SETI public: Interview with Dr. Bradley Edwards on the Space Elevator

• Previous message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI public: Is God Talking to Us Through the Cosmic Microwave Background?"

"It seems like there was a long-standing debate between rockets and the Space Shuttle. From where you sit, that's like choosing between Nicki and Paris Hilton.

Even high up in NASA management, they won't officially say it - but they have said it directly to me - that nothing substantial in space can be done with rockets. A federal program with lots of money can take some people up there, but it won't be able to commercialize space. We've been going at it for thirty-five years now, and we've put up telecommunications systems and GPS. If there's a buck to be made and a product to be built, it'll get done. With current technology, I think we've developed space commercially as far as we can. We need something dramatically different-a brand new market, a brand new technology.

Economists should get that. How did trains and highways change America?

Private enterprise is starting to get it. NASA hasn't shown much interest on the space elevator, but there are a number of private entities that have."

The rest is here:

http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=17

"Courage! Each step forward brings us nearer the goal, and if we can not reach it, we can at least work so that
posterity shall not reproach us for being idle or say that we have not at least made an effort to smooth the way
for them. "

- Friedrich Argelander (1844) the "father of variable star astronomy"

• Previous message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI public: Is God Talking to Us Through the Cosmic Microwave Background?"

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.6 : Sun Oct 16 2005 - 17:16:26 PDT