[ExI] Hobbling effects of giant leaps?

[Kelly Anderson]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 2:05 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 3, 2014 5:43 AM, "Dan" <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/10/30/apollo-ansari-hobbling-effects-giant-leaps/
> >
> > Interesting perspective in light of the recent tragedy. Any thoughts?
>
> Quite true from what I have seen.
>
> Also there is the question of who is ready to use the capability - as in,
> what's the market?  Many of these efforts have been justified as "build it
> and they will come", with no market research to confirm that "they" have
> the interest and budget to "come".  In almost any other industry this would
> be unacceptable, so investment - public or private - would be far harder to
> obtain.
>
>

I think the market is proven.

The problem now will be how much time will be lost as the company ("helped"
by the government) struggles to determine what happened in a timely manner,
then overcomes whatever they learn. We have, as a society, lost our
appetite for people dying in the struggle to push ahead. Eleven men died
building the Golden Gate Bridge, a far easier endeavor than getting into
space. About 112 people died relating to the construction of the Hoover
Dam. Did they stop those projects to investigate those deaths to the last
limit of what could be learned from each death? No, they just kept
building. Why do we have to stop these kinds of projects for up to 3 or 4
years to investigate what happened? They don't even ground airplanes when
one of their brothers go down. An acceptable level of risk must be accepted
for progress to be made. With the current environment, it will be years
before they have a chance to kill Justin Beiber. I say let him go now. Next
week if possible. ;-)

-Kelly
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