Replies

The next man on the Moon will be a private citizen, sent there by his or her employer via a commercial spacecraft.

The Shenzhou is an interesting and capable spacecraft, but it is still a government-owned vehicle, and governments cannot compete with private industry for speed or cost. American industry is about to begin launching a new generation of privately-owned spacecraft that will render spam-can government space programs obsolete.

Within ten years privately-owned American spacecraft will be sitting on the moon, and the astronauts and passengers that go there in them will be employees sent there for the purpose of making a profit.

And within twenty years? I predict we’ll have a space railroad operating by then — a daily passenger and freight service operating from Earth’s surface to geosynchronous orbit and beyond, riding a carbon nanotube “rail” to the heavens.