I sure hope so.
When you first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey you must have thought that Pan Am actually would be flying passengers up to a space station like that.
One of my great disappointments (besides the demise of Pan Am) is that our space program dwindled off into the realm of the boring if not non-existant. Hell, we even have to rely on the Russians for our boosters.
What we're seeing now is a U.S.-Russian space program that takes advantage of the best assets that each country developed over the years. The U.S. had superior technology, while the Soviets had superior personnel for space travel. Interestingly, it looks like the Soviets were smart enough to figure out that a shuttle-type orbiter was not a very efficient vehicle at all ... so they never stopped using basic rockets to launch payloads and crews into space.
The Space Shuttle became a major problem. Described as “routine access to space,” it was anything but. The Shuttle took on a life of its own and soon became an end, not a means.
I was involved in a revolutionary program called
the X-30 that tried to use scramjets to use the air in the atmosphere to get to orbit but we never mastered the scramjets at the level needed.
Before we can ROUTINELY go anywhere in space, we have to have a space station that can assemble and launch, so we aren’t overcoming earth’s atmosphere to launch.