Where is my flying car?

[violachic]

Which is a phrase Wil Wheaton likes to use.

But today, it is John Scalzi who sums it up nicely:

Liz asks:

If you could, would you go into Space?

The short answer: Sure, as long as someone else paid for it.

The longer answer, yes, but I resent the fact that a decade into the 21st century the only way I could get into space at this point is to spend $20 million or so to strap myself onto a rocket whose basic design has not changed in 50 years, and launch myself toward an “international space station” where for three days I’ll be confined to an area not much larger than a bus, with a toilet that may or may not function. I mean, hell. If that’s how I wanted to spend three days, I could take a Greyhound from Boston to San Diego. Yes, I’d be weightless and the view would be nice, but you could tie me to a ballon and put a picture of the Earth on a big screen HDTV, and that would be 90% of the experience right there. Here in 2009, I should be able to visit a real space station, one that rotates for artificial gravity and is large enough to house more than a couple of Russian cosmonauts sullenly babysitting whatever middle-aged American millionaire has paid to go into space this time. It sucks that I can’t.

Yes. Yes, sums it up quite nicely.

Comments

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

I agree with some of what he says, but I would like to make some points of my own.

Rocket designs haven't changed in 50 years because they work and because their design is largely dictated by physics. Going from 0 to 17,500mph in 8 minutes is HARD. There's no way to do it other than chemical rockets that we know of and it'll take a discovery on par with the works of Newton, Gallileo or Einstein to change that.

Making artificial gravity by rotation is a nice idea but you need a very large vehicle for it to work properly. To get useful fake gravity out of something small you have to spin it fast and then the liquid in your ears spins like crazy because of the coriolis effect and you get sick as a dog. So, large and spin slowly. Making really big things in space is cost-prohibitive until we deal with the first point.

As for the quality of space tourism sucking, that's part of being a pioneer. Scaled Composites, SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace are working on improving space tourism.

Akin's Law of Spacecraft Design" are worth reading to get a sense of what it takes to put things (much less people) into orbit.

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

I think the real problem is, there's no meaningful consensus on what "space" means. There's so much of it out there, that the money guys figure we'll be happy with the shallow zone of LEO, and leave it at that. For space to get interesting, it's going to be rocky planetary environments that draw our attention, and those aren't "space", they're worlds just like this one. Space is a place you travel through to get to those worlds, but it's not a destination in itself.

Imagine if Columbus was trying to sell his voyage based not on what he would find at the other end, but rather the sailing part itself. Would anyone in their right mind have backed him?

We're having a similar crisis of imagination these days.