18 thoughts on “Space”

    1. “No, and most people don’t understand how important space is to us right now.”

      Back in the day when NASA was the only game in town this would have been critical; with Elon Musk and Space-X much less so. Musk’s plan is to use the Starlink satellite network to pay for the cost of expanding/colonizing space. 10’s or even 100’s of billions of dollars of potential revenue. When Starship/super heavy becomes operational a further significant revenue steam would be point-to-point transfers of 100MT anywhere on earth in approx. one hour. At this point it doesn’t really matter what the general public thinks (thank God) about space. Only significant caveat would be government regulators stepping end to muck it up somehow.

      1. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you said but the universe has been throwing us curve balls lately and Musk has his problems. He has also said the future isn’t certain and any number of things could derail his efforts.

        Perhaps Musk wants Twitter because he values what the general public thinks?

        I can imagine a few scenarios that would open people’s eyes to the importance of space but only after people experience life without our stuff up there.

        1. “Perhaps Musk wants Twitter because he values what the general public thinks?”

          Possibly; maybe.

          “I can imagine a few scenarios that would open people’s eyes to the importance of space but only after people experience life without our stuff up there.”

          Imagine “Twitter” eventually turned into some kind of advertising platform for space; run by a Don Draper type advertising agency? NASA after the moon landings had a almost preternatural ability to make space boring. No wonder the public was turned off to it; we went to the moon to come back with rocks. The right kind of advertising/marketing/okay propaganda run by the right sort hired by Musk could make space sexy, exciting etc.

          1. Life is bigger than space. We all have our interests. I don’t care that people don’t care about space, however, I do think it is important to have knowledge about things critically important to our society.

            I am certainly not as well informed as I want and I know there are a lot of much smarter people here who are also uninformed.

  2. Do Americans care about it?
    Craft stores that sell paper mache* for space montage projects for kids in elementary schools do. That’s about it.

    *You wouldn’t knock paper mache if you were on the receiving end of this.

    1. Well, consider that the last time folks get any significant education on space is in middle school, so craft projects are appropriate. There might be space-themed content in other science classes in high school, but absent an Astronomy class in undergrad, most folks are woefully, woefully ignorant of space matters, and not terribly enthusiastic them either.

  3. How many people will want to be physically at the first launch of the Starship. And also how many will watch it from the comforts of internet?
    And will the world’s news, cover it?

    I suppose it will covered with drones, so, how many drones will there be?

    1. Physically? No, I can’t see the point in budgeting for a launch that may be cancelled and postponed indefinitely. On the Internet? Absolutely, will have the buttered popcorn warmed up before hand.

      1. “Absolutely, will have the buttered popcorn warmed up before hand.”

        Would suggest Orville Redenbacher’s Pour Over Movie Theater Butter; no need to warm it up it microwaves in minutes.

      2. So, when FAA gives it’s approval, which might be in two weeks, when says Elon says he going launch Starship, which let’s imagine it’s a week after this approval, you think there is likely to be many tried to launch it. And/or going to be many hours late from time scheduled for launch?

        How many false starts, would guess there is going to be?

        1. I would guess Musk will give some time period and condition it, on the weather.
          So, say 1 week or 3 weeks, plus the weather has to be good for it to be launch it.

          [[Though he wants to launch his satellites with first launch, so that means it would have to have some launch window- which depends where these are suppose to go.]]

  4. NASA and scientists talk about space exploration because that’s why they get paid. There are cool things to learn out in space. However, the average person doesn’t benefit very much from space exploration. They benefit from space exploitation, which is using the unique characteristics of space to provide services (and maybe goods one day) that generate wealth and help people. I’m specifically talking about things like space-based weather observations, GPS PNT services, communications, and the like. For average people, space exploration might result in pretty screensavers and an occasional interesting article. Space exploitation makes life better.

    1. Well I think of space exploration as related to something that might be exploited. Or finding out that it can’t be exploited.
      So exploring to Moon and discovering lunar water is not mineable is exploration of the Moon. As is exploring Mars and finding out, that Mars is not a habitable planet. Not mineable lunar water, because of X. Can’t live on Mars, because of X.
      I can understand why NASA would not want to find out that the Moon doesn’t have mineable water. But they seemed to enjoy in the past saying that Moon has no water. They repeated it endlessly as “a cool thing to learn”.
      I am not happy about “cool thing to learn” such as Mars is most habitable planet other than Earth- without any evidence.
      So, I would like NASA to prove it’s “cool things to know”- or does the moon have more water that what Apollo “discovered”.
      Does Mars have alien life, and if so it is waste of time exploring Mars- and it is not habitable planet for Humans [at this time}.
      Eliminating the Moon or Mars is useful- why waste more tax dollars on them?
      But it seems that even if Moon doesn’t have mineable water, it makes sense exploring first, and then exploring Mars [to determine if it’s the most habitable planet other than Earth. If NASA can’t explore the Moon- which easy, then it shouldn’t explore Mars.
      Or NASA is demonstrating, it not capable of doing it’s job, because it’s failed to explore the Moon, but if NASA can can the Moon, then maybe it will not screw up a lot, exploring Mars.
      All NASA can talk about is life on Mars, yet NASA is not doing anything serious about what if it finds life on Mars. Or crew infected- what is the plan?
      NASA causing trillions of dollars in damages because of infecting Earth with some unknown life, is a NASA we don’t need. If private sector does it, they at least will be sued out of existence.

  5. I didn’t realize that: a) The New Atlantis paid by the word, and: b) evidently doesn’t pay more than a few cents for each (completely unreadable) graph.

  6. Speaking of Space. Hello FAA? To FONSI or not to FONSI? That is the question. Aren’t we due for a BC finding? Or at least another 30 day delay?

      1. Then down to 1 week, three day, one day, 12 hour, 6 hour, 3 hour, 1 hour, 30 mins, 15 min, 10, 9, 8, 7…

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