Questions about "The High Frontier"

So I just got through O'Neill's "The High Frontier". There seem to be
some philosophical inconsistencies -- O'Neill claims to be promoting
individual freedoms and small-scale economies by building monolithic
power satellites and kilometer-scale orbiting cities, for instance --
but that's neither here nor there.

What really bothers me is that the entire scheme seems too much like
something out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon. "We'll build a base on the
Moon to deliver material to Earth orbit -- and we'll need at least
some mining ships scouting the asteroids for water and organics too --
which will be used to build a 3-million ton, 10,000-man space station
the size of Manhattan; then that will build 80,000-ton satellites, and
those will transmit solar power back to Earth." (He offers other
justifications for his "Islands" -- building space telescopes, for
example -- but it seems that we've achieved most of those goals
already without them.)

I suppose I want to start off by asking, "Would a Solar Power
Satellite work in the first place?" I know that the idea has gotten a
lot of flak recently; is it still viable or just hopeless?

On Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:45:19 -0000, in a place far, far away, Damien
Valentine made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I suppose I want to start off by asking, "Would a Solar Power
Satellite work in the first place?" I know that the idea has gotten a
lot of flak recently; is it still viable or just hopeless?

It's certainly technically viable. The issue is whether or not it is
economically viable, relative to the competition.

Damien Valentine wrote:
So I just got through O'Neill's "The High Frontier". There seem to be
some philosophical inconsistencies -- O'Neill claims to be promoting
individual freedoms and small-scale economies by building monolithic
power satellites and kilometer-scale orbiting cities, for instance --
but that's neither here nor there.


I've the original book; as I remember it, it wasn't so much a political,
economic, or social system he was promoting as much as the technology of
using space colonies for large scale manufacturing due to the advantages
of large amounts of free solar power, while at the same time preserving
Earth's ecosystem by moving large-scale industries off planet to cut
down on pollution.
It was only after the book that every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a
political or economic axe to grind began looking at space colonies as
some sort of do-it-yourself Utopias where the innate superiority of
their political or economic system would no doubt be shown to all.
Once the likes of Timothy Leary got involved in the space colonization
hypothesis, the thing was screwed... they promptly turned into something
like a religion or revolutionary political movement.
What really bothers me is that the entire scheme seems too much like
something out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon. "We'll build a base on the
Moon to deliver material to Earth orbit -- and we'll need at least
some mining ships scouting the asteroids for water and organics too --
which will be used to build a 3-million ton, 10,000-man space station
the size of Manhattan; then that will build 80,000-ton satellites, and
those will transmit solar power back to Earth." (He offers other
justifications for his "Islands" -- building space telescopes, for
example -- but it seems that we've achieved most of those goals
already without them.)


Yeah..."if you build it, they will come." That was the same rational
used for SST's, commercial flights on the space Shuttle, and in the
1800's for Brunel's Great Eastern steamship.
Today, you can see an echo of it in the Space Tourism industry.

I suppose I want to start off by asking, "Would a Solar Power
Satellite work in the first place?" I know that the idea has gotten a
lot of flak recently; is it still viable or just hopeless?


You can do it; but it is going to be anything but cheap to do.

Pat

On Oct 1, 2:10 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Damien Valentine wrote:
So I just got through O'Neill's "The High Frontier". There seem to be
some philosophical inconsistencies -- O'Neill claims to be promoting
individual freedoms and small-scale economies by building monolithic
power satellites and kilometer-scale orbiting cities, for instance --
but that's neither here nor there.

I've the original book; as I remember it, it wasn't so much a political,
economic, or social system he was promoting as much as the technology of using space colonies for large scale manufacturing...

No, sir; the copy I just read, at any rate, specifically promotes
colonies as bastions of individualism and freedom (although he
specifically avoids describing details of colonial government), and
also as a reservoir for Earth's population growth (which would at this
point have to be 200,000 people shipped out to L5 _every day_).

On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:48:06 -0000, in a place far, far away, Damien
Valentine made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

On Oct 1, 2:10 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Damien Valentine wrote:
So I just got through O'Neill's "The High Frontier". There seem to be
some philosophical inconsistencies -- O'Neill claims to be promoting
individual freedoms and small-scale economies by building monolithic
power satellites and kilometer-scale orbiting cities, for instance --
but that's neither here nor there.

I've the original book; as I remember it, it wasn't so much a political,
economic, or social system he was promoting as much as the technology of using space colonies for large scale manufacturing...

