Alex Tabarrok on space travel

Alex Tabarrok is the lesser-known member of the duo who write the Marginal Revolution blog. He blogs much less often than Tyler Cowen and his books get less attention. But when he posts, I'm a little bit like the characters in the old E.F. Hutton commercials; I always pay close attention.

I'm fascinated by space expploration and the possibilities opened up by ventures such as SpaceX, and so I want to mention some of his space postings. The recent SpaceX setback caused Cowen to point to Tabarrok's 2007 posting, which argues that space travel remains too dangerous to make space tourism viable yet.

On a more positive not, Professor Tabarrok writes here and here about the case for a planetary defense system to defend Earth against asteroids. No sign, alas, that he has read Arthur C. Clarke's classic Rendezvous With Rama.

Bonus: Tabarrok also is interesting on Greece. 

The illustration above is from the iO9 posting, "How Rendezvous With Rama Might Look as a CG Film," and see also the comments.