In a way it's even more important. Apollo was an amazing achievement, but it wasn't set up to be sustainable. Spending billions just to beat the Russians doesn't last.
If you want to see more interesting space activity than a bunch of comsats, some probes, and the ISS, you need to make space a lot cheaper. That's been stagnant for a very long time, and what we saw today is the second step towards something that promises to cut the cost of space by an order or magnitude or more. We're finally seeing something that might make space something more like aviation, not just a bunch of national prestige projects with a handful of commercial uses.
If people are living on Mars in 50 years (which looks more and more likely now) then it'll be because of this, far more so than the legacy of Apollo.
pjmorris|10 years ago
alaxsxaq|10 years ago
mikeash|10 years ago
If you want to see more interesting space activity than a bunch of comsats, some probes, and the ISS, you need to make space a lot cheaper. That's been stagnant for a very long time, and what we saw today is the second step towards something that promises to cut the cost of space by an order or magnitude or more. We're finally seeing something that might make space something more like aviation, not just a bunch of national prestige projects with a handful of commercial uses.
If people are living on Mars in 50 years (which looks more and more likely now) then it'll be because of this, far more so than the legacy of Apollo.
bjelkeman-again|10 years ago