I Knew There Was A Reason I Kept My SFF Membership

01/11/04 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Rick Tumlinson (Space Frontier Foundation) has a really nice opinion piece in today's Space Review. bq. For a Moon base to survive and prosper, it must be built in the right spot, it must be robust, easy to operate at low cost, as self sufficient as possible and be easy to expand. The International Space Station is failing because it is in the wrong place, too delicate, too expensive to operate, and produces nothing of great value, scientific or commercial. To pay for the base we must combine a wide variety of income producing activities and services, such as those listed above. However, the people building the habitats after the first phase, operating the telescopes, and running the facility itself should not be government employees. The long-term lunar facilities should be designed and built by private firms in response to a short list of needs put out by the partners, with the US government leasing those it needs. Long term management of the base should be in the form of a Moon Base Authority to promote new activities, manage infrastructure, oversee safety, and enforce the law.

I knew there was a reason I kept up my SFF membership…