the drive to explore

On 28 May 2005 14:29:41 -0700, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

This is probably the nth time you have been asked, but any
suggestions of how to reduce the cost of access?

Yes. Build a space transport designed to fly often, and fly it often.
When someone does that, costs will come down dramatically.

"Russell Wallace" kirjoitti
...

In the case of Mars, what are the prospects for doing the deep drilling
that seems likely to be required, using improved robots versus a manned
mission?

According to this:
http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2005/isbn9512...951227647X.pdf

"In the launch window of 2009, both European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA
have their plans to
send a rover to Mars. Both of them will include some means to analyse the
subsurface material. ESA's
rover, called the ExoMars rover, will carry a deep-driller onboard in its
Pasteur payload. At the time
of writing this thesis, an exact definition of the Pasteur drill has not yet
been defined."

H Tavaila

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 28 May 2005 08:03:04 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Dave
O'Neill" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I read your article comparing the voyage of Hueng He to the Apollo
landings and characterizing them both as failures because there was no
follow up or commertial return.
What steps should be taken so that the 'urge' to see large numbers
of people live off the planet can be realized?

Costs of access have to be reduced to the point at which it becomes
affordable to them.

Just reducing the cost of access to a place for _people_ will not, by
itself lead to people living there. Especially if the _there_ doesn't
have food, habitable spaces, air, water etc...

If it's cheap to get there for people, it's also cheap to deliver the
hardware needed for life support.

No, it is not and it's not just the hardware, it's doing things with
local resources and a bunch of other stuff.

Cost of Access is an important part of the equation but it certainly
isn't a be all and end all of the discussion.

There are plenty of places on Earth where people can get too relatively
cheaply but don't actually live there. Some of them are even quite
nice places but it's not economic to have people living there.

Because they have other disadvantages (e.g., inhospitable
governments).

Like the Australian government? Or the Candanian one? Or the US
government? Or the British?

Lots of Australia, the US and Scotland - to name but 3 reasonably
pleasant places have lots and lots of free room that is probably not
going to have many more people there.

Dave

John Schilling wrote:


Just reducing the cost of access to a place for _people_ will not, by
itself lead to people living there. Especially if the _there_ doesn't
have food, habitable spaces, air, water etc...

Cost of Access is an important part of the equation but it certainly
isn't a be all and end all of the discussion.

Cost of Access, including the indirect consequences of higher or lower
transportation costs, does seem to be the long pole in the tent.

It's the current long pole, but there are others in the pack we haven't
got around to unpacking yet.

Food, air, and water, we mostly know how to make from the sorts of things
we can find on e.g. Mars, expensive but not prhibitively so. Provided,
that is, we don't have to worry about the shipping costs.

Well, we will always have to worry about shipping costs because,
excluding the arrival of quantum teleportation for macroscopic items,
shipping will always have a net cost.

But the shipping costs are only a part of it. We need to assemble
quite a "large" (depending on what we plan to do out there)
infrastructure to support large numbers (unless we plan on supporting
colonies from the wrong end of the gravity well which would be silly).
Assembling the kind of refining and process plant we are talking about
it damn hard and expensive on Earth. I've done it. It's a lot more
complicated than most people give it credit for. Even when you've
pre-assembled huge amounts and tested it. Assembly and commissioning
alone can be a huge overhead.

For this to happen in space is going to require several things to
happen at the same time that I see left off a lot of alt-space
discussions. You'll need to figure out how to assemble complicated
things in micro-gee, you'll have to commission them. We'll need new
tools, welding techniques, space suits and manufacturing methods.
Drilling and tapping holes, for example, is a royal pain in the arse on
Earth but it's happened on pretty much every large engineering project
I've been a part of, as has having to send equipment for re-machining
because things didn't go together right.

This also ignore the logistics. Not all things can be left for years
in a vacuum without being commissioned and used, however, unless we
have a really low cost way of launching relatively high masses and
dimensions, we're going to have a hell of a marshalling job to do when
we're planning our infrastructure.

None of this is impossible, all of it can be done.

But can it be done just with low cost access?

I don't think so. No more than you would want to build a city in
Antartica using 2 helicopter cargo flights of 10 tonnes a day from
Teiarra Del Fuego.

Dave

"Lots of Australia, the US and Scotland - to name but 3 reasonably
pleasant places have lots and lots of free room that is probably not
going to have many more people there."

In fact, the northern plains states in the US are losing population
hand over first, as it becomes economically unattractive to live there
and the younger generation leaves and does not return. Those who argue
we can terraform Mars seem to balk at the far-easier concept of
"terraforming" the Austrailian interio (which lacks only water), surely
a much less expensive job far more likely to have return on investment.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.. .

