“A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he’d left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn’t given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets.” – James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes
The Editors’ Quote of the Day:
These stats are old, but at one point in time, it took $12,000 to lift one pound of freight into orbit. Hopefully SpaceX can get the cost down with their reusable rockets.
Are they paying for use of goverment(public owned) facilities? Are the facilities open to all or is this another sellout to the chosen?
Sounds like a good scifi series. I’ll have to find it and add it to my ever burgeoning collection of dead tree books.
I read about the Beanstalk first in a RAH story, “Friday”. Has anyone ever done an analysis of a possible Beanstalk to determine if it’s feasible (physically, technologically, and financially), and cost analysis of using it to lift cargo into near Earth orbit, versus chemical rockets (even reusable ones)?
First saw the “space elevator” concept in the 1980’s “Omni” magazine,seemed a fairly concrete plan just needing materials development and funding to make a reality.
I’ve read this series of books, and enjoyed them greatly, however bear in mind that there is some homosexuality within the pages though not in any graphic or gratuitous sense.
The authors have stated that there will be a total of 9 books with 2 still pending.
There are also themes within the story that the preparation movement can identify with.
That sounds very much like the TV series “The Expanse”. I think they even did a short segment on one of the episodes putting a little imagery to that paragraph.