Re: starship-design: Starship-Design: Let's build the thing!

[KellySt@aol.com]

>From:  Stravonski@aol.com
> Sender: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu
> Reply-to: Stravonski@aol.com
> To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu
> 
> Kyle,
>
>  I first found LIT back in mid-late 1994.  I think for 
>  the discussion that have been going on, five years is
>   incredible.  I do think that maybe people might be 
>  getting all talked out.  How long can you talk about 
>  going to Disney World before you just want to go 
>  there.  I myself had always hope that LIT could take 
>  all the ideas and information collected in this think 
>  tank and attempt to get real-world backing. ==

Ah, we'ld need something like an O'niel colony in orbit to even support 
construction of the ship!  The maser array to boost the stuff out of orbit 
would involve thousands (?) of full sized space solar power platforms.  As a 
rough guess were talking costs equivilent to decades of total US GNP to set 
up the array.



>   I know the group had discussed destination star 
>  systems back in 1995, but I honestly forgot which 
>  one was selected. ===

Kind of hard to even get to centauri, so the selection is limited.


>  === that we feel that space advancement and exploration 
>  is proceeding at a snail's pace.  Why if it weren't for 
>  McNamara doing so much damage to NASA, we'd have 
>  landed a manned team on Mars in the 1980s.  What do 
>  you all think?

I worked at NASA in the shuttle and station programs for about 15 years.  
McNamara didn't do anything to NASA.  We never went to Mars or back to the 
moon because we had no interest in doing it.  We really only did the moon to 
show up Russia.

Right now NASA is a impediment to space.  They have no real budget to do 
anything, and won't take any risks on current gen or new technology, and they 
fight like hell to keep the new star ups or the military from passing them 
by.  Fortunatly they are failing and force to try to follow.

Kelly


>  Mike Pfeifer
> Systems Analyst
> Colorado

Kelly