Lots of Australia, the US and Scotland - to name but 3 reasonably
pleasant places have lots and lots of free room that is probably not
going to have many more people there.

One also has to want to live under those governments.

Yes, because any government that forms in space will de facto be better.

"Yes, because any government that forms in space will de facto be
better.

I didn't say that. But it has the potential to be, just as
governments formed in the New World had the potential to be better
than those of Europe, and at least one of them turned out to be."

Well, of course that begs the question of what "better" means.

The New World allowed for multiple experiments new forms of government,
but with an admitted bias toward a democratic rebuplic of laws rather
than men, of all the governments that formed in NA and CA and SA, only
two have fit that mode - and only two settled down (after a time) into
stable, peaceful (at least within their own borders) countries.

Any environment set up in space will be a confined "eggshell"
environment for at least decades, where a small action, deliberate or
not, can instantly put everyone's life at stake. That kind of
environment does not, IMHO, faciliate the evolution of freedom and
democracy.

There are places in the US where seperatist societies do exist, from
the Amish to the Militias, but they hardly seem to be models of freedom
and democracy. And if you -really- want to set up a seperatist society,
well, the northern plans of the US and the interior of Austrailia are
pretty much available for sale at low, low prices, a lot cheaper than
space travel.

It seems to me that what would really be interesting - and what we
can't have without "magic" technology - is a "New New World" within the
reach of thousdands or millions and relatively low expense. With an
entire habitable new planet a simple "Stargate" (footnote) away, it
would be very interested to see what kind of societies evolved. But we
-don't- have that and aren't likely to any time soon.

(footnote) one of the nice things about the show Stargate SG-1 is that
they have established that it costs tens of billions to keep the
Stargate program running, and every once in a while they have to
justity their continued existence to a congresional committee.

On 29 May 2005 05:54:07 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Dave
O'Neill" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

What steps should be taken so that the 'urge' to see large numbers
of people live off the planet can be realized?

Costs of access have to be reduced to the point at which it becomes
affordable to them.

Just reducing the cost of access to a place for _people_ will not, by
itself lead to people living there. Especially if the _there_ doesn't
have food, habitable spaces, air, water etc...

If it's cheap to get there for people, it's also cheap to deliver the
hardware needed for life support.

No, it is not

What a convincing argument.

and it's not just the hardware, it's doing things with
local resources and a bunch of other stuff.

Yes, those things are required as well, but if we can't afford to get
there, and get the equipment there, we can't even make a start.

Cost of Access is an important part of the equation but it certainly
isn't a be all and end all of the discussion.

There are plenty of places on Earth where people can get too relatively
cheaply but don't actually live there. Some of them are even quite
nice places but it's not economic to have people living there.

Because they have other disadvantages (e.g., inhospitable
governments).

Like the Australian government? Or the Candanian one? Or the US
government? Or the British?

Yes.

Lots of Australia, the US and Scotland - to name but 3 reasonably
pleasant places have lots and lots of free room that is probably not
going to have many more people there.

One also has to want to live under those governments.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 29 May 2005 05:54:07 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Dave
O'Neill" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

What steps should be taken so that the 'urge' to see large numbers
of people live off the planet can be realized?

Costs of access have to be reduced to the point at which it becomes
affordable to them.

Just reducing the cost of access to a place for _people_ will not, by
itself lead to people living there. Especially if the _there_ doesn't
have food, habitable spaces, air, water etc...

If it's cheap to get there for people, it's also cheap to deliver the
hardware needed for life support.

No, it is not

What a convincing argument.

I learnt it from a master Rand. An absolute master of the one line
response to complex positions.

You probably recognise it.

Dave

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 29 May 2005 09:15:57 -0700, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as
to indicate that:

"Yes, because any government that forms in space will de facto be
better.

I didn't say that. But it has the potential to be, just as
governments formed in the New World had the potential to be better
than those of Europe, and at least one of them turned out to be."

Well, of course that begs the question of what "better" means.

Of course it does. It means "better" in the minds of those who want
to form new governments.

There's a panel at the World SF Con in August on this topic,
particularly looking at the issues and mortality involved for the 2nd
generation onwards - especially, as seems to be likely (baring "magic"
forms of MNT) life will be pretty constrained and difficult probably
for several generations.

I'm quite looking forward to it as it is a fascinating topic that
doesn't get discussed too much in these context.

I have deep concerns that the bulk of people I see advocating this sort
of thing on line are Libertarians and there are many difficulties I can
see with Libertarian philosphy in colonies which will, for a while,
have restrictions on certain pretty fundemental resources like drinking
water, heat, oxygen and things that, at least for previous generations
of Earth bound colonies, you could take relatively for granted.

Dave