Although I intend for TIAW to be weekly, and had a lot of fun with the inaugural edition, this entry is several weeks after the first. A health issue has forced me to radically decaffeinate from a six-cup coffee habit, so even though I'm adjusting well enough the new equilibrium is much less energetic. However, I doubt it will affect future entries.
The community suffered several losses this week, not least the loss of innocence. For many supporters of Newspace, it is indeed just a hobby--something interesting to read about, "cool" to watch, and fun to discuss when there are no football games on. Those people are now wringing their hands about what a cruel universe it is, and attacking those of us who've dared to honor the Scaled people as anything more than hapless victims of circumstance. I understand their perspective, but it disgusts me nonetheless.
People who call those in the accident heroes are not being cynical, they are telling the simple truth, and it wasn't the catastrophe that made it so--they were heroes before, and the price they paid only brought attention to that fact. Soldiers are glorified for nothing more than obeying orders to kill, but these people are working toward an infinite future. If that doesn't make them heroes, then no such thing exists.
Notes: As promised, I'll be staggering the segments except for Star Chamber, Awe Fodder, and Factoids. Unfortunately, since I haven't felt up to doing all the segments I wanted to, there isn't a Dramatis Personae or Science Fiction Recommendation & Review this time around. Also, I had planned my poll well before the Mojave accident, and feel that the question is more important than ever.
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For Flatlanders:
1. Promethean Spark: Ways that manned space can contribute to the liberal/progressive social, economic, educational, and diplomatic agenda. Today: The Overview Effect.
2. The Magic Around You: Technologies created, advanced, or made possible by space. Today: Computer Miniaturization.
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For Us:
3. Essay - Profitability Is Not an Option: Why Space Settlements Must Be Loss-Leaders to Prosper.
4. The Star Chamber: Building the community.
5. Business of the Future: Potential, often quirky angles on the space market, and their derivatives. Today: Data acquisition.
6. Awe Fodder: Images that make you a believer.
7. Factoids
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Promethean Spark
The Overview Effect
For decades, scientists and activists have tried to pound environmental responsibility into the heads of the American people, yet most only care when it affects their wallet. For centuries, humanists have tried to show people that the distinctions between them are trivial, and that we are all branches of the same family, but the vast majority remain determined to see themselves and their own at the center of the universe. And business--that all-embracing, non-judgmental imp--has simply followed the currents of society, and perpetuated the same old problems.
Business has a product or service for every id, because the people who run and invest in them are as disconnected from reality as their customers. If you need a coal-fired Hummer to drive to the supermarket, by all means have three just in case, and leave the other two running while you're away so the environmentalists don't win. If you are emotionally incapable of handling real news, please accept this gift of fake news tailored to fit your ignorance and prejudices. We guarantee you will never be troubled with facts that challenge your beliefs, and all events that can't be ignored will be distorted beyond recognition until you can tolerate them.
Perhaps people understand intellectually that what they're doing is idiotic and suicidal, but instant gratification can be far more powerful than the weight of cerebral warnings. You know that in some vague, perhaps distant future those Camels will bring you an agonizing death, but they feels so good now. The warning on the side of the pack is just words, just like news articles about dead polar bears, casualty reports, and Dick Cheney declaring himself the Fourth Branch of government. No words can compare to the immediate bliss of lighting up, sliding into a spacious SUV, and ignoring horror while the option still exists.
But something changes in people when confronted, up close and personal, by what had only been an abstraction before. Visit a prison, and you may realize just how stupid "tough on crime" rhetoric is. Visit a third world slum, and perhaps your craving for the next useless toy from Circuit City is less compelling than it had seemed. Now imagine seeing everything in a single image, from a height our ancestors would have considered godlike, and having the scope of the entire history of known life right in front of you. What exactly does that do to a person?
Through most of history, people had to climb mountains for that sort of experience, and it's no surprise that most religious or mystical cults were motivated by such trips. Today, however, far more awesome sights are possible, and the people who see them go through a great deal of training to avoid being overwhelmed. They are called astronauts, and even the hardest of military pilots in the corps will describe the sight of Earth from space as personally transformative. In fact, some have even described it as emotionally wrenching to look away, and had to summon all their self-discipline to remain on task.
