Tuesday
(0)If you have enjoyed the discussion about commercial space and the future here on Samizdata, you might find The Space Meetup of interest.
The Meetup website is a good example of ways in which internet entrepreneurs are building businesses on the community aspect of the internet, and in this case assisting the creation of a global community in the non-cyberworld.
Certainly many among the Samizdat readership have already seen this, but worth mentioning in the context of space flight:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/vanallen_spaceflight_040726.html
"The only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure.”
Those closest to the issues so often seem to suffer myopia as a consequence.
Posted by damaged justice at July 27, 2004 09:06 PM
Ah, yes. Dr Van Allen. The man for whom the Van Allen Radiation Belts were named. It is a common joke in the space community that it was fitting to name the greatest hazard to human spaceflight after him...
There is little new here. Dr Van Allen has been doing the same carping for decades. For his sort space is the preserve of pure scientists.
I guess he wants to get in his last gasp on the subject. One because he is quite elderly at this point, and two because the rapid advances in the commercial space flight sector are not far from making him look like many other elderly scientific nay-sayers of the past.
Dr A.C. Clarke had something to say about that once...
Posted by Dale Amon at July 27, 2004 10:58 PM
