I always had the notion that the Russians demonstrated more of an earnest zeal to travel in space compared to the American's "big-team-winning-score" approach. The Russians skew towards the more pragmatic where the Americans take a dynamic approach. Russians still use the Soviet era Soyuz spacecraft; if the Americans had stuck with the Apollo/Saturns who can say how much farther along in terms of cost per pound to orbit they would be if they had not blown so much time and money on that shuttle.
But funding, building and sustaining lots of big hardware projects is America's hide-in-plain-sight secret to sustaining a massive economy. Really it's just sustaining the idea of a massive economy, since nearly every parameter that is used to measure performance can also be taken as an abstract metric. Remember that notions like 'inches' and 'minutes' are human inventions, not forces of nature. A dollar may accumulate with others of it's own kin to represent significant buying power, but against a steady wind they are all just small pieces of paper flapping in the breeze. Put your faith in the wind, but build your tools out of dollars.
Push all cost recoupment into a theoretical future, and then issue contracts. As long as all participants in the food chain honor each other's billing attempts to collect, you have a working super economy. Kind of like a giant perpetual motion machine, where the assumed collective force of will is the primary driver sustaining the parameters of it's currency's value.
But funding, building and sustaining lots of big hardware projects is America's hide-in-plain-sight secret to sustaining a massive economy. Really it's just sustaining the idea of a massive economy, since nearly every parameter that is used to measure performance can also be taken as an abstract metric. Remember that notions like 'inches' and 'minutes' are human inventions, not forces of nature. A dollar may accumulate with others of it's own kin to represent significant buying power, but against a steady wind they are all just small pieces of paper flapping in the breeze. Put your faith in the wind, but build your tools out of dollars.
Push all cost recoupment into a theoretical future, and then issue contracts. As long as all participants in the food chain honor each other's billing attempts to collect, you have a working super economy. Kind of like a giant perpetual motion machine, where the assumed collective force of will is the primary driver sustaining the parameters of it's currency's value.
Consider alone the cost of spacecraft recovery. Apollo splashed down in the ocean, requiring an aircraft carrier for recovery, with it's massive cost per hour. The shuttle glided down, but once on the runway had to be secured and then the accumulate cost and logistics to move the orbiter to the refit facility ended up surpassing the system-thru cost of the single-use Apollos. The Soyuz capsule uses a parachute and a short burst descent retro rocket package to land on some small plot of Russia, a big target that's hard to miss. All that's needed for recovery is a flat bed truck with a two ton winch and a van for the cosmonauts. Plus a tool kit to get the cosmonauts out of the Soyuz. Or they could just leave the capsule where it is after stripping out what they need. Someone could be hired later to roll it away, seeing as how it is a mostly spherical object.
Past my lofty goals and major achievements in bioscience and biomechanics, I have always had a reserved passion for space travel. I could contract with the Russians to build the large nuts and bolts parts of the ship; then get some American company to build the computers and write what software I might need. I've done this kind of thing before, on projects that my creatures can't build. The components could be disguised as parts of several luxury yachts, then shipped to my island off the west coast of South America. It straddles the equator, so if I had to use rockets to launch this location would necessitate the smallest needed rocket.
Seeing as how I am immortal, what would I have to lose? Build myself a very large interstellar craft and launch myself into the void. Igor will probably come along, seeing as he is immortal too; and I will need someone to mind the greenhouse and attend to the husbandry needs of the food supply.
