If you want to know whether a publication understands the subject matter about which it is reporting, one indication is that egregeous errors are caught if not by the writer then at least by the editor. It is evident in, Private-sector space flight: Moon dreams, that the Economist and its writer know very little about space.
This quote says it all, This money will be spent on “man-rating” existing rockets, such as Boeing’s Atlas V, and on developing new spacecraft that could be launched on many different rockets.
There’s only one problem–Boeing builds the Delta line of launch rockets while Lockheed Martin builds the Atlas. And yes, money will be spent to human-rate both of these launchers; the problem is that nobody knows how much and how long such an effort will take.
The rest of the article reads more like a sci-fi script than a piece from a normally serious publication, as the Economist is supposed to be.
(Via The Economist.)