Unfortunately the spacex fanboys are a malicious gang of thugs and will not “be respectful.” Coastal Ron, the Godfather of them all, years ago actually threatened a blog run by a Lunar Geologist on Air and Space magazine with legal action because they were criticizing spacex. They shut the comments section on the blog down. Truth. If you go to America Space or Spaceflight Insider you will find little or no commenting because those running those sites long ago began serial deleting all comments due to spacex fans trolling anyone with a bad word to say about the NewSpace flagship company and founder. The remaining popular blogs are mostly spacex infomercials whose forum moderators instantly ban any non-believers.
It is a Cult.
They have hijacked all public discourse about space over the last ten years, trashing NASA as “pork” and demonizing anything not spacex. They are a pernicious corrosive anti-space entity posing as space enthusiasts but essentially promoting a company as their extreme libertarian ideal. Toxic is the best word to describe them.
The gift that has been pouring tax dollars into corporate pockets since 1984- Reagan’s Star Wars.
The most profitable scam in DOD history. Missile defense that will never work as advertised.
It is fascinating to me because several of the projects inspired by the original Casaba Howitzer research in the 1960’s such as Excalibur resulted in mountains of data applicable to Nuclear Pulse Propulsion.
Pulse is the only propulsion system in sight that can enable Human Space Flight Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (HSF-BELO). The recent talk of millions directed at Nuclear Thermal Rockets (NTR’s) is sad proof that only those companies with insiders in Aerospace will get funded and those dollars will ultimately go to waste. NTRs are a complete dead end.
Meanwhile…vast sums continue to be squandered on missile defense that does not work and the weaponization of Earth orbit with smallsat constellations. The public does not have a clue.
Propaganda. The USSR was going to crash no matter what- because of greed and corruption and very little to do with Star Wars. Their present Oligarchy reflects exactly that. Reaganomics has largely destroyed the middle class in the U.S. and made us more like the USSR. In my view, obviously informed by different sources, your comment borders on Orwellian.
As was noted in another thread, 4 billion a year for the space station to nowhere so it can “test” hardware.
An incredible waste. Time to move on to the NRHO, HALO, frozen Low Lunar Orbits (LLO), and other places. LEO is a dead end.
Funny how this company is pursuing “outposts.”
I guess that is the newspace-correct term for Wet Workshops.
BLEO platforms would hover 22,236 miles above the equator and see all of the western hemisphere. For long duration human missions without permanent damage to crew from dosing they would require a massive cosmic ray water shield. This is the “Parker Minimum” of around one kiloton (to provide a small crew enough room for psychological health). They would also require an equal mass at the end of a several thousand foot tether system to provide 1G of artificial gravity to eliminate debilitation. This would allow long deployments for even young female service members (most vulnerable) without incurring significant dosing or any debilitation.
If the SpaceX Starship can make it up to GEO with a useful payload this might be it’s niche. However long it takes to enter service, and it could be longer than it took the FH, it would take several years to get the SLS Super Heavy Lift Vehicles (SHLV’s) carrying “Fat Wet Workshops” into Low Lunar Orbit (LLO) to load the water for the cosmic ray shield and then transit back to GEO (requiring 20 to 25 times less energy than lifting water from Earth).
I would suggest the ultimate goal of a Space Corps (rebranding is necessary due to Trump) be to relocate the nuclear arsenal to months away in deep space.
This would accomplish several things:
1. The half-a-century impossible dream of no nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert on Earth realized.
2. Restoring deterrence as ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers are all now vulnerable to a first-strike.
Submarines were the last leg of the triad standing but sea glider drone tech is now ending that.
3. Protect Earth from impact threats with these superpower fleets of “space boomers” also capable of deflecting asteroids and comets with nuclear weapons.
4. Enabling voyages of exploration to the outer solar system with guest scientists on board, as has been done with Submarines on cruises under the Arctic ice-cap.
5. Establish a Cislunar industrial infrastructure with ice-derived cosmic-ray water shielding being lifted to crew compartments for spaceships in frozen Low Lunar Orbit (LLO).
6. Establish a construction pipeline for GEO space stations, Lunar Cyclers, and spaceships.
7. Establish a “Nuclear Moon” program to assemble, test, and launch Nuclear Pulse Propulsion equipped spaceships. Nuclear pulse eventually lifting immense masses off the surface of the Moon in support of a Green New Space Deal that will solve the Climate Change crisis with Space Solar Power satellites.
Ice on the Moon 