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Originally Posted by Argos
Remember fellows: chemical rockets won´t take us anywhere.
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Well, I don't know. That does seem like a counsel of despair to me. After all the most important issue of all is the cost of delivering a kg of payload to Earth orbit. It has not been shown that large cost reductions here cannot be achieved using chemical rockets (perhaps air-breathing, true). And, as Heinlein noted, once you're there, you're halfway to everywhere [in the Solar System, anyway].
The real issues seem to be institutional and political. I would doubt that NASA, under its current dispensation anyway, is capable of pursuing Cheap Access to Space to fruition. Probably the OSP will be just another X-33/Venturestar fiasco. But it needn't be so.
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Originally Posted by Argos
Be content with the electronic eyes and arms of our probes.
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Which are fantastic, but it is not unreasonable to be impatient about the state of manned spaceflight, particularly given the wastage of billions on a space station that cannot perform any useful science - a fraction of which funds could probably be used to lower the current costs of space launches and improve reliability (too late, really - I know). At least we'll get a European ATV out of the programme, though - might come in handy in the future.
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Originally Posted by Argos
Wait until there is significant tech.
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You mean wait for someone to build a beanstalk?
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Originally Posted by Argos
The Moon is all the Chinese (and the rest of us) can afford.
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Fine - it's plenty to be going on with - get the infrastructure sorted and you can use lunar materials to go further. I'm all for a Moon First approach (perhaps with a few NEOs thrown in).