If you read Hermann Oberth's works, you will see that he concedes that
all of the Nazi rocket technologies were cribbed from the publicly
available patents of Dr. Robert Goddard of Massachusetts. He developed
his 35+ patents on all aspects of rocket technology using private funds.
The only public funding he ever got was a one time $5,000 grant from the
Smithsonian Institution, which does not go very far with rocket
technology.
>
> The collectivist aspect of the United States has a much better developed
> space program than any private industry initiative.
>
> Your future is optimistic, but not based on historical fact.
>
While large capital programs for space exploration up to the present
have typically been only nationally fundable, if you look at the
receding size and scope of national programs since the early 70's, you
can see that the bureaucracy has run up against the one thing it is
inherently incapable of overcoming: the economic obstacles to
commonplace, everyday use of space, which is mostly embodied in what is
known as the mass fraction.
That NASA has publicly announced its intention to exit from overseeing
launch operations within the next decade shows that communal operations
that are funded by taxes on a capitalist system are unfeasible.
Lockheeds VentureStar launch vehicle, along with projects by Pioneer
Rocketplane, Kistler Aerospace, Lunar Resources Company, LunaCorp,
SpaceHab, Bill Gates' and Bruce McCaw's Teledesic Corporation, and
Boeing's SeaLaunch project are examples that the future of space travel
beyond nationalistic bravado belongs to free enterprise.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}