Why Colonize Space?

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In sci.physics "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe
wrote:

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In sci.physics "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe
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"Immortalista" wrote in message
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Today I was reading some opinions of people who believe that there is
no reason for humans to leave earth. Are all arguments for moving into
space and onto other bodies in space really that weak and irrelevant?

To say on the one hand that there is no reason and on the other 'it is
too
expensive' is a kind of a contradiction. This means that if it was a
lot
cheaper then it would be justified, and that means there must be some
reason
for doing it, and the persons putting forward such an argument
obviously
recognise that. So if it just a question of allocation of resources,
rather
than fundamental value of the enterprise, then fine, it should
recognised
as
a financial discussion, not really a philosophical one.

Depends on who you are talking about doing it and what you are talking
about doing.

Governments do lots of things for no other reason than enough people
think it is a "good idea" both directly and indirectly through grants.


i.e, the voters and tax payers who are going to pay for it?

Yeah, through the elected representatives funding things like NASA.

Yep. I noticed Obama was talking pretty positively, during campaigning at
least, about his support for the space programme. I'm sure this is because
most of his employers feel the same way.


Commercial enterprise doesn't do anything that doesn't have a ROI.

Potential and hoped for ROI at least.

What's your point?

There is little in life that is a sure thing, but if your business plan
doesn't show a good ROI, the bean counters won't fund you.

I just meant that businiess is often involving quite high risk especially if
the potential is large.


The only government colonies have all been penal colonies.


America wasn't a penal colony.

I didn't say it was.

It was a British colony. So was India, Malaysia, Burma (now Myanmar),
Australia (partly a penal colony for some time), Hong Kong, Singapore,
America (as you say yourself not a penal colony), Canada, New Zealand, South
Africa etc etc etc.


The colonies in North America were not government colonies either. They
were funded by private enterprise.

They were funded by the crown initially, but I suppose you could say that
was not a government in the modern sense (I suggest you jump on this face
saving lifeline).


It is estimated that 50,000 convicts were sent to North America by Britain
to serve as slaves or endentured labor.

So what was America a penal colony or not, you seem to be contradicting
yourself in this struggle to warp history.


Australia had many government colonies, all penal colonies.

While there were some "free settlements" in Australia, the population
was predomanitly convicts and their decendants until the gold rushes
of the 1850's.

So this one example means all government colnies....I can't even be
bothered.



--
Jim Pennino

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"Michael Stemper" wrote in message
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In article , "Giga" "Giga"
just(removetheseandaddmatthe writes:
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Giga" "Giga wrote

To say on the one hand that there is no reason and on the other 'it is
too expensive' is a kind of a contradiction.

Nope, the original is just a loose form of saying that there
is CURRENTLY no reason for humans to colonise space.

I presume by emphasising 'currently' you mean there might be in the
future,
or perhaps there will be. I suppose if you are already living the good
life
then why bother, but billions of people are not.

If we wanted to give billions of people the "good life", I'd like to
suggest that their lives could be improved immensely right here on
earth. Give them simple things like access to clean water, adequate
food supplies, sewage treatment, and antibiotics, and you've improved
their lives by orders of magnitude.

That to me would just the adequate life. Space could potentially give us the
resources for everyone to have their own planet!


This would be much less expensive than sealing them into tin cans and
firing them off into space.

This means that if it was a lot cheaper then it would be justified,

Not necessarily, most obviously if no one is interested in being
colonists
etc.

I think many people would be interested, me for one, but I doubt that I
would be chosen.

If you want to live someplace where survival is difficult, you could go
to someplace like Nunavut or the Sahel today. No selection to pass. They
have the additional advantage that you don't need special equipment in
order to breathe.

I wouldn't wan to go for the discomfort involved, as I'm sure you are aware,
but to explore and discover.


--
Michael F. Stemper
#include Standard_Disclaimer
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

In article , (Scott Lurndal) writes:
writes:

No amount of cleaver engineering can reduce the cost of getting to the
Moon, much less Mars or the asteroid belt, to be on a par with getting
a truck some tens of miles to a mine on Earth.

An opinion not shared by most, I would imagine.

Some people think that the cost of climbing out of a gravity well to
the Moon and dragging stuff back down can be on a par with the cost
of hauling the same type of stuff tens of miles in a truck that doesn't
have to climb up and down the gravity well?

