"It was kind of part of my job description.

The real problem was that we didn't have the tech to do this kind of thing effectively or at any reasonable cost, not in transportation, space manufacturing, or many other areas. In short, we didn't have the tools to build the tools yet. It would have taken far more than political will to get this done.

A good analogy would be trying to convince pioneers heading across the Nevada wastes to build casinos. In time, casinos would be a good investment. Someday, space colonies will, too. I still think the easiest route to space colonization would be to solve the biological gravity problems and be able to live in asteroids or space clusters, not try to build something the size of Manhattan that spins.

Nothing to do with socialism, or any other -ism."

All good things in time- including strippers in Vegas.

As I said on numerous occasions, what is needed in space is markets. Which is pretty obvious to anyone who isn't operating solely from the point of view socialism- and perhaps some anti-capitalist to boot.

Developing markets isn't particularly a new idea- and governments have involved with doing this kind stuff for centuries.
So, yeah Vegas wasn't build in the wilderness- the fact the Hoover dam was built was a factor- not that the purpose of Hoover dam was solely to establish the Vegas strip.

So, other than perhaps in a minor way with Ed with his Caps thingy, no here is suggesting massive space colonies type things to be built in the near term. Nor were they suggesting that back in the seventies- they said it would require 50 years.

I think it's possible to have something more significant than this colony at L-5 within fifty years, but it requires a focus on developing markets in space. It's political problem instead of a technological problem. Meaning for example if government were to provide a tax holiday for space investment for 40 years, that would be a very significant thing to do.

I endlessly talked of making a gas station- price tag, 1/2 billion. Forget the tax holiday and just do that and we could get somewhere. Do them both and we be cooking with gas.