A couple new editorials were printed today, with various views on Bush's new vision for a return to the Moon, and a journey to Mars.
Our Future in Space (The Independent Institute)
By Frederick Giarrusso
"A truly bold vision of the future of space exploration for America would place private space entrepreneurs at the forefront. Like other industries (e.g. semiconductors, biotech, and the internet), the federal government played a significant early role in demonstrating key technologies. But these industries flourished when entrepreneurs stepped in and took the reins. We are now at that point with the exploration of space."
Exploring space worth risks (Florida Today)
by Roy D. Bridges, director of NASA's Langley Research Center
"We live in a marvelous age of invention and discovery. Yet we sometimes fail to see the possibilities for even greater outcomes. The typical argument against investments in aerospace exploration is that we have too many problems here on Earth. Yet the answers to these problems most often come from pushing beyond our current frontiers of knowledge."
You Paid For This? Space Stations on the Moon and Men on Mars!
by Citizens Against Government Waste
This editorial contains yet another use of the $1 trillion figure for the new NASA vision, which is often repeated by detractors but has no basis in fact. NASA's budget over the next 20 years (at present rates) will be ~$300 billion, which is probably the best current guess as to what the program will cost.
Posted by jburk at February 17, 2026 03:53 PM | TrackBackEditorial 1:
The main problem with a commerce only program is that there really isn't a large market into getting things to space. Everyone says tourism, but first there need things to do.. having 5 minutes of weightlessness on a sub orbital flight will loose appeal quickly, so there will need places to go. That costs alot of money upfront, and no real revenue incoming for years. I mean the cost overruns for the Titan4 is due to the fact they over estimated the number of launches they will have a demand for.
So i thought about it, and figured I could probly come up with a design and cost/profit report on an automated orbital pharmecutical plant, using that 500k a launch figure (costs would change based on the actual process but it will give a good baseline) And it will make me feel useful :)
Editorial 2:
its like the old arguement of general science reaserch over applied reaserch. Its a holy war, both sides have points. And for spinoff tehcs I had an Idea of forming a company that took technolgies that needed development for space, and find and develop the earth based applications, make a profit off that while gaining expertise in those technologies. It was aborted, when i discoved all the political BS i would had to have gone through to get even the Earth based apps up an running. And would be hard to get investor capital because of that. The seed tech was hydroponics, and I'd use the profits off that to 100% waste recycling and power generation. However i came across the big three Agro companies and their lobbists.
Editorial 3:
I'm always saddned when i see this type of stuff. "We can't afford it". Umm even if it was 1 trillion dollars, thats over 20 years, easily in the surplus coming out of the clinton adminstration. The truth is not only can we afford it. We can not afford not doing it now.
If we have not done 2 out of 3 things by 2050, Humans are doomed. at about 2050 we will not have the reasources to get off planet, as all our reasources will be devoted to feeding the population, and that will allow a large asteroid (as the one that may hit us in 800 years) to hit us and wipe out humanity.
1 that must be done, power generation, we may come up with earthbased only apps, but Solar power sats, or helium3 from the moon for fusion are the two that requires space assests. Or maybe sothing else we haven't discovered.
and we must have one of the following: Asteroid Mining, or a completly reusable space craft. Mainly so we can have a supply of reasources for space craft, to build self suffcient colonies on other planetary bodies in the solar system, so we do not have all the eggs in one basket. This is why I am personally a space nut, to give our species, and our history, a future.
Posted by: Matthew Brown at February 20, 2026 10:43 AMOne off the threads over at the new mars blog was considering the commercial viability for extraterrestrial based mining ventures (Moon, Mars, Asteroid belt).
Could terrestrial demand for rare- and not-so-rare metals / resources make it a commercial necessity to explore and exploit extra-terestrial resources?
The way commercialism and materialism is being agressively being pushed accross the globe, soon al those companies trying to sell the next-must-have widget will run out of the easily accessible resources on Terra - and that might just be the salvation of manned space exploration.
BTW: This egg is also feeling very nervous about about this full basket ... and the road ahead looks bumpy.
Posted by: Daniel at February 20, 2026 12:12 PMEditorial three not only butchered the facts, but the English language as well. Stupid people with too many opinions, that has to be the worst thing ever. Why go to the moon and mars? Because people alot smarter than you see the enormous benefits and because the human spirit of adventure is evident in even the smallest child who looks up in the sky and wonders whats out there. Its the human thing to do. To not do so would betray our forefathers who went to see what was beyond the next hill, who traversed the vast oceans and continents. "We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard." We choose to do these things because were human
Posted by: Gus at February 22, 2026 11:51 PM