Fascinating.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include Standard_Disclaimer
Twenty-four hours in a day; twenty-four beers in a case. Coincidence?

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Giga" "Giga wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Giga" "Giga wrote
Immortalista wrote

Today I was reading some opinions of people who believe that there
is no reason for humans to leave earth. Are all arguments for moving
into space and onto other bodies in space really that weak and
irrelevant?

To say on the one hand that there is no reason and on the other 'it is
too expensive' is a kind of a contradiction.

Nope, the original is just a loose form of saying that there
is CURRENTLY no reason for humans to colonise space.

I presume by emphasising 'currently' you mean there might be in the
future,

Yes, I'm not silly enough to dismiss that possibility completely.

or perhaps there will be.

Nope.

I suppose if you are already living the good life then why bother, but
billions of people are not.

But its MUCH cheaper to improve their life significantly here on
earth than it is to give them a better life on mars or the moon etc.

This means that if it was a lot cheaper then it would be justified,

Not necessarily, most obviously if no one is interested in being
colonists etc.

I think many people would be interested, me for one,

I bet you wouldnt when it came to the crunch and your nose was rubbed in
the downsides.

Perhaps, its difficult to know in advance, anyway there are many who would.


but I doubt that I would be chosen.

Dunno, someone may want to get rid of you.

: )


and that means there must be some reason for doing it, and the
persons putting forward such an argument obviously recognise that.

Utterly mangled all over again.

So you do not recognise any value human beings exploring space with
manned craft?

No, compare with the much cheaper and more viable alternative of exploring
space with unmanned craft.

That would be an extreme and difficult to justify position.

Wrong, as always. Completely trivial on cost alone in fact.

I read some where recently that the most powerful super computer in the
world, which presumably fills a large building, has only the power of a
cricket (insect). The delay time to Mars is what 18 minutes x 2, each time
your dumb stupid robot needs some guidance. The oprerator has to rely on the
fairly pathetic information gathering systems of said robot to make
decisions as well. And what about the feel of a place, the atmosphere (pure
materialists will dismiss this as just imagination but I would disagree). In
summary you need people on the spot to properly explore it and preferably a
settlement so they have the time to do it throughly. It would take thousands
of people many years of dedicated work to survey Mars if adequately. It
would take 10,000s of robots centuries I would say, so maybe people would be
cheaper in the long run?


So if it just a question of allocation of resources,

It isnt.

rather than fundamental value of the enterprise, then fine, it should
recognised as a financial discussion, not really a philosophical one.

No one ever said it was a philosophical one.

On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:53:31 +0100, "Giga" "Giga"
just(removetheseandaddmatthe wrote:


"Michael Stemper" wrote in message
...
In article , "Giga" "Giga"
just(removetheseandaddmatthe writes:
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Giga" "Giga wrote

To say on the one hand that there is no reason and on the other 'it is
too expensive' is a kind of a contradiction.

Nope, the original is just a loose form of saying that there
is CURRENTLY no reason for humans to colonise space.

I presume by emphasising 'currently' you mean there might be in the
future,
or perhaps there will be. I suppose if you are already living the good
life
then why bother, but billions of people are not.

If we wanted to give billions of people the "good life", I'd like to
suggest that their lives could be improved immensely right here on
earth. Give them simple things like access to clean water, adequate
food supplies, sewage treatment, and antibiotics, and you've improved
their lives by orders of magnitude.

That to me would just the adequate life. Space could potentially give us the
resources for everyone to have their own planet!

There are only eight within reach you know. Some of us would have to
settle for for Kuiper Belt Objects.


If you want to live someplace where survival is difficult, you could go
to someplace like Nunavut or the Sahel today. No selection to pass. They
have the additional advantage that you don't need special equipment in
order to breathe.

I wouldn't wan to go for the discomfort involved, as I'm sure you are aware,
but to explore and discover.

Colonizations is what comes after explore and discover.

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:22:36 +0100, "Androcles"
wrote:


"David Johnston" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:12:12 -0700 (PDT), tadchem
wrote:

On Jul 20, 5:47 pm, Immortalista wrote:
Today I was reading some opinions of people who believe that there is
no reason for humans to leave earth. Are all arguments for moving into
space and onto other bodies in space really that weak and irrelevant?

