Mike Dennis wrote:

All of the items you mention are following normal technology life cycle
curves. Each will run it's course, later to be replaced by a breakthrough
new technology that will likewise follow it's own curve, and so on.

You don't get one massive breakthrough after another. It's never been that
way and it never will be. Your idea of a breakthrough might not be the same
as someone else's.

"Slickwater" is upset that we haven't colonized the Moon or sent a
manned expedition to Mars yet. Neither of those missions requires
fundamental scientific breakthroughs. They only require sufficient
funding to do the necessary engineering.

Remember that with the funding Congress voted for Apollo, NASA had
designed and built the Saturn V rocket--which together with its payload
stood some 365 feet tall. And early in the space program, NASA had a
backup plan in the event that the in-flight rendezvous & docking
technique didn't work out--an even bigger booster called "Nova," which
would have been some 550 feet tall and capable of sending a spacecraft
all the way to the Moon and back without any use of rendezvous.

That's what NASA can get done with enough $$$.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
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