The problem is that the public will not get excited and sacrifice for space that is not well defined; solid timeline defined.
Seth Godin, in his blog post titled Achievable Avalanche Opportunities, points out how people are willing to work on massive projects if they will bring a avalanche of rewards, but this reward and the path to that reward must be certain. This is where space programs and a space habitation project will run into a massive brick wall (of pain, death and humiliation). Right now, we are waiting until lightning strikes. For too often our arguments take the form of “when X happens we will have a space based economy”. The two critical points of the argument that provides the financial feasibility of manned space flight are lowering of the cost to access space and opening of a Maslow Windows. Yes, there is active work on launch costs and the Maslow Window opens soon, but, to the public, it is a waiting game.
Personally, a waiting game has never really gotten me to jump up and down with excitement. I think I’m safe in generalizing this.
Reactions
-Is space really a waiting game?
-If it is true that the people working on space activity can deal with the wait because of their passion, how can we make the public passionate about space?
Resources
Godin, Seth. "Achievable Avalanche Opportunities”
Seth Godin’s Blog. 8 September 2009. Web. 8 September 2009.
<http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/achievable-avalanche-opportunities.html>.
In Case You Skimmed
-There is a lot of waiting involved with space habitation, thus the public will loss interest in space habitation.