...only to weak and irrelevant people.

George Mallory (1886-1924), in answer to the question 'Why do you want
to climb Mt. Everest ?', answered "Because it is there."

How many people make the summit of Mt. Everest their domicile?

None.

But...it's there. If "it's there" is enough to reason to settle, then
since Everest is obviously there, it should have been settled.

In sci.physics "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe wrote:

wrote in message
...
In sci.physics "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe
wrote:

wrote in message
...
In sci.physics "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe
wrote:

"Immortalista" wrote in message
...
Today I was reading some opinions of people who believe that there is
no reason for humans to leave earth. Are all arguments for moving into
space and onto other bodies in space really that weak and irrelevant?

To say on the one hand that there is no reason and on the other 'it is
too
expensive' is a kind of a contradiction. This means that if it was a
lot
cheaper then it would be justified, and that means there must be some
reason
for doing it, and the persons putting forward such an argument
obviously
recognise that. So if it just a question of allocation of resources,
rather
than fundamental value of the enterprise, then fine, it should
recognised
as
a financial discussion, not really a philosophical one.

Depends on who you are talking about doing it and what you are talking
about doing.

Governments do lots of things for no other reason than enough people
think it is a "good idea" both directly and indirectly through grants.


i.e, the voters and tax payers who are going to pay for it?

Yeah, through the elected representatives funding things like NASA.

Yep. I noticed Obama was talking pretty positively, during campaigning at
least, about his support for the space programme. I'm sure this is because
most of his employers feel the same way.


Commercial enterprise doesn't do anything that doesn't have a ROI.

Potential and hoped for ROI at least.

What's your point?

There is little in life that is a sure thing, but if your business plan
doesn't show a good ROI, the bean counters won't fund you.

I just meant that businiess is often involving quite high risk especially if
the potential is large.

As a general rule, big companies abhor risk of any kind.

Small start-ups tend to take lots of risks, which is one of the reasons
they have such a high failure rate historically.

The only government colonies have all been penal colonies.


America wasn't a penal colony.

I didn't say it was.

It was a British colony. So was India, Malaysia, Burma (now Myanmar),
Australia (partly a penal colony for some time), Hong Kong, Singapore,
America (as you say yourself not a penal colony), Canada, New Zealand, South
Africa etc etc etc.

Umm, no, it was a British, Spainish, Dutch, French, and a couple of
others colonies.

New Orleans, among some others, was a penal colony.


The colonies in North America were not government colonies either. They
were funded by private enterprise.

They were funded by the crown initially, but I suppose you could say that
was not a government in the modern sense (I suggest you jump on this face
saving lifeline).

Umm, no.

If you are talking about the British, then the Crown awarded exclusive
franchises to the companies doing the settling, but not funding.

The original charters are available on line.

The Spainish Crown sent the army as conquerors and that was funded.

It is estimated that 50,000 convicts were sent to North America by Britain
to serve as slaves or endentured labor.

So what was America a penal colony or not, you seem to be contradicting
yourself in this struggle to warp history.

America didn't exist at the time.

There were many colonies from many countries in North America.

Most were not penal colonies, but some of them were.

Is that hard to understand?

Australia had many government colonies, all penal colonies.

While there were some "free settlements" in Australia, the population
was predomanitly convicts and their decendants until the gold rushes
of the 1850's.

So this one example means all government colnies....I can't even be
bothered.

No, it is but one example.

Name all the government funded colonies during the colonial period and
don't restrict yourself to North America.

What percentage were penal colonies?


--
Jim Pennino

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In sci.physics "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe wrote:

I read some where recently that the most powerful super computer in the
world, which presumably fills a large building, has only the power of a
cricket (insect). The delay time to Mars is what 18 minutes x 2, each time
your dumb stupid robot needs some guidance. The oprerator has to rely on the
fairly pathetic information gathering systems of said robot to make
decisions as well. And what about the feel of a place, the atmosphere (pure
materialists will dismiss this as just imagination but I would disagree). In
summary you need people on the spot to properly explore it and preferably a
settlement so they have the time to do it throughly. It would take thousands
of people many years of dedicated work to survey Mars if adequately. It
would take 10,000s of robots centuries I would say, so maybe people would be
cheaper in the long run?

The rather simple robots sent to Mars so far seem to have done much better
than OK in doing what they were supposed to do.

