There’s a new book
Actually, if the Chinese were really racing an Ares I, they’d have nothing to worry about. They should be a little more concerned now, though, assuming they’re racing at all (which they aren’t).
13 thoughts on “Obsolete Already”
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Space is still one of the areas of China’s economy that’s centrally planned. It will take China many years to achieve the byzantine bureaucracy and political-economic forces that conceived of Ares I.
Speaking of byzantine, that’s who the space race is really against: Byzantium, the medieval continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire with its complex system of aristocracy and bureaucracy, and its not so graceful segue into religion and obscurity.
Just curious…
Did you give the book only a single star in your Amazon review just because it had a picture of an Ares I on the cover?
…in your Amazon review…
In my what?
It’s the race of the paper rockets!
His book on Space Tourism has a picture of the RocketPlane Kistler spacecraft on it so I guess he has a habit of picking losers 🙂
http://www.amazon.com/Tourists-Space-Practical-Springer-Exploration/dp/0387746439/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267487592&sr=1-1
There is no space race with the Chinese. For there to be a race, the United States would have to participate,
If there is a space race, ultimately the Chinese are on the losing side. They are going the traditional NASA/Apollo route. While that worked for us in the short term, in the long term it turned into a technological and bureaucratic dead end.
Yes they will probably get to the moon before we return there, but they will (like us) not be able to stay. We need a spaced based infrastructure to support long term off world operations. The first step in that is cheap (or at least cheaper) transportation into LEO. That will only be done by private companies who have an economic interest in making such things happen.
P.S. Yes I know this is preaching to the choir.
There is no space race with the Chinese. For there to be a race, the United States would have to participate.
Hmmm… Yeah. Just like the Soviet Union never entered the lunar race. Right?
Folks probably know me by now as a skeptic of racing with the Chinese and a skeptic of the utility of astronauts. Still, never let it be said that I don’t have an open mind. In that vein, what if the we or the Chinese seized control of the lunar poles with their strategic scarce volatiles?
What’s more, there may be a big advantage to this control consisting of people on site, not just robots, because people could hold the icy areas until you kill them (a much bigger moral and PR problem than taking out robots). That said, mining the lunar craters with nukes might work too, inconvenient treaties against nuclear weapons in space aside. Indeed doing both would give two layers of protection — to get to the water one would first have to kill the residents and then disarm the mines.
I hate to be a spoilsport, but we should probably negotiate a treaty over the polar resources to head this kind of space race off. (And while we’re at it, set up a property rights regime — we won the Cold War, right?). In any case, heavily doubt this possibility is imminent — the water’s long-term value is still very unclear, no infrastructure exists to take advantage of it, and there may be other better sources (e.g. asteroids) for extracting volatiles to bring to earth orbit. Still, for the watchers of the Chinese space program it’s another scary scenario to put into the simmering pot.
In my what?
Sorry, Rand. There’s a one star review of the book on Amazon that reads so close to your blog entry that I foolishly jumped to the conclusion it was yours.
A more immediate concern is the Russians claiming all the oil reserves in the arctic (most of which would probably be considered Canadian otherwise.) There’s too much water on the moon for China to hold hostage (never thought I’d ever say ‘too much water on the moon’ wow.)
There’s a one star review of the book on Amazon that reads so close to your blog entry that I foolishly jumped to the conclusion it was yours.
Oh. I didn’t see any reviews when I first linked it. I wonder if the reviewer went there from the blog?
I was surprised, because I’ve never reviewed a book at Amazon, period, let alone one I haven’t read.
His book on Space Tourism has a picture of the RocketPlane Kistler spacecraft on it so I guess he has a habit of picking losers 🙂
Licensing must be cheaper than for winners. 😉