The ways and means to achieve space travel outside Lower Earth Orbit is an obviously tremendous project. With such challenging economic times, expecting government to be able to muster the resources seems not only unlikely but also unfeasible. In respect of John F Kennedy's drive to put a man on the moon, he also made the call "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." The good news is creativity is the answer. We have the resources already within the people already enthusiastic about space travel. Take for the perfect example the birth of controlled flight itself.
The Wright Brothers weren't government subsidized, and neither Orville or Wilbur went to college. They utilized all the resources both within their reach and throughout the world. They did this by using the skills and tools from their bicycle shop. They analyzed the concepts of how bicyclists keep from falling and applied that to flying. They studied the flight experiments and calculations from other scientists around the world. They challenged current thinking on flight, including altering the "Smeaton constant" used for calculating lift. The numerical constant had been used for over 100 years, and they changed it.
The brothers also did not follow the trend on trying to make more powerful engines force flight. They refuted the basic concept that flying was just an elevated car or train travel, which falsely removes the influence of three dimensional forces. The brothers concentrated on control of the aircraft first, and in doing so they failed time and time again. After the first trials at Kitty Hawk, Wilbur discouragingly even pronounced that manned flight would never happen in their lifetimes.
They learned to adapt their experiments to what time and money resources they did have. They didn't work on a power source until they mastered control, and when they took to building an engine, again, they broke the rules. The block was cast from aluminum and utilized no carburetor, making it the first fuel injection prototype. They surely didn't have the resources available to them that average person does at their fingertips on a computer today. The ideas anyone has for space flight are applicable in regard to all have validity as long as the provider is open to criticism and ready to adapt to the project at hand.
Colette is an emerging technology writer who travels the world attending science and technology conferences to report findings and connect concept to application.