One can safely assume the next generation of robots sent will be much
improved.


--
Jim Pennino

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On Jul 21, 4:15 pm, wrote:

The term "current known reserves" means easily recoverable deposits.

Nothing is easily recoverable from off the planet absent an astounding
breakthrough.

This is the primary problem and deal breaker for space travel today.

If you filled the space shuttle's cargo bay to capacity with something
cheap--let's say lead. Launched it into orbit and magically
transformed it into gold. Then brought it back. You would still
lose money on the operation.

Launch costs are between $10,000 and $20,000 per *pound* to low Earth
orbit. If you want to go higher, the fuel to boost you from low
orbit to higher, gets added to the cost of things you had to lift to
low orbit. Sending a 150 lb human into orbit costs $1,500,000 and
that's absent any supplies. Can you imagine the cost of sending a
boot-strapping industrial infrastructure into space?

And it's worse than it sounds, because your boot-strapping industrial
infrastructure would need to be sent somewhere where there's material
to work with, such as the moon. So it's $10,000 - $20,000 per pound
for the equipment and $10,000 - $20,000 per pound for the fuel to get
it to the moon or to a near Earth asteroid, before you can even begin
operations and discover that you forgot to bring something really
important, or that your base doesn't have any unobtainium available to
mine after all.

The large uncertainty in the costs are because the fixed operating
costs of NASA get averaged over the actual flights and there is a lot
of uncertainty in both numbers (actual shuttle operating costs, and
number of shuttle flights per unit time).

We could probably obtain substantial reductions in these costs if it
was politically feasible to eliminate much of the shuttle operations
staff a NASA JSC and KSFC. And newer vehicles might be more reliable
and somewhat cheaper than the shuttle, but I'm not holding my breath.

Until the ridiculous cost to orbit is solved, I'm afraid the space
opponents are largely correct--alhtough usually for the wrong reasons.

What this points out to me is that the last twenty years of the space
program should have been focused on researching and designing better
launch systems, not using a broken launch system to shoot a poorly
conceived space station into orbit.

In sci.physics trag wrote:
On Jul 21, 4:15 pm, wrote:

The term "current known reserves" means easily recoverable deposits.

Nothing is easily recoverable from off the planet absent an astounding
breakthrough.

This is the primary problem and deal breaker for space travel today.

If you filled the space shuttle's cargo bay to capacity with something
cheap--let's say lead. Launched it into orbit and magically
transformed it into gold. Then brought it back. You would still
lose money on the operation.

Launch costs are between $10,000 and $20,000 per *pound* to low Earth
orbit. If you want to go higher, the fuel to boost you from low
orbit to higher, gets added to the cost of things you had to lift to
low orbit. Sending a 150 lb human into orbit costs $1,500,000 and
that's absent any supplies. Can you imagine the cost of sending a
boot-strapping industrial infrastructure into space?

And it's worse than it sounds, because your boot-strapping industrial
infrastructure would need to be sent somewhere where there's material
to work with, such as the moon. So it's $10,000 - $20,000 per pound
for the equipment and $10,000 - $20,000 per pound for the fuel to get
it to the moon or to a near Earth asteroid, before you can even begin
operations and discover that you forgot to bring something really
important, or that your base doesn't have any unobtainium available to
mine after all.

The large uncertainty in the costs are because the fixed operating
costs of NASA get averaged over the actual flights and there is a lot
of uncertainty in both numbers (actual shuttle operating costs, and
number of shuttle flights per unit time).

We could probably obtain substantial reductions in these costs if it
was politically feasible to eliminate much of the shuttle operations
staff a NASA JSC and KSFC. And newer vehicles might be more reliable
and somewhat cheaper than the shuttle, but I'm not holding my breath.

Until the ridiculous cost to orbit is solved, I'm afraid the space
opponents are largely correct--alhtough usually for the wrong reasons.

How about the space realists who want to explore space but think the
whole concept of the lonely asteroid miner and colonies on Mars are
pure wishfull thinking if not outright fantasy?

What this points out to me is that the last twenty years of the space
program should have been focused on researching and designing better
launch systems, not using a broken launch system to shoot a poorly
conceived space station into orbit.

Yeah, but given all there is to work with is chemical rockets, how much
better can you get than an improved Saturn V?


--
Jim Pennino

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