Richard Garriott: A New Space Era Begins
Ultima creator and second-generation/private astronaut Richard Garriott is in the news again, rather literally this time. Lord British has penned an opinion piece for Austin newspaper The Statesman, in which he discusses the beginning of “a new space era” in the post-Space Shuttle world.
When the space shuttle arrived in 1981, it was revolutionary. It was the first reusable crewed orbital space vehicle.
The shuttle proved we could not only launch but also service satellites in orbit, as we have done with the Hubble Space Telescope. Over the years, it facilitated construction of the International Space Station, something no other vehicle could have done. For just over 10 years, humanity has lived nonstop beyond the surface of the Earth through the continuous occupation of the space station.
Today, we need vehicles that work beyond low Earth orbit, something the shuttle was never designed to do.
With the retirement of the shuttle program, many Americans are rightly concerned about the future of America’s human spaceflight program. I have read innumerable headlines claiming that America is abandoning human exploration of space; nothing is further from the truth.
The new American space race has begun. This new race promises to create safer, cheaper spaceships that will explore farther, sooner. More importantly, in addition to exploration and fundamental research, this new era will return economic value from space resources like energy and minerals and microgravity research in fields such as biology.
Do read the whole thing; it’s a lengthy analysis of emerging technologies and trends in space travel and orbital payload delivery. Garriott may be returning to games with Portalarium, but it’s clear that he’s not done with the space race just yet.
I read that somewhere… I understand where he’s coming from, since he’s involved in privatizing orbital launches for profit. He has a good point, despite being a bit of a liberal in the American political sense of the word (his financial contributions to political parties are a matter of public record), because he’s lauding the privatization of space exploration which has been made a necessity by NASA’s recent retirement of the shuttle fleet (a rather capitalist view!). Good for all of us, I say.
Whatever it takes for human exploration of space to continue, I say we do it. It’s good to see stories like this getting press as space travel often seems like the U.S.’s forgotten dream.
NASA should really work with the penal system (many correctional institutes in the US are privatized) in order to sequester suitable (physically and psychologically) inmates to train for tasks such as orbital construction in exchange for time served as a rehabilitative measure. Sure, many might die in such a dangerous environment, but over time, if successful, other high risk occupations such as asteroid mining can develop. It certainly would help with prison overcrowding, offer some measure of “redemption” and “service to humanity”, and be a more productive use of taxpayer money as well as creating many new jobs for the oversight, care, and security of these space convicts amongst private citizens. The Moon or Mars can eventually be colonized by these inmates and future generations of criminals as well (all with appropriate safeguards in place of course).
Making space fun and accessible for common people is one thing — it’s gimmicky and has no overall value in the face of dwindling resources on Earth; advancing human expansion, exploiting an untapped human resource, and utilizing the resources of space and our planet should be paramount to the survival of the human race, not space tours for the somewhat affluent.
If the us government made money off of space travel, sweet. But we’re in debt. Obviously not because of space travel, but it’s more money than needs to be spent. To put it another way,
If I was so in-debt that it would take 5-6 years of gross annual income to get me out, I wouldn’t buy a jet-ski.
We’re in debt due to being a welfare state (both foreign and domestic) and constantly being engaged in warfare. When a nation decides it doesn’t have money to pursue science and art because it’s too wrapped up in welfare (ensuring the populace doesn’t overthrow it) and warfare (just plain crazy), it’s close to the end. The only questions that remain are who’s going to sack us and when.
It is said that civilizations die from suicide, not murder.
But we’re totally gonna sack y’all. That’s how Rome went, right? Barbarians from the north?
Hahaha, good one. If it comes to it I hope it is Canada that brings some sanity here. Hell of an upgrade from Mexico anyway. Hopefully it’ll be more an an annexation than an outright sacking. In preparation for the possibility of the latter, perhaps I should learn to play the fiddle.
I found this, which is pretty cool:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html
Select a country and mouse-over or click a different country to compare. Don’t know what specific metrics they use, but Canada beats us in every category except “quality of life” and “economic dynamism”, the former being a virtual tie.
Sweden, Norway and Switzerland sound pretty awesome too.
Sweden has certain creeping social problems, not the least of which is something that is becoming a rape epidemic. Not sure about the other two places.
Things are okay up here in the North. The government is at least nominally centrist, with slight conservative leanings. Our economy is doing better than most, and our dollar is strong. Housing prices are a bit high, and our health care system is in need of structural reform. And our military is kinda piddly.
By the way, it’s not so much fiddles as maple syrup that you’ll have to learn to love. That, and poutine.
I will defect to Canada for a bottle of maple syrup. Hell, forget the syrup.
A rape epidemic…holy shit. I wonder what the root cause could be. Maybe someone passed a law making porn illegal, or A Clockwork Orange accidentally made it into the middle school curriculum. A bit of the old in out, in out, and some lashings of the ultra violence.
Real maple syrup is a rarity around here. They just mix chemicals with corn syrup and call it a day. Disgusting…
Poutine, from my Google Images search, looks like a serious heart attack at the end of a fork. What is that, french fries and gravy? If I showed that to my wife I would be living there before long!
From what I gather, Sweden’s problems stem from particular demographic groups within the nation. I only have info about the city of Malmo, but I gather that out of all reported rapes in that city in 2010, none of the suspects were native Swedes.
Real maple syrup…well, accept thee no substitutes. It is pure liquid happy.
And poutine isn’t just fries and gravy, though those are two of its ingredients. The third is cheese curds, of course. It’s as bad for you as — and even more delicious than — it sounds.
Uhhh… Scratch Norway off that list. Damn. My hopes and dreams have been shattered, as it seems there’s no escape from the madness that infects homo sapien.
And poutine sounds absolutely out of control. It needs its own Man vs. Food episode.
I hear Switzerland is nice.
I used to have a standing invite from a pretty lass there, to visit and stay at her parents’ villa. Wonder if that offer’s still good?
Yeah, I just checked Opensecrets.org – Lord British does tend to grant boons to the Dems, doesn’t he? He must be under the control of the Shadowlords or something.
Hahaha. When I saw that years ago my heart hung in sadness. Not a big deal anymore. As they say, it takes all kinds… If only both sides would realize their struggle is futile and succumb to libertarian ideals, maybe our freedom could become more than just a fragile illusion. Riiiiiiight…