In August, 1987, I noticed an article in NewsWeek that stated that all of NASA's technology was wrong. This led me to investigate and to determine that the technology was in fact good, but that NASA's management was, as is typical of a government bureaucracy, bad. I realized that replacing what had become America's state airline for space with a free enterprise industry was essential to humanities future in space. The question as to how this could be accomplished was placed to me as a challenge. No one really argued with the stated goal, a free enterprise space transportation industry, but the means by which it could be accomplished was a mystery to nearly everyone. As my old professor always stated, "to find answers, go to the library". Further research provided me with a model of a government transportation industry that was very successfully converted to private enterprise, America's commercial air transport industry. Beginning with the airmail act of 1918, the federal government set up a government owned and operated air transport system to transport government payloads, mainly airmail (a situation similar to America's space program). It was successful in an era when private operators could not develop markets for air transport. By 1924 however, reports by Major General Pattrick, the NACA, Admiral Moffett, General Billy Mitchel, the Morrow Board, the Lampert committee, and many others indicated that european avaition was far ahead of the US and that the US government policys of direct competition and abuse of intelectual property rights were the cause of america's lack of progress in aviation. They recommended that the US government get out of the business of aviation and allow a free market to function. The Kelly act of 1925, the Watres Act of 1930, and the stewardship of Postmaster Harold Brown and others, gave the airline operators the time to build markets in the civil sector while being supported by airmail contracts. This support cost the tax payer nothing since the private operators at all times provided lower cost transport than the government owned aircraft. In seven short years the US aviation industry went from last place to first and we have never been out of the lead since. In 1934, the disastrous and temporary nationalization of the airmail contracts proved that the commercial carriers were in fact technically 15 years ahead of government aircraft, at 1/100 of the operating cost.
Unfortunately thirty years of NASA as our State Airline for Space has removed nearly all competitive spirit from the major aerospace contractors. They simply wait for NASA to provide direction and fat contracts. The ill advised practices of the US government of the 1920's is now enshrined at NASA, with the same results. NASA's reversal of its commitment to support private Space Shuttles in the 70's further eroded the aerospace entrepreneurial spirit. The Single Stage to Orbit contract arrangement was a continuation of business as usual on NASA's part, it was not a commitment to a free enterprise space transportation system. The aerospace contractors and the investment community will not fund the development of real competitive low cost space transportation systems until they are safe from competition with a Government subsidized NASA space transportation system. NASA must demonstrate a commitment to the development of a free enterprise space transportation systems NOW! The true space age will not begin until NASA is no longer a competitor in the business of space transportation.
With a strategy, a proven model, and a specific goal in hand, tactics were needed. NASA learned long ago that a rocket attracts attention, so the construction and launching of rockets would provide a continuing audience , and lend credibility to the message.
If the technology of space flight is difficult, than the politics of space are treacherous. 99 percent of what people do or say about space today is because of the politics of space not the environment or the technology. Ending the politics of space is another reason for our efforts to force NASA out of the business of space transportation. The current government agency model of space management is severely limited as to how much it can do. Congress will only grudgingly appropriate a minimum of funds for research purposes only, and will not support the utopian pipe dreams of NASA bureaucrats. NASA budgets are limited to one year, you cannot build a civilization in space in one year, and a civilization is too important to leave to bureaucrats anyway. The era of NASA as "humanity's future in space" is over. Besides, I don't want to travel into Space just to live in government housing! The environment of space is currently very hostile to business. The perception among space supporters and NASA administrators is that our free enterprise system is inherently evil, and that the future of humans in space should be a socialist utopia. This obviously is a bureaucrats pipe dream, but that does not stop NASA bureaucrats from doing everything in there power to keep free enterprise out of space. They feel that this is their holy mission. When the free enterprise system can fight it's way around NASA, the boom era of space capitalism will arrive.The goal is as always, to compete with NASA as a manned space flight carrier, to open the subject of the development of a free enterprise space transportation industry to discussion, and to promote a free enterprise solution to America's space transportation needs.
The future of humankind will be a life in space habitats. Our species previous life on earth will be seen as a subsistence lifestyle under brutal planetary conditions. Earth will be considered a World Park, a treasure house of biological diversity, a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. Life on any planetary surface will be considered somewhat brutish, something for the hairshirt crowd.
Life in a space habitat will be a very 'human' existence. Complete and total environmental control will optimize every aspect of human life. The history of humanity has been an ongoing battle to control and utilize the environment, usually with disastrous results for the environment. Inside the controlled environment of a space habitat, agriculture, industry, and suburban life will prosper. Life in space will be dependent on the resources of space.
While the small controllable environments of space habitats will allow humans to eliminate plant and animal diseases, and control crime, the grouping of large numbers of space habitats into huge arrays will allow opportunities for communication and transport which will make today's 'global village' seem primitive.
To read more about it, COLONIES IN SPACE, by T.A. Heppenheimer THE HIGH FRONTIER, by Gerard K. O'Neill NASA sp-413, SPACE SETTLEMENTS A Design Study.
Before you set out to turn another planet into a copy of Earth, you should ask the question; Do we really like living on a planetary surface? Isn't there something better? How about a space habitat instead?
Before you jump on the "let's all move to Mars" bandwagon, consider the disadvantages.
If the other planets of the solar system are, where possible, terraformed, another 4 or 5 billion people could be provided with a subsistence existence. If the resources of the other planets were converted to space habitats, 4 to 5 trillion people could live quite comfortably.
This does not rule out interstellar travel. Other star systems all contain huge amounts of matter not associated with living planets. This material would be available for space habitat and starship construction. There's still a lot of universe out there.
An additional concept to be considered is the Bussard Ram, the only engine currently theoretically possible for a starship. It's characteristic of sucking up all the matter in it's path means that all the elements needed for human existence will be plentifully available to the starship inhabitants. The starship need not have a destination. Self perpetuating fleets of starships may cruise serenely into the future.
If you want to know more about changing the course of human cililization, Email Mark Goll