The most radical examples of this, the Apollo missions, have seen the Earth not just as a giant world looming over/beside/beneath them, but as a glassy orb the size of a golf ball held at arm's length. Can anyone who has never experienced that truly imagine it, even having seen the photographs? To float weightless as if in the womb, and recognize in your deepest animal self that everything related to you on any level is in that little globe; that you are surrounded on all sides by the infinite unknown, a tiny fleck of life in the outer reaches, far beyond all other life as we know it. This is called the Overview Effect, and those who profess to have experienced it call it life-altering.
Unfortunately, the high cost of access to space has thus far limited it to a few hundred highly trained professionals and five extraordinarily wealthy and determined tourists, so there hasn't been much social impact to this effect. Those who come back from space can talk about the unity and fragility of our world and species, but once again it is simply words to those whose daily lives have no point of reference to that perspective. It is merely an abstraction--a set of pretty pictures that rarely sink in beneath their intellectual and aesthetic appreciation. Like the Iraq war dead, the torture gulags, and global poverty, none of it is real, but merely elements of a story that runs in parallel to the "real world" of the mundane life we personally experience.
But what happens if otherwise normal people could see what astronauts have seen? What are the sociological consequences if thousands of new people every year, many of them celebrities and powerful figures, come to know in their gut what centuries of peacemakers and philosophers have been saying? What decades of environmentalists have been saying? Suddenly all these words are no longer words--the cigarettes are a box of poison, the Hummer a tombstone on wheels for millions, and the conquest and murder of foreigners a crime against our own families. Everything that we've been shoving into the realm of abstraction since time immemorial comes blazing home in a blinding epiphany, and once there the image never leaves. It would be an egregious understatement to say that radical social changes would be set in motion, probably dwarfing any that have ever gone before.
Of course this is not a "miracle cure" in itself for the world's problems. Most people will never travel into space no matter how cheap it becomes, just as most have never flown, and nothing can cure a heart that loves hate or greed. But people in general are not bigots, not blindly acquisitive, and a critical mass dedicated to change will occur when enough have felt the Overview Effect. It isn't just they who experience it, but the people around them, their spouses, their children, their friends, who are influenced by their way of seeing things, and can indirectly understand. National leaders throughout the world will come to power having seen it from space, and those capable of it will understand the true weight of their responsibilities.
Ultimately this means something truly remarkable: A humanity that has become aware of itself on a basic level, naked before the realization of what we are, and both appreciative of protecting what we have and emboldened to seek out the mysteries that await us. We can't necessarily imagine the shape of civilization after such a transformation--it is almost like a type of Singularity---but if those who have already experienced the Overview Effect are any indicator, it will be an awesome, limitless, and far more progressive future than any imagined by Robert F. Kennedy.
Resources:
The Overview Effect
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The Magic Around You
Computer Miniaturization
--1963--
Why on Earth would anyone need a computer to fit in a single room? Surely any company large enough to afford one can easily afford the additional floor space, and it's difficult to imagine what smaller organizations might want with a computer--after all, they couldn't afford the technical team needed to operate one. Since the amount of money needed for R&D on such a project would be massive, the extra property taxes and logistics costs of current technology would be dwarfed, so I doubt anyone is seriously spending their own money working on this. Then again, come to think of it, there is Kennedy's nutty Moon thing going on, and I suppose that might be an application where computer miniaturization really is a necessity. Apparently it's just impossible to aim over those distances without precise calculations, so they need to figure out how to put a computer (of all things) into space. I guess an unlimited NASA budget might actually put that into the realm of possibility, though their 10-year time table is a bit laughable.
But really, I fail to see how such a development would justify the expense put into it. Okay, so they get their room-sized computer, and then fly it to the Moon. What good are room-sized computers here on Earth? Maybe some day, perhaps in the 21st century if we're lucky, computers will be the size of television sets and every town library will have one. Maybe school children in 2040 will take field trips to play number games on their town's computer, or even make drawings on a television screen with the help of a trained librarian. But all of that is really pie in the sky, and I shouldn't have to pay all these taxes for these wasteful government fantasies. There is no use for space, and no use for small computers other than helping gubmint bureaucrats tote up my taxes. Personally, I think they should cancel Apollo and give me back my money so I can buy a Corvair.
--2007--
For anyone still not getting the message, you are reading this sentence on a machine made possible by the Apollo program. Any questions?
