Step-Ladders to Space |
For the past 45 years, NASA has been building escalators to space, when what's wanted and needed is step-ladders. Or, if you prefer the auto analogy, they've built Phaetons when we wanted Ford Mavericks. The results were predictable: Few people got into space, and the machines that got them there became more and more costly.
Now things are beginning to change.
A host of startups are forging the rungs, beams and hinges for those stepladders. NASA and the big aerospace companies, from their perspective, are more obstacles than assistants -- unable to provide routine, affordable access to space themselves, and prone to telling financiers that if they can't do it, nobody else can either.
True, it's no cakewalk, and it won't be for a long time. Achieving the goal will take serious technical expertise and substantial amounts of funding. But an honest assessment shows that NASA and its established contractors vastly overstate the difficulties. Paula Berinstein talked to the people who have figured that out, and are doing something about it.
| MAKING SPACE HAPPEN |
| Paula Berinstein Medford, NJ: Plexus Publishing, 2002 |
| ISBN 0-9666748-3-9 |
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