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* Posts by Jim Brinton

2 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Sep 2007

Jules Verne creeps up on ISS

Jim Brinton
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What's being overlooked in all this...

...is how close the ATV is to being a man-rated spacecraft. If pressurized, it could certainly serve as a taxi to the ISS; only one-way, though as it is not designed to survive re-entry. Speaking as a frustrated US-er, I wish the EU would fund a manned program; after all, you are most of the way there with the ATV, and frankly, I would like to see somebody put the boot up NASA's rear.

As for the sadly non-existent UK manned program, you can have the Earth when the rest of us have finished with it. As far as plans for reviving the Empire go, it's a bit long term, but workable.

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Nobel-winning boffin slams ISS, manned spaceflight

Jim Brinton

Short term, blinkered thinking

What great examples of the short-term view.

Out there beyond the atmosphere is all the energy and resources we need to raise the global standard of living to an arbitrarily high level.

There's living space too, an infinity of it, plus safety for the human species if our single planet gets hit by an asteroid or comet.

How can anyone NOT want human space flight?

In the LONG TERM it holds the solution to all of our most pressing LONG RANGE problems. But you have to begin now.

Perhaps a species with such an advanced case of attention deficit disorder doesn't deserve to perpetuate itself.

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