The Shuttle program DID NOT prove that a winged re-usable spacecraft is a bad idea. Our best bet remains continually developing newer and better winged re-usable spacecraft. The first working design of ANY type of vehicle is never the best working design of that type of vehicle.

History lesson: Someone said to President Wilson, “We’re the 19th in the world in aviation - behind Brazil - and we invented it!”. The result was the founding of the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), the U.S. Government agency that did the aeronautical research that made us the world’s leading air power, INCLUDING part of the work done on the X-1, the world’s first plane to fly faster than Mach 1. When the USSR launched a satellite before we did, the U.S. government response included changing NACA into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has continued aeronautical research in addition to spacecraft research. So, there IS a place for civilian government space research and other activity. OTOH, we need to remember that NASA’s charter does not say anything about building O’Neill colonies, so NASA should not be expected to do everything. Now: the trans-continental railroad, the Panama Canal, Boulder Dam and the Interstate Highway System have ALL been of great benefit to industry, and NONE of them were built without the U.S. Government making them happen. Also: the cost IN ENERGY of putting a person, or a package, into Low Earth Orbit is the exact same cost IN ENERGY of flying that person or package from New York City to Sydney, Australia and back by commercial jet airliner. The first, last, and only reason why it can’t be done for the same price IN CURRENCY is that more aerospace transportation research and development needs to be done.

Now, whose fault is it that we didn’t save Skylab in 1979 and that we hadn’t been adding to it ever since? Whose fault is it that we don’t have SECOND-GENERATION Space Shuttles, SOME of which could have been owned and operated by a consortium of business firms, that we could have had since 1991? Whose fault is it that we don’t have a small-but-growing, permanently-manned all-U.S. Moonbase, that we could have had since 1978? Whose fault is it that we didn’t have an all-U.S. manned expedition to Mars as long ago as 1987? Whose fault is it that we didn’t have a manned expedition to Ceres as long ago as 1996? Whose fault is it that we didn’t have a manned expedition to Ganymede as long ago as 2005? Whose fault is it that we don’t have lunar mining AND a several-miles-wide solar array in geostationary orbit AND the first O’Neill colony, RIGHT NOW? It’s PRIMARILY the fault of those jerks who have been promising, since the Apollo era, to create Heaven-on-Earth by preventing people from doing things in space; those jerks who continue to promise to create Heaven-on-Earth by keeping money away from the space agency. For a good example of this sort of thing, Google “(The Nation) + (Katha Pollitt) + (Lost In Space)”.

Another problem, or potential problem, is John Weldon, John Ankerberg, Hank Haanegraaf and others, who are trying to manipulate Christian parents into keeping their kids from watching space TV shows. They do this by saying that DEMONS have been visibly appearing to people and claiming to be aliens, and that UFOs are NOT airplanes or meteors, but illusions that demons are projecting into the visual part of the brain. (BTW, I’m NOT against (true) Christianity; I attend church regularly.)

And you think colonies in space will help? If Earth is struck by a Dinosaur Killer, then in immediate aftermath of the explosion Earth will STILL be much more hospitable and easier to survive on than Mars, or asteroids, or Europa. If surviving an asteroid impact is your goal, then building underground shelters on Earth is far more cost-effective than building space colonies.

Building a space-based asteroid defense system is a different story, and is very much cost-effective. But there is no fundamental reason for such system to be manned — and the fewer humans it could be done with, the better, as all life-support costs John Fruhwirth listed are smaller.

Getting our metals and other goods from “dead” rock instead of mucking about in a fragile biosphere seems like a good idea too. (Although I can think of some nasty risks there too.)

It most certainly is a good idea. But again, there is no reason to involve more humans in the process than absolutely necessary. And even if “absolutely necessary” number turns out to be non-zero, it will be much cheaper to do on “offshore oil rig” model — highly trained people spend weeks or months in dangerous environment, then go home to spend their money. Nobody makes homes or raises families at the bottom of continental shelf — the enormously more benign environment than space.

John Fruhwirth: While I generally agree with your arguments, you seem to think that science and research are the ONLY things to do in space: “to get the information/knowledge we want so as to learn about our solar system, our place in it and in the cosmos at large”. Do you expect ANY economic benefit to come from spaceflight? If not, then how exactly do you expect that knowledge to contribute “for our good and for that of the “good earth” which is the best spaceship we will ever have!”?

I’m waiting for Elon to go public. He’s going to take us to Mars. I suspect he intends to get into the real estate business.

Getting our metals and other goods from “dead” rock instead of mucking about in a fragile biosphere seems like a good idea too. (Although I can think of some nasty risks there too.)

As for “is it worth risking a life for”….we risk our lives everyday, mostly for extremely silly reasons. (That drive to Starbucks is not without risk.) And, lets face it, we ARE going to die, each and every one of us, sooner or later. Mostly of the most mundane things. For me, I would love it to be in the service of the Human Race, helping set up a space colony, or perhaps a planetary colony.

My early industrial training was taken with the above in mind; in the 70’s I was sure that the USA was going to actually build those bases on the moon that you could read about in the NASA book store. I was young, and hadnt yet learned that Congress punishes sucess and rewards failure.