4. Allows companies to conduct environmentally sensitive experimentation in space as needed. Issues which are very sensitive to the general public become far less sensitive when the experimentation is a few hundred miles in space and the experimenters have to live with their experiments for months at a time. The advantage here will be to remove a potential problem from the surface and make those involved responsive to safety concerns. 5. Allows countries which are interested in space operations to purchase from the US an autonomous manned space station for the same cost that a US company can buy one (75). Those countries that are interested in the space station would also be interested in the ET. If we remember the lesson of foreign sales of the F-20, foreign customers want to be actual owners and operators of the best equipment available. They will likely want a space station of their own and the ET/ACC combination is an excellent choice for their needs. This will also make the ET and ET based facilities an export item which will in turn improve the balance of trade. The ET as an export item is potentially a very attractive possibility. 6. Enhance the space station by getting a significantly wider range of customers involved in flying and operating in orbit. The space station could be a central point in a fleet of space platforms which will provide servies to that fleet of domestic and foreign customers. It will provide an impetus for the permanent manned presence in space to become more permanent. Another adaptation of the corporate space station concept was presented at the 7th Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing as a way decrease the start-up costs of the High Frontier scenario proposed by Dr. G. K. O’Neill (33, 52). A version of the ET based corporate space station was proposed which would be useful in two ways. The first is the generation of revenues for future R&D toward the goal of Solar Power Satellite construction out of lunar soils. The second is a place where orbital testing, development, and work on actual hands-on space construction could be conducted. The basic idea is to initially rent floor space and support services to customers to generate cash flow (72). The funds are to be reinvested to expand the facility and to conduct the expensive R&D associated with setting up a construction base on the moon and in high lunar orbit. This is an example of a way that the ET can act as a catalyst for large scale activities that would otherwise rely on the whims of governmental funding.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==