Let us think about the potential course of future Solar System development, and then come back to Earth at the end to see what we might do today.Ĭonsider this scenario– asteroid colonization.Ĭaption from Wikipedia the Main Asteroid Belt (the white donut-shaped cloud), theHildas (the orange “triangle” just inside the orbit of Jupiter) and the Jovian Trojans (green). Yes, the First (manned) Space Age lived by political funding and died from the lack of political funding, and it died with a whimper.īut for a new space age –sustained by real production with economic motives to keep out there and keep producing spreading Mankind through the Cosmos- new materials are called for and in fact their production might make a great expansion of the Earthly and space economies possible because their production would be from previously undervalued or even waste materials. Eventually the First Space Age died– some would date it from December 1972 with the last beyond Earth orbit manned mission, some from the Apollo Soyuz mission in 1975, from the loss of even a theoretical Saturn V launch capability in December 1976, or from turning off the lunar surface ALSEP scientific packages (seismometer network) on September 30, 1977, to save a line item and a few hundred thousand dollars a year-forget the billions spent to put them there. Tang, Pillsbury Space Food Sticks and other such products were marketing fads.
![space age concrete space age concrete](https://ebbandflowkids.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1-Big-Wheels-Puzzle-for-Children-Toys-for-Tots-Orchard-Toys.jpg)
Modern plastics and Teflon were actually outgrowths of pre-Second World War era technology.
![space age concrete space age concrete](https://ddfcdn.realtor.ca/listings/TS637909356251470000/reb4/highres/1/r2700351_5.jpg)
![space age concrete space age concrete](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/D6NFPF/background-macro-with-coloured-reflection-D6NFPF.jpg)
Often it was just a sales tool and had nothing to do with space engineering.