| 9009pc said: at bolded i think elon musk's almost instant response to dimitri rogozins joke about a trampline indicates that the U.S did move to the private sector well before it was necessary. the dragon mk2 should be flying astronauats to the iss by 2017. that is 3 years before russia will stop letting the U.S use their rockets. |
It actually should've happend much sooner than that. Once we landed on the moon, near earth orbit ventures should've been encouraged among the private sector. Elon Musk (a great man mind you), did what he could, as soon as he could, but in the grand scheme of things the industry should've already been in place.
As I said, though, Elon Musk is pretty amazing, and what he's been able to do to bring jobs back to the Kennedy Space Center area, is really a testament to how much this industry could've achieved, had the push only happened years prior to the decomissioning of the shuttle fleet. Interestingly, I was there when Discovery left KSC (On the back of a 747) on it's final flight to the Smithsonian, I happened to be visiting my mother in Florida, who lives a very short distance from KSC, so we got up early, and headed down to the Visitors Center. I have to say, it felt like a privilege to be able to see it (shoot me a PM if you'd like to see some video and pictures as I don't know how to attach a video I have stored on G+ to here).
