugleaf

>>... A desire to have people in space at some
>>point in the future does not necessarily justify manned spaceflight in
>>the present.

>Unless, of course, one actually wants to get started on having people in
>space someday, as opposed to postponing it indefinitely.  If one wants to
>get started on it any time within the next few decades, it is not too
>early to start doing it experimentally to lay the groundwork.  If one wants
>to postpone it a few centuries, of course, any work on it is pointless,
>since it will be possible to buy it from the Soviets long before then.

Cut out the freshman debating tactics, Henry.  Did I suggest we not put men
in space for centuries?  Did I suggest we not do research on better boosters?
No.  I said that having people in space today doesn't matter a whole lot.
Developing better boosters is entirely orthogonal to whether we put men in
space now.  Today's manned spaceflight is largely PR nonsense.

However, I will disagree that there is much that men can do in space
in the next few decades.  Launch costs are not going to come down that
much in that time.  I don't believe private launchers are going to
save all that much, perhaps a factor of ten; the europeans don't even
believe that much is possible with rockets.  The history of launchers
shows that the cost of a launcher is usually lower on the sketchpad than
on the launch pad.  I reject the facile government is to blame
argument.

About the Soviets: I think folks are going to be in for a rude surprise when
the Soviet space program goes nowhere.  The Soviet Union is in deep economic
trouble.  The standard of living has gone down in the last decade.  Gorby's
reforms are a failure.  And, frankly, the "russians are coming!" cry has been
used too much.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu