Re: First impressions: spaceboot.eu

Getting back to Jeff's arguments:
I still believe that there is no economic need to put humans into
space. There is a demand, yes. Some horribly rich people are willing to
pay a fortune to play the pampered space-tourist. My point is that this
does not drive an industrial base in space. Maybe it will help
kickstart it, point taken, but nothing is actually fabricated that can
be sold, apart from service to... the tourist.

Mining: if you read the text (or maybe I should have elaborated a bit
more), you'll find:'Not to be used on Earth' so nothing would have to
be brought back to Earth. Further reading: 'to be used as raw materials
for space construction projects'. So I don't think our views are that
much apart on this subject. By the way: they're only long term goals if
we choose them to be, not if we stop toying around in LEO.

On the subject of microgravity: people like the feeling of
weightlessness, granted (although space-sickness kind of takes the fun
away), but on long-term missions it's an annoyance, and eats into the
time the crew can use. You don't get to any asteroids and do something
useful there in 6 months.

You may have a point that tele-operation is not ready for what I
envision in the text. However, comparing to the Rovers on Mars is not
correct, because these machines are autonomous most of the time, and
when an intervention is done (remember the spinning wheel?), it is done
without the advantage of real-time feedback. This is not the kind of
operation I'm describing. The Mars Rovers are actually a frustration to
me, because they are depicted as a great success, while you are correct
in saying that they've only travelled inches compared to the moon
buggies. What I meant to describe was more like controlling a machine
like you do a radio-controlled racecar, only with added complexity and
feedback (3-D goggle are 1 of them). Future articles should clarify
this.


Andy
http://www.spaceboot.eu

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