This is a great news story. People moving forward trying to figure out how to do something in space because of the desire to have the knowledge and be ready when we get to space, not because it was the only way they could do it…
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060927/zero_gravity_feature_060927/20060927/
I wonder if this could even have been attempted in the USA. Probably not, some group or another would come out and fight it and say it wasn’t safe because no one had ever done it before.
So what are your thoughts? Who will “own” the moon and mars by getting there first and actually being ready to survive the environment? The Chinese? Japanese? Europeans? If someone said I had to put money down on a bet I would recommend any moon dweller wannabees to start learning Mandarin. I think the hunger to succeed there exceeds the ability of the conservatives to slow things down there. Not saying I agree with everything the Chinese do, but I think we will probably be asking their permission if we ever put together an actual moon mission.
There is actually a good sci-fi book written ages ago[1] about a Dr. who is the first Dr. in space trying to treat space related accidents, etc. Basically some rich US tycoon starts building a special power generation satellite and one of the first thing he realizes is that it is a construction site in a dangerous environment and it isn’t financially feasible to treat people who are injured in space by shipping them back to Earth. The concept is that people WILL get hurt, make sure you have a way to help them and since our future is in space we should go up there acting like we are there to visit, but to live there. That seems to vary pretty greatly from our current mindset which seems to be do things in such a way that no one can possibly get hurt and if someone does get hurt expect to spend the next 12 months explaining how it happened and why it won’t ever happen again. If we did the wagon train west in the same fashion we still wouldn’t have reached Kansas.
joe
[1] Space Doctor by Lee Correy written in 1981. You can get it for $.90 USD, http://www.amazon.com/Space-Doctor-Lee-Correy/dp/0345324862/sr=1-1/qid=1159489116/ref=sr_1_1/102-6843399-6589752?ie=UTF8&s=books
