On Sat, 3 Jul 2010 18:18:07 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:

...Americans do have a drive to explore... but not _quite_ enough drive
to make them interested in paying for something like Apollo through
their taxes .....

I suppose. Still frustrates me.


..... I can't blame them, although I don't see private
enterprise filling the gap.


Well, it depends.

To be fair to President Obama, all he's proposing for the private
sector to take over is getting crews and cargo to the station and
back. I think this is well within the realm of possiblity because
there's nothing about launching to LEO, rendezvousing and docking,
undocking, de-orbiting, and landing, that private companies have to
invent from scratch. Even the option to land on a runway has been
covered. They just have to make sure their systems work, but the
groundwork was done long ago. Boeing's entry intruiges me; it
reminds me of IBM getting involved in the personal computer business.
Obama, for the near term, seems to be interested in beefing up the
station and getting more particpants involved. I wonder if he's a fan
of Babylon 5?

Cislunar space, including landing on the Moon, is another story, but
not too different. So far, no one has talked about ceeding that to
the private sector. However, a capsule like Boeing's CST-100 is
exactly the design you need for reentering at planetary escape
velocity. And there are growth versions of the Atlas V with the
listing capcity of the Saturn V or better. (
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/p...oduct_card.pdf )

Again, NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT TURNING MOON FLIGHTS TO THE PRIVATE
SECTOR AS FAR AS I KNOW. Obama is just truning to them for space
taxies.

My point is just to be accurate about what's been proposed, and point
out that they can do that.


"I am not A big, fat panda. I am THE big, fat panda" -- Po, Kung Fu Panda