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Profitability Is Not an Option:
Why Space Settlements Must Be Loss-Leaders to Prosper
By any measure, space is not a very straightforward undertaking. Actual flight paths are in circles, ellipses, and conic arcs when our intuition prefers straight lines; prices can decline substantially with increased demand; and it is much harder to start and stop than make the actual trip. Likewise, and somewhat ironically, the economics of space settlement is in many ways at odds with the business ventures that will enable it. Although this is not intended as a thorough examination, hopefully it will contribute to the discussion.
To begin exploring the subject, imagine three scenarios: (1)A settlement with enormous profitability; (2)a settlement with modest profitability; and (3)a settlement that operates at a massive loss for the foreseeable future. Assume that all else is equal, that profit/loss refers to Earth-based investment rather than local efforts, and that profitability results from the priorities of the settlement rather than differences in efficiency or resources.
1. The Banana Republic
Our first settlement (heretofore known as "BR") is the poster-child for the libertarian wing of Newspace, and its motto is "Our business is business." Designed from the beginning to maximize profit for its Earth-based investors, virtually all of BR's activities are arranged to deliver earnings and attract more money. Since the economic locus remains on Earth, this means that the settlement operates like a foreign-owned corporation, and its sole operational imperative is generating return for that ownership rather than growing a civilization. In other words, BR is an input/output function for its investors, and only a very small percentage of the profit can be devoted to the societal and local economic foundations of the settlement itself--and only then if anything is left after dividends and purely business-related growth.
While it is likely that initial colonists will have a financial stake, and some may have personal fortunes invested, their total percentage of the ownership would be trivial even with several multi-billionaires involved--which isn't necessarily plausible, given the need for highly capable scientific and engineering experts. Even with massive profits, their total income wouldn't approach the cost of designing, constructing, launching, and landing basic infrastructure or even the foundational manufacturing equipment to build it. And it is also likely that subsequent waves of colonists would have progressively less stake in the venture, meaning the inhabitants will, over time, consist mainly of contract employees. What we then have is akin to an Alaskan oil town, totally dependent on external economics and lacking the basic systems of an organic community.
This is not to say that no progress would be made toward a real society, or that no local commerce would occur, but the basic means of survival would not be owned by the settlers or controlled by local institutions, and nearly all profit would return to Earth or just be invested in expanding the ventures that made it. Furthermore, since building a full-spectrum economy would take much longer and be far more expensive up-front than just importing Earth-manufactured equipment, the operations of the settlement will become even more dependent on off-planet supply chains. After the system has matured, it becomes much easier to just reduce the costs of importation rather than invest in a local economy, so the hope for self-sufficiency declines as time passes.
But there is a key difference between BR and an Alaskan oil town, and this is why the former develops into something more sinister--the inhabitants of BR, once they arrive, have no practical choice about staying. This ultimately means families, and a society of some kind will develop whether or not the proper groundwork has been laid for one. Although the settlement will be technically "self-governing" and maybe even recognized as sovereign, this fact loses meaning if they are totally dependent on Earth-based corporations. So what kind of society evolves under these circumstances, with token political authority and distant interests being the sole economic engine?
While imperfect, there is a historical analogy worth examining: The American South. Of all the colonies, those of the South were by far the most profitable, yielding massive exports of cotton and tobacco. Despite starting off similar to other regions, the profit potential of Southern cash crops ended up radically skewing the type of colonists that were recruited, the economies they created, and the local cultures that resulted. While New England was flooded with small farmers, political and religious radicals, and commoner tradesmen, the South was increasingly dominated by transplanted nobility whose business undermined and eventually supplanted its democratic institutions. Ordinary colonists who chose the South found themselves marginalized, their farms outpriced by huge plantations, their paid jobs replaced with slaves, and all political authority resting in the hands of the aristocracy.
With business booming, there was no incentive to invest in growing a native culture or diverse economy--their business created their culture for them, and those who didn't benefit from it had no power to do anything about it. As Northern cities exploded with immigrants, hummed with new machinery, and pulsated with political upheaval, the South largely remained a patchwork of petty fiefdoms connected by dirt roads, with ornate mansions and rickety shacks occasionally punctuating the landscape. Although the plantations were exceedingly profitable, the vast majority of people derived no benefit from them, and all that money failed to further the creation of a civilization.
