http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/it%E2%80%99s-the-space-developm…epage=true

Jeff Greason of XCor also spoke about this earlier this year at ISDC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2kIPLsUn0

Humanity is mature enough now to organize around our technological global consciousness. The Internet allows us to organize on a global scale to push all of humanity forward into Post Industrial Society. One burgeoning organization working towards this space faring future is called the Living Universe Foundation. Their work can be found online at http://www.luf.org.

I found your article well thought out and well supported. Although, I too didn’t make it all the way through before deciding to post, I too promise to read it completely when I have time & post another response.

As far as I got, I found your arguments to largely be accurate. Certainly space is a hard sell in this Age of Austerity. You might well be right about the decline even in the communications part of space. Space exploration for science does not need humans — others don’t but I agree with you. I also agree with you that the public doesn’t value (or much think about) the need to establish an off-Earth colony as an insurance policy. Also, NASA is drifting right now. And I could go on.

However, I am not prepared to accept your conclusion for a number of specific reasons.

For the sake of discussion, I am going to use SpaceX as THE example of New Space, but there are others. First of all, SpaceX has shown that there is a path, a never before tried path, which is proving to be far most cost-effective. Just this week, there have been two SpaceX-related news items which demonstrates this:
1) The NASA Associate Deputy Administrator for Policy did a NAFCOM study showing that SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 at about 1/3 of the cost had NASA procured it in the way that it has done it in the past.
2) SpaceX just applied to the FAA to develop a Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing rocket. At the NASA Spaceflight Forum they are concluding that this is SpaceX planning on working on reusability of the first stage.

So, Eric, you can’t just look at NASA’s failings of the past, the decreasing overall budget, and maybe a decline in the launch market. To be fair, you must also look at trends which have a reasonable chance at creating a new situation.

So, I see in 10–20 year time frame, human space flight (HSF) becoming a whole lot cheaper than the Shuttle. And, if SpaceX masters reusability (it sure looks like they are going to make an attempt at it), then those prices might drop much further. When this happens, it is going to be a completely new situation and the US would be stupid not to recognize how we could continue our HSF program on the cheap.

Also, it is true that, after the Apollo program, the American people have not valued HSF that much. But, that fact didn’t translate into budget reality that much. For example, the budget remained high enough for all of those Space Shuttle flights by those unknown astronauts so that the ISS could be completed. I believe that our nation is committed to continuing HSF at least until the ISS is deorbited and I believe that the US will continue HSF if for no other reason than to fight against any national decline.

So, I see things playing themselves out as I laid out in my previous article. The SLS may well die (I certainly hope so). Either way, with time, it will become obvious that the New Space companies can deliver far more bang for the buck than how we’ve been doing it before. So, after they master HSF to the ISS (in a few short years), the obvious thing to wonder is if that same approach can take us beyond Earth orbit. But, for a cheap (e.g. no SLS) and sustainable first step, the Moon is the logical next destination and for economic sustainability, that means harvesting lunar ice. There is no other path to anywhere that makes more logical, natural sense. After multiple landers prove their safety, and after teleoperations turn lunar ice into water and O2, humans can follow. At that point, I argue that long duration stays already puts us close enough to self-sufficiency that it would be an easy well to say, “Hey, since we’re already this close, why not go for full self-sufficiency…just in case.”

But, one important point, is that we (e.g. the Lifeboat Foundation) can make a difference as to whether this vision is realized. There needs to be a lot of work put into figuring out:
— the least expensive yet safe way of telerobotically preparing for the first astronauts back to the Moon and
— how go from just life support from lunar ice, to full self-sufficiency.
There are experts who can figure this out and indeed there has been some good work along these lines. But more needs to be done and there needs to be an organized advocacy of such a plan.

The Issue is money. Trying to sell space colonization and exploration/expansion to the public has always been a problem because your asking them(both government and non-science public) to fund a minority(scientists are a minority in this high tech age!) to go storming the heavens!

What’s more, these very same people are struggling to understand how to make an economy working! The answer is obvious from perhaps a radical scientists perspective; science and technology(hence space; although, nanotech calls into question space expansion as the only solution to humanities woes) is how you generate wealth! Look, you want to make jobs? Make new science and technologies! Since we’ll never know the whole truth, there’s always room for some new scientific and technological discovery! Space also fits in nicely with this arguement!

You have a long post; i’ll hope to read it soon enough and comment soon enough!