On 4/3/2012 10:57 AM, bob haller wrote:
how about the overflight risk? a malfunction booster coud drop debris
on atlanta or other major metropoltian area.

That risk exists anywhere you put the space port. Cape Canaveral is a
bigger risk to large urban areas and populations than western New Mexico
is. Miami is under 200 miles south; Orlando and Disney World are less
than 50 miles west.

El Paso, at a population of between 600-700 K, and its sister city
Juarez, at a population of around 3 million, is the closest big urban
area to Virgin Galactic's "Space Port America". Los Angeles is 700
miles west and a couple degrees of latitude north, farther than Atlanta
is from Cape Canaveral. If somebody who is better at doing statistical
analysis with maps and geographic data than I am were to look at the
real risks, I'm quite sure that they'd put northern New Mexico on the
lower end of the risk spectrum.

the rise in ocean levels and global teperatures appear a fact of life,
and look at the number and severity of storms and tornadoes

None of this is new. :-) I don't like the idea of eroding coastlines
and flooded cities any better than most people do, but the human race
has survived greater temperature variations and more flooding than are
reasonably predicted now. We adapt. So far, we have adapted
successfully. When we quit adapting, we will die.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to seeing commercial spaceflight take
off. It really is time, and past time.


--
Catherine Jefferson
Blog/Personal: http://www.ergosphere.net