Quote:
Originally Posted by HeathDavisSpeed
Bloody hell. Ah well, Market Forces will get us back to the moon. Private industry will be in the vanguard of the next great exploration cycle. I'm not quite sure why, but apparently it is the case.
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The problem is the prohibitive cost. Physics doesn't lie, and the fuel required is the fuel required. That's why the government has to bear the cost. Sure, we may have low earth orbit flights soon, but true space exploration will always be done by the government unless we come up with a radically new method of transport into space (e.g space elevator). Unfortunately, that's still a little beyond us at the moment and will require a bit of a breakthrough in materials engineering.
I hope I'm wrong of course, but I hated the space shuttle. The Saturn V was the biggest rocket in the history of mankind, and there is nothing on the drawing board to replace it. The Space Shuttle was fine for low earth orbit crap (wasn't nearly powerful enough to go much farther), and I suppose its better than nothing, but we need true deep space exploration. It's sad that it has been
40 years since a human being has escaped low earth orbit. It's been that long since we've even
had the capability to escape low earth orbit. Hoping for a space race soon.
The future of humanity can't possibly be on this one rock, if it's to have a future at all.