Had external demand for tobacco or cotton evaporated, the South would have faced total economic and social collapse, but no one sector held such power over the North. Because its crops were far less profitable, its soil harsher, and its winters longer, New England never had much need for huge plantations, slavery, or the money of landed gentry, so its economy was dominated by small farms with a variety of produce, local trades, and eventually manufacturing. But the huge profitability of cotton and tobacco totally swamped every other influence on Southern colonization, so the plantations became the reason rather than the means. As a colonial endeavor, the American South was therefore a horrible failure, and all because it was too profitable, too soon.
As for our Banana Republic, if the colonists finally forced the issue by declaring eminent domain and imposing taxes or license fees, they would likely just be ignored and their supplies cut off until they relented, if not quickly brought under control by mercenaries or other colonists looking to advance their lot. But even if the culture didn't naturally develop submissiveness over time, a few rounds of revolt and mass execution would instill the desired attitude. And if not that, they would simply be abandoned to their fate, the corporate operations moved a few miles out, and the settlement most likely failing without the means of building a self-sustaining economy. Ultimate result: At best, a poor, bitter, dreary culture of power and obedience that fails to establish an independent civilization, fails to grow or change significantly as a society, and holds no attraction for subsequent generations from Earth. Total collapse will always be a virtual certainty if trade is interrupted. Conclusion: Profitability = bad.
2. The Flea Market
Our second settlement, FM, is an intermediate case between BR and the ideal scenario examined in the third example. Its motto is "Our business is being here." FM does not organize its entire operations around delivering profit to Earth, and is not entirely under its capital control, but it does depend entirely on Earth as a consumer and supplier base for locally owned industries. Although the economic locus is not entirely terrestrial, it remains mostly so, with only modest localization of infrastructure and a very narrow assortment of domestic ventures.
Certain middle-income countries (e.g., modern Mexico) are analogous, whose economies are a mixture of foreign-owned business and domestic firms that depend primarily on foreign supply and consumption. The result is that revenue for basic infrastructure expansions is quite limited, and even more so for those not directly related to industry. Prosperity may follow for a minority, but will rise and fall directly with the fortunes of terrestrial partners, and the society will grow very slowly in small fits and starts.
Whereas BR is merely an extension of specific Earth-based industries, FM will be an extension of whole Earth-based economies--an improvement, but certainly not ideal. The metaphor would be growing a new branch rather than a new tree. Were trade interrupted, FM would be extremely hard-pressed to develop native substitutes for off-world resources in time to avoid core collapse, but it could be done if the society had progressed enough by that point.
Unfortunately, cultures born in this type of economy tend to have a binary class structure, with neither the blue-collar working class or the entrenched capital owners particularly interested in the public good. Even after the common danger is recognized, which might take a while in such a society, they would not have a great deal of experience organizing concerted action, and it would likely be corrupt and inefficient when it did occur. If Earth civilization failed due to some catastrophe, FM would most likely erode over a few decades into survivalist pockets, and then finally collapse. Ultimate result: At best, stunted, slow-growing civilization with limited potential and high long-term risk. Conclusion: Dependence on Earth = bad.
3. The New World
Our final settlement (NW) is the ideal, representing the utopian dreams we all think about when imagining space colonization triumphant. Its motto is "Our business is world-building." While it needs investment to operate, the only ventures it will pursue are those which will advance its goals in some way: Maximum localization of economic inputs, processing, manufacturing, and consumption; maximum local ownership (public or private) of same; maximum diversity of output; a prosperous, intelligent, industrious, innovative, and free-spirited society; and an effective, accountable, law-based government of some kind. In other words, investors must expect to benefit from what the colony would be doing anyway (a.k.a. loss-leading), rather than require that colonists tailor their plan around directly maximizing profit.
The point of NW's goals is that a space settlement is supposed to grow an entirely new, self-sustaining system, not physically extend Earth's global economy, so arguments about comparative advantage or the flaws of mercantilism do not apply. Most of its goals are pretty common-sense, though quite difficult, but some would ask why consumption should be maximally localized--after all, wouldn't it be beneficial if Earth wanted to buy the settlement's output? Eventually it will be, but if they end up selling large quantities of output before building a diverse, fully localized economy, the shape of that economy will be dictated by terrestrial demand--i.e., it will not be optimized for growth in its own resource environment, and could lead back to FM.
