Starship will transform not just Space, but Earth, in exactly the same way that airliners and automobiles changed a world of steamships, trains, and horses. Our latest Deep Dive.
I pretend to no great originality in this--I'd read all the SF stories too--but I promoted this idea more than thirty years ago to a senior executive at McDonnell-Douglas. He and I were both working AAAM at the time but we'd discussed the Mickey Dee work in SSTO...Delta Clipper, a proof-of-concept project underwritten by SDIO (or possibly BMDO, I don't offhand recall when they changed their name).
McDonnell were having trouble getting funding for the program, and I suggested they should go talk to the Commandant, USMC. Their pitch should be: "Help us out here and we can build a platform that will put a Marine platoon anywhere on the planet within an hour." Dunno if that ever went anywhere, but..."Today you see this prophecy fulfilled in your sight."
Clearly it didn't go anywhere, at least not for a long time, but it should have. You were right then and you're right now.
In the 2018 essay linked above in the "See Also" section, I address how a lack of vision, and cost-plus contracts, stole our future. We should have had reusability long ago. And least we're finally getting there now.
Well, not anywhere that was visible. I really meant to say, "I don't know if my counterparties at Mickey Dee took my suggestion seriously enough to follow through."
I assume you're aware that Delta Clipper was largely the result of the efforts by the late Jerry Pournelle and the Citizens' Advisory Council on Space he put together before Reagan's first election. There was a huge push within the community for reusable space vehicles, but at the time there was nothing you could lean on in terms of proof-of-principle and there was little or no funding in the budget for even low-cost experiments like Delta Clipper. In fact much of the private-sector impetus came about as a result of Pournelle (and others obviously) tirelessly pushing for it. I actually attended Space Access '94 in Phoenix and got to meet a lot of those guys, including Gary Hudson, Harry Stine and many others. Very cool!
Honestly, I'm just happy that something finally came of all that effort.
I pretend to no great originality in this--I'd read all the SF stories too--but I promoted this idea more than thirty years ago to a senior executive at McDonnell-Douglas. He and I were both working AAAM at the time but we'd discussed the Mickey Dee work in SSTO...Delta Clipper, a proof-of-concept project underwritten by SDIO (or possibly BMDO, I don't offhand recall when they changed their name).
McDonnell were having trouble getting funding for the program, and I suggested they should go talk to the Commandant, USMC. Their pitch should be: "Help us out here and we can build a platform that will put a Marine platoon anywhere on the planet within an hour." Dunno if that ever went anywhere, but..."Today you see this prophecy fulfilled in your sight."
Clearly it didn't go anywhere, at least not for a long time, but it should have. You were right then and you're right now.
In the 2018 essay linked above in the "See Also" section, I address how a lack of vision, and cost-plus contracts, stole our future. We should have had reusability long ago. And least we're finally getting there now.
Well, not anywhere that was visible. I really meant to say, "I don't know if my counterparties at Mickey Dee took my suggestion seriously enough to follow through."
I assume you're aware that Delta Clipper was largely the result of the efforts by the late Jerry Pournelle and the Citizens' Advisory Council on Space he put together before Reagan's first election. There was a huge push within the community for reusable space vehicles, but at the time there was nothing you could lean on in terms of proof-of-principle and there was little or no funding in the budget for even low-cost experiments like Delta Clipper. In fact much of the private-sector impetus came about as a result of Pournelle (and others obviously) tirelessly pushing for it. I actually attended Space Access '94 in Phoenix and got to meet a lot of those guys, including Gary Hudson, Harry Stine and many others. Very cool!
Honestly, I'm just happy that something finally came of all that effort.
Pioneers all.