How realistic are they? My thoughts, over at PJMedia.
12 thoughts on “Golden Spike’s Plans”
Rand, you have just restated Zubrin’s argument.
tremendous gains can be made with relatively modest resources when a team is allowed to focus on the goal
I can not agree more.
While their idea is interesting, it’s hard to get too excited about a business plan that seems to say, “First, we need to find a billionare that loves space.”
Larry J, seeing as we already know about at least two of them that may not be too difficult. What they need is a billionaire who loves space who hasn’t already done something about it.
That’s going to be a pretty short list.
While I’m skeptical that selling flags & footprints to second-rate nations is a viable long-term business model, I certainly wish them luck. Anything that nudges humanity into space is a Good Thing, IMO.
Hopefully they’ll find some other business model that pays regular bills and funds the low-marginal-cost, fully-reusable hardware that we really need. Maybe telescopes in the dark side of the Moon, or something. Or selling fuel to satellites and Bigelow stations in GEO and LEO.
I do hope you know there’s no such thing as the “dark side of the moon.” There’s the far side (or other side) which would be a good place for radio observatories. It could also be used for optical telescopes but servicing them would kick up a lot of dust.
Actually, there’s always a dark side. It just continually rotates, with a period of about a month. 😉
Right. I say we build a big railroad track right around the Moon’s equator, and the telescope can always be on the dark side.
I just read a SF that does that on mercury. An entire city rides on a railroad track and moves automatically by the expansion of the track under the sunrise heat. Of course, terrorists blow up the track just ahead of the city in the first scene.
Hate to tell you Larry. There’s not just a dark side of the Moon…there’s two of them! They’re called the poles! Good thing they’re there, too.
Anyhoo, don’t you all think that there’s probably a bigger market for circum-lunar trips? No brand new hardware would be needed, only modifications of existing or near-term hardware.
Not quite. They’ve found a couple deep craters what are in permanent darkness. That hardly qualifies as a “side”.
The far side of the moon qualifies as the dark side – in radio wavelengths, and radio astronomy these days is arguably more important than visual. Earth puts out more power in the radio spectrum than the Sun does, these days; the far side is shadowed from this racket by 2200 miles of rock.
Rand, you have just restated Zubrin’s argument.
tremendous gains can be made with relatively modest resources when a team is allowed to focus on the goal
I can not agree more.
While their idea is interesting, it’s hard to get too excited about a business plan that seems to say, “First, we need to find a billionare that loves space.”
Larry J, seeing as we already know about at least two of them that may not be too difficult. What they need is a billionaire who loves space who hasn’t already done something about it.
That’s going to be a pretty short list.
While I’m skeptical that selling flags & footprints to second-rate nations is a viable long-term business model, I certainly wish them luck. Anything that nudges humanity into space is a Good Thing, IMO.
Hopefully they’ll find some other business model that pays regular bills and funds the low-marginal-cost, fully-reusable hardware that we really need. Maybe telescopes in the dark side of the Moon, or something. Or selling fuel to satellites and Bigelow stations in GEO and LEO.
I do hope you know there’s no such thing as the “dark side of the moon.” There’s the far side (or other side) which would be a good place for radio observatories. It could also be used for optical telescopes but servicing them would kick up a lot of dust.
Actually, there’s always a dark side. It just continually rotates, with a period of about a month. 😉
Right. I say we build a big railroad track right around the Moon’s equator, and the telescope can always be on the dark side.
I just read a SF that does that on mercury. An entire city rides on a railroad track and moves automatically by the expansion of the track under the sunrise heat. Of course, terrorists blow up the track just ahead of the city in the first scene.
Hate to tell you Larry. There’s not just a dark side of the Moon…there’s two of them! They’re called the poles! Good thing they’re there, too.
Anyhoo, don’t you all think that there’s probably a bigger market for circum-lunar trips? No brand new hardware would be needed, only modifications of existing or near-term hardware.
Not quite. They’ve found a couple deep craters what are in permanent darkness. That hardly qualifies as a “side”.
The far side of the moon qualifies as the dark side – in radio wavelengths, and radio astronomy these days is arguably more important than visual. Earth puts out more power in the radio spectrum than the Sun does, these days; the far side is shadowed from this racket by 2200 miles of rock.