Most investors must expect that they will be pouring their money down a black hole, and will only see returns indirectly or over vast timescales--financial Hawking radiation. Or, as mentioned before, they must be able to profit from output (e.g., science, engineering, data) that pursuing the goals of the settlement will naturally generate. But NW is careful that the ventures it becomes involved with don't build momentum independent of their purpose, and will not compromise its priorities in order to accommodate its partners.
Libertarians reading this are by now, of course, foaming at the mouth, but actually this scenario only calls for a high degree of central planning for off-world trade: Business that develops locally should be primarily laissez-faire, since it will be highly responsive to local needs and resources. The point is to incubate the economy, only letting in resources that can help it become more independent, and only letting out data or small quantities of material for scientific purposes. Given the investors described above, this kind of policy produces an economic greenhouse effect, and will yield logarithmic growth curves once key developmental thresholds are crossed. While NW takes substantially longer to produce initial growth than either BR or FM, it rockets past them over the long-term.
Since this settlement will have an entire world of resources to build on, and can grow its economy from scratch, the likelihood is that it will reach equilibrium at a point far beyond any (or even all) Earth nations, and do so long before it liberalizes trade. A totally unique, energetic culture with its own art, architecture, music, theatrical tradition, and radically innovative businesses, governments, and technologies would probably occur. Since NW grows the economy to serve the civilization, rather than vice-versa, it just gets more and more attractive to immigrants from Earth looking for the leading edge.
Whether you're colonizing free space, the Moon, Mars, asteroids, or outer planetary moons, this is the best possible approach for growing an independent and prosperous civilization, and the differences between them would only be difficulty and time. A free space colony would need to import everything but energy, and develop as close to a total closed-loop ecology as possible. An asteroid with sufficient volatiles might only need to additionally import elements not found locally, and then recycle them. Mars, however, is where NW's most awesome potential resides, where its growth can unfold most rapidly, and where world-building becomes a skillset rather than a theory.
Ultimate result: At best, beyond our wildest dreams; free and radically advanced civilizations raying outward from the original settlement, both on its body and further out into the solar system; history without end or repetition; a solar system with quadrillions of people, beyond all possible census or control, some heading out even further with or without the knowledge of the rest; and Earth drowning in luxury beyond the wildest dreams of today's nations, albeit likely poorer than other civilizations at the time. While the NW colony is still nascent, Earth becomes progressively less integral to its survival over time, and within fifty years might be completely irrelevant.
Summary Conclusions: Scenario 1 (BR) must be avoided at all costs, as it will both fail and sour future generations on the wisdom and feasibility of space colonization. Scenario 2 (FM) is better than nothing, but not better than its alternatives other than Scenario 1. Avoid FM if feasible, or change course at some point if starting that way is unavoidable. If a New World is what we're looking for, then a space settlement should be developed as such rather than as a mining town, a flag of convenience, or a fantasy island for tourists.
Resources:
4Frontiers Corporation
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The Star Chamber
As discussed in the previous TIAW entry, I have begun posting a list of intended topics on the DKspace Yahoo group, and invite everyone else to both (a)join the group--it's still a bit smaller than it should be (2 other members, WTF?)--and (b)do likewise. Playing to this small a crowd is a little eerie, so here's hoping for a broader community.
I didn't get any comments other than Ferris's on the last TIAW, and there was apparently a date-stamping issue with the recommendations that I didn't feel worth the trouble of correcting, but there were quite a lot of poll responses. This leads me to believe that a substantial number of people without DK accounts, and who therefore couldn't comment, were visiting the diary. If true, that is actually somewhat encouraging, although hopefully at some point more DK members will be interested.
So far I've briefly scanned Democratic Underground and Democrats.com for space groups or blogging, but unsurprisingly there were no groups or dedicated blogs that I could find. DU, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have a tagging system, there's no search function, and its journals are organized by the name of the author rather than subject. However, there is a DU Science Fiction group that might be fertile soil for space activism. Democrats.com, on the other hand, appears completely tabula rasa, though there might be lone stragglers out there who occasionally blog on the subject.
