I cried yesterday hearing James Kirk otherwise known as William Shatner a Canadian turned American crying and describing his first flight into space.

It was an emotional moment for me as it was for Captain Kirk. I can’t deny I believe that man’s destiny is to be multi-world and eventually expand beyond this ball. Seeing the growth of the space industry is at least one thing we can be proud of.

Many people will poo-poo even this. I have to admit I am done with the big “entertainment shows” that NASA throws with its big budget blockbuster super technology show offs. Going to the moon and landing a person is truly amazing and I believe the ultimate achievement of man but….

If we just stop and then focus on our bickering here and fighting over who takes the shot and who doesn’t and if masks work or don’t and figure out how to out-corrupt each other it’s not enough.

In my mind man may be the only sentient species in the universe. We don’t know. We have to take this as far as we can. That’s called aspiration.

Maybe it isn’t rational. Maybe it isn’t safe all the time. Maybe it’s expensive but if it’s just an amusement ride or a blockbuster tech demo and wow you then it’s a waste. I admit it. It has to be more than just 7flags amusement ride.

So, I have argued in my blog what our goals in space should be and come to the conclusion the only really tangible goal has to be colonization. The establishment of a second foothold of man in this solar system.

This is complicated and isn’t about show rides and going to space for 3 minutes or even 3 days. It is about building a practical economical way to eventually establish a colony that is as close to self-surviving as possible.

This is not necessarily what a colony would look like but the point is to do what I think is inevitable. We have to get beyond this planet not to increase our wealth but to be the most we can be.

According to physics the practicality of space travel beyond our solar system is almost impossible. At sub-light speeds it takes decades to get to the nearest star system not minutes like on Star Trek. Practicalities of time distortion and time delay by the limitations of the speed of light mean communication would also take years.

That is possibly beyond us but some people are actually planning voyages of spacecraft to our nearest star systems using laser powered miniature spacecraft. Called Brilliant Lights we have the possibility in possibly decades of reaching and seeing pictures from another star system. Private founders have committed hundreds of millions to the program.

That is what humanity is about. Although I wouldn’t say it is the most practical thing.

What we can achieve is steady progress to colonization of mars. We could go to the moon but the moon is pretty much a rock.

Mars is a planet with water, some atmosphere, a decent gravity and wonders of nature including things like the deepest trench twice as deep as our oceans and the tallest mountains twice as tall as Everest. It’s got every mineral and element on Earth. It has everything we need.

It’s incredibly lucky we have such a thing in our system. It is like the perfect second colonization point. Of course, if it had an atmosphere thick enough to walk around in without a space suit and a magnetic shield that would make it perfect but we can compensate for those things. There is the remote possibility that in hundreds of years we could fix those things.

We could wait hundreds of years but Elon Musk has solved some of the most crucial problems for doing this. The biggest obstacle was making a space transportation system that was more efficient. NASA’s demonstration missions never focused on cost. It was always about the bang. We put boots on the ground. Look at us. The cost was irrelevant.

Musk did what NASA failed at. They tried the shuttle to make reusable space flight but it turned into more expensive than throwing away rockets. Musk has come up with incredibly ingenious ways to reuse rockets.

We have all seen how he showed us we could land rockets back on Earth to even my astonishment. Now he is showing us we don’t need the pica at least not like the shuttle.

The shuttles ultimate problem that made it cost prohibitive was the heat shield. The material was problematic that was used to keep the 3,000 degree heat from burning up astronauts on the way back. Elon has come up with a way to use good old steel, stainless steel bright and silver as if it was from a science fiction novel.

His rocket comes in with one side facing the atmosphere with a liquid cooled layer under the steel surface and a few tiles here and there and a little rocket burn here and there and presto you can avoid the massive cost and limitations of the shuttle. True re-usability from the top to bottom not just the booster but the whole kit and kaboodle.

It is at least as innovative as the falcon or a Tesla. Nobody thought of this but true reusability is going to cut the cost to lift a pound into orbit so much that it makes practical and cost-effective things that seem crazy.

The ISS cost us 100 billion dollars (and continues to cost us $4 billion a year to man and operate.). The main cost was the lifting of the mass into space. It is about 4-5,000 sq ft. The size of a small home.

With the Musk SpaceX Starship the cost would be 1% of that. In other words we could build another ISS bigger for a couple billion at least for the lift costs.

Such an effort to build a rocket that is so efficient makes no sense if our only need is to build a space station. In fact the Starship is pointless and quite a waste of money if all we do is launch satellites and build another space station or something.

The real purpose for cutting the cost of lifting mass to space is to deliver mass to mars. That is Elon’s goal and I think it should be the US’s goal.

NASA is building something called the SLS. It is a rocket bigger than the Apollo rocket we used to get to the moon. It costs $4 billion per mission, is not reusable and is a total waste of money.

Elon built the Starship on his own dime. NASA only jumped in in the last couple months giving Elon a couple billion to take us back to the moon with it.

NASA should scrap the SLS which is way overbudget, behind schedule and is not reusable and just get 100% behind using the Starship. NASA should get out of the launch business and focus on technology related to space exploration like robots.

In fact, I suggest NASA give up the ISS and give a contract to SpaceX to run and maintain the ISS. The ISS could be integrated into a space program to go to mars providing a way station and building/Re supply station. It could have a real purpose.

NASA should focus on the long goal of colonization of Mars and think about all the technologies we need to turn Mars into a practical colony without humans on it. For reasons I won’t go into here we cannot get to Mars with people soon. We need to develop the robotic technology to remotely build and operate infrastructure in space. This technology would be useful on Earth too undoubtedly.

I cried yesterday seeing Kirk go to space but a 7flags is not the goal or something to aspire to. It’s an amusement. Maybe Bezos can make money getting people to pay $250K a pop to go up to see the earth from 62 miles for 3 minutes but this is not something more than an indulgence for the super rich. It does not enhance human beings to let a few of us go up for their amusement.

It’s not a bad thing. It’s just not much of anything in my opinion. If it wasn’t William Shatner I don’t think I would have been interested at all in a few rich people getting to go up and see the earth.

So, I await NASA getting on board with the plan to colonize mars. It will happen eventually. I believe it is destiny. Why keep wasting money on demonstration projects? Why keep the ISS up there at colossal cost if it’s only purpose is the stupid experiments they do. I’m sorry if I seem non-plused by the hard work put into the ISS.

It was intended originally to create peace with Russia. Frankly, it hasn’t been much help. A little but democrats seem to want to resurrect the old Cold War. I don’t see the space station saving us from our fundamental conflicts and petty problems on earth.

A colonization of Mars might intrigue other nations including Russia. It would be far more powerful uniting force than the ISS.

Star Trek which Roddenberry created was an idealistic show that postulated if we focused on space we could unite the world. I don’t know if that will ultimately work but it can’t hurt and it is inevitable in my mind 100 years from now if we are still around or sooner. We will eventually decide to do it or die here on our little ball alone and fighting over our Resouces and power here.

Let’s have a bigger vision. Yesterday was good. There’s nothing wrong with what Bezos did but it’s not what we should be doing. Bezos should join with Elon in promoting an ultimate goal of Mars colonization. I don’t know what Bezos could contribute with Blue Origin but to me that’s better than being 7flags for rich people.