SLS and Orion are needed to provide single launch heavy lift capabilities and cislunar crew transportation for NASA.
Right now the only equivalent capabilities to both vehicles are being developed in China.
It is baffling how many supposed space fans are actively advocating for the death of the public US human spaceflight program that traces its roots back to Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
Not baffling at all…it is the Reagan Revolution that made money the god of this world. Google “Market Fundamentalism” and all will be revealed by Naomi Oreskes.
Only a democratic government cares for all of it’s citizens instead of only a tiny minority of “wealth creators.” Only a democracy can legislate taxing and regulating the super-rich and enable an immense public works energy project like Space Solar Power.
The path we are on is likely to burn civilization to the ground. Climate Change may kill half the people on this planet by way of war, famine, and disease….and hero to zero Elon and his fanboys will share responsibility for this catastrophe as they could have gone far to stop it. In fact, several silicon valley types are all about a partial genocide as an “adjustment”….they are called accelerationists.
NewSpace is about making money….not really about space except as a means to that end. Conflating satellite entrepreneurship with space exploration and colonization is a NewSpace marketing ploy. Not Space Exploration Technologies; Satellite Exploitation Technologies corp.
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The problem the Spruce Goose was designed to address existed alright.….
“Elon is a genius and has no fantasies about the internet.” Well, 44 billion for twitter would tend to contradict that portrayal of your Tony Stark/John Galt/Howard Roark fantasy. The rest of your musings on history and China are similar. You simply demonstrate how unacquainted with reality you have become.
We are presently, I hope, nearing the end of the Reagan Revolution and may soon be going to a more “Nordic Model” of mixed economy policies. The list of best places to live on this planet, that America continues to slide down, are more like “The New Deal” than Ayn Rand’s sci-fi invisible rich people paradise. Even better than Musk City on Mars. Neoliberal propaganda is wearing thin as citizens cannot afford groceries, but billionaires can literally go on recreational space-walk missions burning hundreds of millions of dollars for their hobby…while paying little or no taxes.
A “mixed economy” walks a tightrope between capitalist competition and socialist cooperation and in the last century, due also to favorable geopolitical circumstances, created the wealthiest middle class in history. I know this because in the 60’s my father was an aircraft mechanic with no college degree, and supported our large family on one income, owned a house and two cars, and retired with a generous pension. You will find those countries high on the list of best places to live are comparable to our golden age. America is no longer high on that list but is high on the list of billionaires…a new gilded age that regresses to a previous century. Those very few demi-gods who pay millions, pennies to them, to convince the rest of us that greed is good.
Which brings us to the Moon.
The only path to humankind expanding off-world and thus lessening our risk of extinction, is an imperative similar to the soviet threat to American capitalism signaled by Sputnik. That clear and present danger, the greatest existing threat to civilization…Climate Change. Any of the favorable geopolitical circumstances previously mentioned are fast evaporating. The only path to expanding into space is Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources as the solution to Climate Change. By de-industrialization; relocating almost the entire energy industry to the Moon. An immense project similar to fighting fascism in World War II. The ROI? Civilization does not melt down into a dystopian nightmare. Not even farmers being able to play video games in Nebraska can beat that.
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Gary’s expressed beliefs are essentially religious in nature. He has conjured up an entire fantasy future – from which he brooks no deviation – based on worship of the late Dr. O’Neill. O’Neill is God and Gary is his Prophet.
Framing this as the Musk Cult vs the O’Neill Cult is….not really going to fly. There is no O’Neill Cult because his concept was sound and unfortunately went against fossil fuel interests and an emerging neoliberal wave that became the Reagan Revolution. The resulting second Gilded Age has allowed the rise of multi-billionaires, one of whom happened to make rockets, satellites, and gaming the government for corporate welfare his forte.
I did not conjure up any of that.
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And it’s also why we haven’t been back in a half-century. Politicians, as a class, are vision-less and fickle. The settling of the American West was largely done by private sector actors. The settling of space will be as well.
The settling of the American west was enabled by genocide and military force. Landing on the Moon was enabled largely by technology created by a genocidal fascist dictatorship. “Vision” is seeing history for what it is and learning how to not make the same mistakes over and over. You do not get that. Politicians as the enemy is classic totalitarian propaganda. Orwellian reverse-speak like war is peace, slavery is freedom…. your democratically elected government is actually the opposite. Riiiight.
Ice on the Moon 