My comments and diary pimping in open threads have had exactly zero effect, as far as I can tell, but I will keep trying to imagine new ways of saying the same thing. Hopefully we won't have to wait until private spaceflight takes off before people take this seriously and understand that it affects their lives.
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Business of the Future
Data Acquisition
Robotic exploration has so far been untouched by Newspace, and for the moment that makes perfect sense. Unlike launch vehicles, space probe technology has advanced steadily over the years, becoming more capable and efficient through state-of-the-art hardware, software, and systems architectures. Unfortunately, NASA contracts specify probe design, not the information they want, so contractors are tied to a specific way of doing things that precludes revolutionary approaches. And since costs remain high as a result, no commercial customer base exists to fund new developments.
But let's imagine a different scenario: An open, fixed-price contract offered for data, not hardware, and funds transferred as the data are delivered--no up-front payments, no consolation prize for lost missions, no excuses. Provided the money is substantially smaller than a typical probe contract, current large contractors would be unable to justify pursuing it to their shareholders. The cost of their usual approach would far exceed the payment offered, and they would be accepting risk like a real business--something intolerable to a giant government contractor. So, for the immediate future, the contract sits there without takers.
Then a medium-sized LLC or Newspace entrepreneur realizes something: They don't have to do things like Big Aerospace, so maybe they have solutions that will put the contract within reach--a contract that, while small compared to a typical Lockheed procurement, is beyond their firm's wildest dreams. Given sufficient backing, such a firm could toss money and different approaches at the problem with impunity until something stuck. And even if they spent more on development than the payment, the same technology could be applied to future contracts, so it would be a genuine investment.
As to what specific solutions might come out of this, consider: Given the high risk of space probes, and the absence of any reward for failure, such firms will focus on (a)maximizing Earth-based operations, and (b)simplifying and cheapening probes to allow massive redundancy. Both tasks will complement each other, with progressively more trivial equipment being launched while innovations are made in remote sensing, adaptive optics, and software. What ends up in space might ultimately be little more than glorified two-way signal enhancers that never come anywhere near their subjects, at least for initial contracting generations.
At first these contracts would likely replace small, Discovery-class missions for solar observation, NEA characterization, or the like. But over time, more significant traditional probes would be cancelled in favor of the new approach, and the handful of Big Aerospace firms involved in space probe contracting would either exit the market or adapt. In the long-run, whichever companies end up being major players might find it worthwhile to build highly robust, long-lived, do-everything probes for bodies or regions with a high information demand, and use them for whatever contracts come along.
Since the data would regard a variety of objects and environments, new firms would be able to enter the market without necessarily competing against each other, and over time some may come to specialize. Some would collect data about specific objects, others receive it, and still others process it. Many different business arrangements are possible, including full vertical integration at each step of the process.
After enough contracts have gone through, and costs have been reduced, the price of information comes within range of new customers. As more money enters the market, more resources are brought to bear to obtain it, costs decline further, and the system approaches commercialization. At some point the contracting model itself would become obsolete, and information would be continuously available for purchase. Rather than saying you want this data from that object and companies then getting it, they would already have collected it, and customers could buy in units of data.
Additional opportunities then come about for transmission and reception of data, since NASA is currently dependent on scarce Deep Space Network time. Originally, data companies would have to use this aging infrastructure, and NASA would probably be willing to provide the time gratis, but eventually firms would have to create their own networks. Since time is so scarce with DSN, few realize that most of the scientific data from ongoing probe operations is never received, and scientists rely largely on statistical methods and redundant observations to get what they need. With a private network, all data would likely be received and recorded, since it is an economic commodity, and NASA could use private networks for those missions it does still pursue in-house. One could also imagine, further along, some sort of data relay system in various solar orbits.
Several in the Newspace community have already spoken about the possibilities of deep space data contracting, although I haven't yet seen any thorough examination or heard of any companies looking into pursuing it as a business. Hopefully that will change in coming years, as more of the space industry overall becomes commercialized.
Resources:
Space Frontier Foundation
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Awe Fodder
This is ISS with a surreal Earth beneath/beside/above it, and some planet off to the side.
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Factoids
On the night before a launch, cosmonauts have a tradition of urinating on the back tire of their transport bus--a practice which began with the very first manned spaceflight.
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Random thought of an exhausted mind: Safe sex might be difficult in microgravity, with fluids flying all over the place.