Cosmic waste

Each second the sun radiates enough energy to last the industrial world
tor fourteen million years. All but the half billionth that powers all
the winds, rivers and life of earth is wasted, save as the sun's
statement of existence to the infinite heavens.
On earth, erosion occurs ten thousand times faster than in space, and
no gossamer giant can withstand the stresses of wind and gravity. But
weightless and in a vacuum, a stadium sized reflector could be made
from a few hundred pounds of material and could last for a thousand
years. Concentrated on a boiler, it would equal the energy of millions
of gallons of oil a year.
Free an inexhaustable energy is the key to refining moondust and
constructing living space on the inside surface of a rotating cylinder,
with the material efficiency of a bubble. The spin rate or artificial
gravity could be chosen low enough to fly with arm wings or to make a
four story structure with one story of materials.
We call a certain cooperating group ot cells a human being. The
ancestors ot these cells lived in a tropical sea of almost the same
salinity and temperature as our blood. When life stepped from this
primordial womb, it enclosed and protected its life sustaining
enviroment. That ancient sea still flows warm, even in polar mamals
and birds.
This time the skin will be thicker and made of titanium and silica and
the plants that harness the sunlight will be mostly industrial, but the
principle by which an inhospitable environment is conqured will be the
same.
Man has multiplied and subdued the earth at the cost of forests, fellow
creatures, clean air and safe water. Our wars for land and resources
have brought into question our morality and even our survival on the
thin surface of this tiny planet. But with resources a billion times
as vast, competition will be quenched and cooperation will be the clear
and ever present need. No one is robbed by the taking of this
treasure, the blessed ashes of stars. Its been dead since creation and
we are the only chance it will ever have to blossom