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I just don't see the point of putting humans in space unless we're going to use them to build something permanent. Asteroid surveying would be an awesome goal

I just don't see the point of putting humans in space unless we're going to use them to build something permanent. Asteroid surveying would be an awesome goal for NASA, something where the unit cost is low, it can serve as testbeds for automation, propulsion, and science, and we may very well hit the jackpot and find rocks with high rare earth contents.

sp332 17y ago
80,000 people have signed up with Virgin Galactic for space tourism, including 100 people who have already paid $200,000 each for a single flight. http://science.howstuffworks.com/spaceshiptwo2.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/spaceshiptwo2.htm
- alabut 17y ago
  What usually gets overlooked is that Virgin Galactic is only initially for space tourism. The larger goal is intercontinental travel, to connect various spaceports together through sub-orbital flights. It's not on wikipedia anywhere, I watched a TED interview with Richard Branson while on a Virgin America flight and the vision of hopping in and out of the atmosphere for travel has stuck with me ever since: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_branson_s_life_at_30_000_feet.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_branson_s_life_at...
  - fuzzmeister 17y ago
    He actually doesn't talk about Virgin Galactic in that interview (just watched it). A fascinating watch nevertheless.
    - alabut 17y ago
      Shoot, sorry, I'm not sure where he said it then and google's giving me no love.
patio11 17y ago
find rocks with high rare earth contents It wouldn't matter if you found a mythical space-goose which turned anything they touched into gold, you'd still lose money on the transport costs bringing the goose trash and returning with treasure.
- skolor 17y ago
  That depends on a few things. Specifically, if NASA is sufficiently far-sighted, finding sources of intra-solar resources which are easily accessible once in space could be viewed as a long term R&D investment. It may be massively expensive to try and use the resources now, but if NASA can find resources on asteroids, it becomes significantly easier to get funding to build and deploy equipment to harvest and use those materials without returning to earth with them.
- jerf 17y ago
  Earth -> Space is fundamentally expensive. Space -> Earth is not; there's a lot of tradeoffs available to you to cut down price, mostly in exchange for receiving the goods later. You can bring an moderately sized asteroid to us reasonably easily, if getting to space was easy itself. (And that is how you do it; bring the resources to us. I don't know what we could do that would involve carting atoms into space, getting them space-blessed, then carting them back to Earth.)

sp332 17y ago

80,000 people have signed up with Virgin Galactic for space tourism, including 100 people who have already paid $200,000 each for a single flight. http://science.howstuffworks.com/spaceshiptwo2.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/spaceshiptwo2.htm

alabut 17y ago
What usually gets overlooked is that Virgin Galactic is only initially for space tourism. The larger goal is intercontinental travel, to connect various spaceports together through sub-orbital flights. It's not on wikipedia anywhere, I watched a TED interview with Richard Branson while on a Virgin America flight and the vision of hopping in and out of the atmosphere for travel has stuck with me ever since: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_branson_s_life_at_30_000_feet.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_branson_s_life_at...
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  He actually doesn't talk about Virgin Galactic in that interview (just watched it). A fascinating watch nevertheless.
  - alabut 17y ago
    Shoot, sorry, I'm not sure where he said it then and google's giving me no love.

patio11 17y ago

find rocks with high rare earth contents It wouldn't matter if you found a mythical space-goose which turned anything they touched into gold, you'd still lose money on the transport costs bringing the goose trash and returning with treasure.

skolor 17y ago
That depends on a few things. Specifically, if NASA is sufficiently far-sighted, finding sources of intra-solar resources which are easily accessible once in space could be viewed as a long term R&D investment. It may be massively expensive to try and use the resources now, but if NASA can find resources on asteroids, it becomes significantly easier to get funding to build and deploy equipment to harvest and use those materials without returning to earth with them.
jerf 17y ago
Earth -> Space is fundamentally expensive. Space -> Earth is not; there's a lot of tradeoffs available to you to cut down price, mostly in exchange for receiving the goods later. You can bring an moderately sized asteroid to us reasonably easily, if getting to space was easy itself. (And that is how you do it; bring the resources to us. I don't know what we could do that would involve carting atoms into space, getting them space-blessed, then carting them back to Earth.)