Richard Alger,
I believe that you're exactly correct, and in more freaking ways than
even the two of us can count. India is just as capable and just as
entitled to the vast riches of the moon as per warlord GW Bush and his
ENRON borgs. Although, I believe that China and/or possibly
China/Russia are going to make this one into a real knock-down drag-out
run for the money quest of all times, and for a perfectly good reason
at that.
By eventually having the LSE-CM/ISS established on the near-side is the
total win-win answer as to dozens of technical as well as profit
related issues, not to mention the ultimate star-wars solution that'll
kick and/or fry serious butts just about anywhere back here on Earth,
and/or otherwise help to defend mother Earth from NEOs by focusing
those dozen or so 100 GW laser cannons upon whatever's headed our way.
The moon and of the ME-L1 mutual gravity-well or tidal nullification
zone is entirely up for grabs, and it's entirely a first come first
served basis, as in finders keepers and thereby becoming the spacelord
over whomever is operating whatever should become the LSE-CM/ISS and of
everything other that's associated. Unfortunately, and unlike the ESE
fiasco, there can be only one such gravity-well based 'Lunar Space
Elevator', however many levels of what's directly below the ME-L1.1
(that's roughly 64,000 km off the lunar deck) and of whatever's between
that CM/ISS and along the tether dipole element and certainly of it's
termination platform that's reaching to within 50,000 km of mother
Earth (much closer if you'd dare, as it's certainly technically
possible to safely cruise the fully interactive star-wars and energy
transferring laser cannon loaded platform to within 1,000 km, which
would still avoid the vast majority of existing and proposed future
satellites) is what counts.
Unlike the ESE fiasco that's little more than the usual dog-wagging
spendy pie in the sky, as well as for remaining as nearly undefendable,
did I mention those multiple 100 GW laser cannons which could vaporise
any stinking satellite or any other natural substance coming anywhere
near the LSE and dipole tethers, within that of an AI/robotic
auto-defend split second. Of course, any one of those available 100 GW
laser cannons could accidently vaporise our WhiteHouse (preferably with
GW Bush inside while on a live televised feed) much like we'd
accidently used one of our best GPS guided and otherwise fully
interactively controlled cruise-missile as to take out a Chinese
embassy, or even that of our Boeing/TRW ABL (Phantom Works) to target
track and even thermal energy-transfer practice upon a returning
shuttle (gee whiz, what could possibly go wrong with any of that?).
Once the lunar based basalt processing is in full swing, then
eventually other centrifugal based LSEs can be efficiently accommodated
and safely coexist, such as for the back-side (EM-L2) should become
extremely interesting for astronomy/science and for interplanetary
considerations, and perhaps eventually nearly as valuable as per the
near-side LSE that's focused upon Earth. The moon is also the key
communications platform for interplanetary as well as interstellar
communications, as why even bother going to such other places if we can
request a few digital postcards, and/or locally obtain those efficient
SAR 10 mm/pixel and of 16 bit resolution images of whatever's on the
surface of Saturn (at least technically that's perfectly doable if we
had such an extended base line and the backside LSE established, as per
that tether dipole extension is unlimited, worth at least worth 1e6
km).
Basic township situated upon Venus:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
Basic Lunar Space Elevator:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Regards, Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS topics:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm