In the 1990s as a leader of the Space Frontier Foundation, I worked to cancel what was then called Space Station Freedom. Announced in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, the original concept had been pitched at around $8 billion. Based on what we saw happening to what might have been a good idea, we were the only space organization to come out against the project. We believed that if the president’s goal was to open the frontier as stated, there were much better and lower-cost ways to do so that were more directly evolvable and supportive than where it seemed the station was going.
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