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The ATV or space truck has managed to blast off into space and will automatically dock with the space station in orbit. Although an amazing idea in principle I wonder how long it will be before there is an accident with the machinery that causes huge amounts of damage to the station. Only time will tell.

Hmm... not something where you want anything to go wrong, ever. Hopefully they've got some back-up/ system redundancy, and if that fails the astronauts have the ultimate weapon: the big red button. Good luck to them!

I still think we should go with Arthur C. Clarke and build huge rings around the earth with elevators up to them so we can casually launch spaceships without the need for rockets.

This is an article about the manned version of the Space Truck i was talking about in the Railway last night. It is intended to make sure that European Union has a method for gaining access to Space with out reliance on the US, Russia or China. I feel that there is going to be another space race soon. Will this one be to the moon or to Mars? Personally I hope a small hop to the Moon then onwards to Mars!

dont suppose its coincidence that the rebirth of communism on the world economic stage is once again spawning another race to the stars; amazing how its always competition for supremacy and not international co-operation that pushes the boundaries of what humanity can achieve.

I (rather cynically) am not surprised that competition leads to greater innovation than cooperation.
(Cue rather boring lecture on evolutionary arms races...)
If you a group to achieve something, set the goal, set the prize and then wait for the best result! I always feel that people are complacent when working in a totally cooperative environment as noone fully steps up to the plate.