Robert Bigelow to announce $50 million orbital space prize; inflatable modules

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message
...
Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 07:19:04 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
So? They don't want to "control" space any more than navies "control"
the ocean. I haven't seen any inability to run cruise ships as a
result of the Navy "controlling" the seas...

In fairness, it has been noted that space control is much more a USAF
operation than a USN operation, and it makes a difference: the USN
thinks
of civilian traffic as essential, something to be protected and
supported,
while the USAF tends to think of civilian traffic as an expendable
nuisance, to be grounded if it threatens to complicate operations or
divert resources from more important activities.

That's true of the current Air Force, but as space operations and the
civilian space activities evolve, I'm sure that AF thinking will
evolve with it.

The same way they have evolved in the past? Yeah right.

--
Sander

I'm retired USAF and proud of my service, but, as science fiction writers
and space frontier prophets have often noted it is the "sea" and "ocean" of
space out there, not the "air" of space. The future civilian references to
civilian traffic in space will be maritime references, with a few dimensions
added, and the future military elements and references will be Navy rather
than Air Force--or even Aero-Space Force. Alfred Thayer Mahan's generalized
realizations put down in his The Influence Of Sea Power Upon History
1660-1783 will be transferable and will apply. Airpower's won't.

There isn't any need of any Air Force evolution in space thinking and
operations to forms of both already in existence, having been in existence
for thousands of years, the Navy's.

Brad