Drop the SLS "rocket to nowhere" and the pointless "gateway" to nowhere. Hard to do though, as long as Congress views NASA as a make-work project.

Assuming that the Falcon Heavy finally launches successfully this year, it's a great vehicle and a thumb in the eye of the bloated SLS that was thrust -- by Congress -- down NASA's throat. But Musk's obsession with Mars is a great danger to SpaceX. The "BFR" is a really cool name. I would keep it on the drafting table while the heavy does its job. Musk's impatience may be his downfall. He should focus on improving and perfecting the business model rather than some random sci-fi-inspired destination.

As I have argued, frequently, "Without a value proposition to attract private investment, human expansion into the solar system will not be sustainable, so it will never happen. Ever." This means we need to reorient public R&D to prioritize finding ways to make space pay. It means we need to stop arguing about destinations (Moon, Mars, NEAs, etc.) until we find a way to make the economics work. Making the economics work means finding a value proposition that unleashes massive private investment. Might be space-based solar. Might be mining asteroids. Might be something we haven't thought of yet. We still seem stuck on picking a destination first, and then finding a justification for it. Developing the field of space economics is a good start. It might help policy makers understand the need to reorient R&D priorities.

Not sure why Elon is so dedicated to Mars. Old arguments. Our primitive primate need to walk on a flat surface and see a horizon? It's a long way down that gravity well.

Colonization of the New World was driven by venture capital in the Old World hyped by promises of gold, silver and the Northwest Passage. It was finally made sustainable by "tobacco and beaver pelts" (an old article of mine on the Space Review). You raise other issues. The creation of new wealth depends upon increasing productivity. How many hours per week we work is not relevant. Productivity per hour is. But I think this is off topic.

If anyone's still listening. I've discovered that I've already read the first two books, Leviathan Wakes, and Caliban's War. Maybe I've read the third, I can't remember, because they're not very memorable. Sorry to fans. Both the series, which I'm now watching and enjoying, and the books, contain so many physics impossibles and improbables they're hard to digest. But I soldier on with the series. Where are the few new smart scifi novels set in the REAL universe?

Thank you for this thoughtful piece Dwayne. I have not yet seen The Expanse, which is odd because I love scifi. And I'm a longtime proponent of human expansion into the solar system. I believe that one of the challenges to that expansion is the "religious" schism between Lunatics, Martians and proponents of asteroid mining and space-based habitats.

I was excited about The Expanse when I learned about it last year, and then became less excited when I learned that it's just another dystopian view of the future. Setting space advocacy aside, and just focusing on scifi as entertainment, it's a puzzle to me that despite the staggering success of the non-dystopian Star Trek franchise, the film industry keeps churning out one dystopian movie after another. The only franchise that comes close to Star Trek's mega-success is, of course, Star Wars, and that's more fantasy than scifi.

I discovered The Expanse just when I was toying with a non-dystopian treatment for a TV series. The story lines would have centered around asteroid miners (my own religious bias). I dropped that idea because of The Expanse.

In film, the producer is usually the decision-maker. So my question is: why does that small tribe of people keep giving us very dark visions of the future? The world is demonstrably better today than in the past, by almost any measure, because of technology. Yet no one but Star Trek fans ever extrapolate that trend into the future.

I agree strongly with Knipfer. "Settlement" is the right language. It's consistent with the findings of the 2009 Augustine Committee report that "The ultimate goal of human exploration is to chart a path for human expansion into the solar system" (though the report later contradicted itself by saying the ultimate goal is Mars). In my opinion, the space advocacy community has hamstrung its own message with decades of in-fighting over destinations (Moon v. Mars v. asteroids v. O'Neill habitats, etc.).

We need to unite with one voice. That voice should be agnostic about destinations. And it should focus on enabling legislation, enabling technologies and enabling business plans. Several years ago I wrote an article for The Space Review pointing out the "two essential enabling objectives: physical and economic sustainability." I later came to see that I should have spent some ink discussing the third: enabling language in international treaties and national legislation.

We need to get this right, or we're going to end up with another Apollo-like one-off flag planting somewhere that just wastes public treasure and does nothing to create a sustainable human presence up-and-out of the deep gravity we've got ourselves stuck in.

I'm afraid that this debate between Lunatics and Martians will cause us to stumble off the path toward human expansion beyond Earth. It's a false choice. The goal of human spaceflight should not be a destination. It should rather be to establish a presence that is both physically and economically sustainable. Full stop.

Proponents of human spaceflight need to take a hard-nosed pragmatic view of this. They should be agnostic about destinations. Whether it's the Moon, Mars, Phobos, near-Earth asteroids or O'Neill habitats, who cares? The first R&D priorities must be economic and physical sustainability.

Thank you Jonathan. This was interesting to read. You note that "One goal of SpaceCom was to bring space and non-space communities together..." The SpaceCom website lists medical, manufacturing, energy, communications and transportation industries. Not mining. And the energy applications listed on the site all seem to involve remote sensing, improved comms and spin-offs like smart drill bits. However "far out" this sounds, this conference would be the ideal platform to bring the space community together with the mining and electric utility industries -- if asteroid mining and space-based solar power are ever to have any legs.