XPost: sci.space.policy, sci.physics, sci.astro   
   From: droleary@2017usenet1.subsume.com   
      
   For your reference, records indicate that   
   Fred J. McCall  wrote:   
      
   > Doc O'Leary   wrote on Mon, 11 Jun   
   > 2018 03:16:38 -0000 (UTC):   
   >   
   > >Like I said, it might not *currently* be viable, but as an alternative   
   > >technology it brings new sets of trade-offs to the table such that a few   
   > >tweaks here and there might make it viable for certain kinds of launches   
   > >(e.g., “bulky” items that are hard to make aerodynamically efficient   
   > >benefit from starting at the highest possible altitude).   
   > >   
   >   
   > And just what such items do we send to space?   
      
   Chicken and egg.  The fact is that we *do* sometimes have to   
   elaborately engineer spacecraft in order to make them small enough to   
   fit into a nose cone or payload bay of a rocket.  A different launch   
   vehicle/process might allow us more flexibility when it comes to   
   approaching those very real problems.   
      
   > We're constrained by the real world.  Magic materials are right out.   
      
   Straw man.  All I’m saying is that it’s foolish to completely discount   
   new technologies simply because they’re not the rockets you know so   
   well from the past.   
      
   > >Hope for bigger things.  I fully believe that, for a society to be   
   > >advanced enough to make a space elevator project realistic, it’s value   
   > >would be more incremental than revolutionary.  Rockets are the best we   
   > >have right now, but we’re stuffed if that’s the best we can do.   
   > >   
   >   
   > Just why are we 'stuffed'?  Be specific.   
      
   Because rockets have only taken humans as far as the Moon, but we   
   haven’t gone to the Moon in decades, and we’ll likely see all the   
   people who *have* been to the Moon dead before we ever return there.   
   *Maybe* the promise of a Mars colony is achievable with rockets, but   
   probably not in the lifetime of anyone walking on Earth today.  And   
   even in 1000 lifetimes, rockets aren’t going to take us to explore   
   another planet around another star.   
      
   --   
   "Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."   
   River Tam, Trash, Firefly   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)