I've never had a real problem with the NASA space program.

But it became obvious to me many years ago that if humanity was ever going to get into space in a major way, NASA wasn't the way it was going to happen.

I wish you could have been to early L-5 Society conventions. Everybody was about trying to convince the government that large-scale space settlements were a good idea.

After sitting in on like the fifth panel of the day listening to people pounding on the subject: "How do we get NASA to go along with this?" I stood up and told them it wasn't going to happen. Government space programs were about money going to congressional districts more than anything else, and if they wanted to make any real progress they should be talking to people with money in the private sector and figuring out ways to make money in space.

Hadn't they seen "2001?"

Of course, back then the "wild young billionaire" had yet to become a common species. Richard Branson was still doing record stores, and Paul Allen hadn't even come up with DOS yet, so I suppose I was still too far ahead of my time.