"lorad" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 11:51 am, "Bob Myers" wrote:


Your assumptions are incorrect..
The container could be a lightweight polymer - perhaps even mylar..
maybe 10 pounds.
The heating mechanism even less.. mylar films placed on a hyperbolic
fiberglass frame serving as a solar still.. maybe 8 pounds.


That first glass of water will cost $300 billion dollars and take twenty years
As that's the estimates for placing a temporary shelter for six on the moon.
And the Space Station has shown, six people does NOT make a colony
capable of any production facilities. Those six people are plenty busy
just maintaining the shelter, coming and going.

So any production of water on the moon will have to wait until
a much larger permanent colony is built. How much more than
$300 billion will that cost?

At the end of this rainbow sits a Trillion Dollar glass of water.
Amidst a distant and airless desert.

Is that the best we imagine anymore? Is it even rational goal?

At the end of the dream below sits an unlimited and completely clean
source of energy, easily beamed to places all over the world where it never
could reach before. Energy which someday falls from the sky as our
cable and phone signals do now. Making American the energy "Saudia Arabia"
for the entire century, bringing a new level of prosperity, while ending
the prospect of more wars over oil..

Unlimited and clean energy means maximum potential and endless hope.

Choosing a build a trillion dollar glass of water just isn't sane by comparison.
It's the literal definition of Lunacy.
IMHO.

Executive Summary
NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
AND TECHNOLOGY (SERT) PROGRAM
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1



Jonathan


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