Image by Space X.

Some pretty cool space developments, it looks as if Space X has been requesting hi-res images on Mars for… drumroll… landing/colonization sites. Lord, these people are awesome.

Really cool article here. By all means, check it out.

These people are serious. I guess what I fear most is that our one good chance at making this work will be screwed by some horrible development, like a large rocket blowing up and frying everyone aboard (causing a predictable heavy-handed knee-jerk reaction), or some other negative development. I also wonder if maybe some malign actor from a competing company will try their hand at industrial sabotage- after all, Space X isn’t sucking as hard from the taxpayer tit as some do, to the tune of many billions for little result. I could name names, but I don’t think I have to.

Speaking of the government, it looks as if the USAF is expanding its famous test-pilot program for space operations. Click on this link to find out about this; you know stuff is getting serious when the guys with the guns want to expand operations into the ultimate high ground, space.

This is really an active, hopeful time for space exploration. Really the most active time since the sixties for serious efforts toward deep space exploration; I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. About damn time.

Elon Musk and others on his wavelength want to expand into space for reasons of species continuity (and a tad of the old pioneer spirit), I think that’s a really good idea. Not to mention economic exploitation of unknown assets out there- it’s hard to tell what we may come across out in the asteroid belt, on the moon, etc.

Think heavy industry. Wouldn’t it be grand if we could move the really nasty stuff off planet, and mine the minerals that are floating around out there? It would be an elegant solution. Transport, of course, is the primary obstacle. But if we could get the costs down with economies of scale it would be great. Leave the strip mining and ore processing to space. If there is no environment to begin with, then industrial plants in the hard vacuum make a lot more sense out there than say in the middle of a residential neighborhood down here.

I dunno. I’d be happy with a decent little city on Mars within my lifespan. Space travel as a boring routine. The beginnings of real economic expansion within the solar system. If I can see that, then I guess I’ll die pretty happy.

Hopefully a while from now, of course.

But I want to see this stuff before I go.

Really.