JPERRY@CEBAF2.CEBAF.GOV ("JOHN E. PERRY") (12/14/90)
Nick Szabo writes: >What is left? What vapor customers can be conjured up now? The long >search for the mythological Space Station Application is over. >Fred is dead. Let the Space Age begin. I don't know about organizations, but I see a space station (not Fred, of course) as a requirement for real space exploration--along with real space- going vehicles and propulsion systems, like a nuclear rocket. I noticed a few years ago a paper that analyzed a number of propulsion systems, and concluded that NERVA as it was when it was abandoned to provide money for the Apollo Boondoggle was a more efficient extra-atmospheric transfer vehicle than any current concept. I think we had the best possible space exploration plan in the fifties before it was trashed to pay for Kennedy's Folly. --John Perry jperry@cebaf2.cebaf.gov