No, sir; the copy I just read, at any rate, specifically promotes
colonies as bastions of individualism and freedom (although he
specifically avoids describing details of colonial government), and
also as a reservoir for Earth's population growth (which would at this
point have to be 200,000 people shipped out to L5 _every day_).

That's not so many. More people probably transit daily through the
three largest US airports than that.

Of course, the growth is set to decline and go negative later this
century, by the time such colonies would be built.

"Damien Valentine" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 1, 2:10 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Damien Valentine wrote:
So I just got through O'Neill's "The High Frontier". There seem to be
some philosophical inconsistencies -- O'Neill claims to be promoting
individual freedoms and small-scale economies by building monolithic
power satellites and kilometer-scale orbiting cities, for instance --
but that's neither here nor there.

I've the original book; as I remember it, it wasn't so much a political,
economic, or social system he was promoting as much as the technology
of using space colonies for large scale manufacturing...

No, sir; the copy I just read, at any rate, specifically promotes
colonies as bastions of individualism and freedom (although he
specifically avoids describing details of colonial government), and
also as a reservoir for Earth's population growth (which would at this
point have to be 200,000 people shipped out to L5 _every day_).


There's a huge and glaring logical flaw with the idea of large
scale colonies in space. If we can't learn how to sustain ourselves
here on earth, with all the natural advantages and cheap resources.
How in the hell are we going to produce a sustainable colony
in space?

The wisdom and technology needed to produce large scale
colonies renders them irrelevant.

The true test of an enlightened civilization is to be able
to sustain itself indefinitely. Not to simply find more room
for unsustainable societies.

Why do sci-fi writers assume we must move into space to survive???
The facts on the ground strongly suggest that as societies become
more advanced and affluent, the population growth slows to
sustainable levels.

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 21:38:00 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

There's a huge and glaring logical flaw with the idea of large
scale colonies in space. If we can't learn how to sustain ourselves
here on earth, with all the natural advantages and cheap resources.
How in the hell are we going to produce a sustainable colony
in space?

All of the available evidence indicates that we are quite successful
at sustaining ourselves on earth.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 21:38:00 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

There's a huge and glaring logical flaw with the idea of large
scale colonies in space. If we can't learn how to sustain ourselves
here on earth, with all the natural advantages and cheap resources.
How in the hell are we going to produce a sustainable colony
in space?

All of the available evidence indicates that we are quite successful
at sustaining ourselves on earth.


This coming from someone that doesn't see any problem
with co2 increasing at 2% a year...and accelerating.
But maybe you're right, everything on the planet is
just fine. But keep your head in the sand, with a little water
maybe something interesting will sprout.

On Oct 2, 8:38 pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
..


Why do sci-fi writers assume we must move into space to survive???
The facts on the ground strongly suggest that as societies become
more advanced and affluent, the population growth slows to
sustainable levels.

Population growth is a _good_ thing in the long term, survival-wise,
population decrease is a sign of a declining society and even stablity
is death in the long haul. Survival _requires_ growth and expansion,
because sooner or later something unlikely in the short term but near-
certain the long will do bad things to any given habitat.

A tribe of primitives could exist in 'sustainable' balance in an
ecological niche for ages, but if they stay there and don't expand
sooner or later something will get them, a volcanic eruption, disease,
earthquake, something. A group in 'sustainable' balance over an
entire continent would likely last longer, but again, sooner or later,
they'll fall to a supervolcano or a meteorite or a massive climate
shift, no niche is permanently stable.

A planet-wide 'sustainable' state is better yet...but again, sooner or
later you'll roll snake eyes. Your star will change, there'll be a
nearby supernova, a _big_ impactor may (actually given enough time I
should 'will', not 'may') come your way, or something we don't even
know about might happen, but again, on the open-ended time scale the
imperative remains: grow or die.

Johnny1a wrote:
Population growth is a _good_ thing in the long term, survival-wise,
population decrease is a sign of a declining society and even stablity
is death in the long haul. Survival _requires_ growth and expansion,
because sooner or later something unlikely in the short term but near-
certain the long will do bad things to any given habitat.


Population growth on Easter Island wasn't a good thing, nor in many
areas where it led to soil depletion via overfarming to support a
burgeoning population throughout human history.
I did the math on this once, there were around 8.5 city blocks per
person for everyone on the face of the planet, and that included using
the seas as surface area also:


that this is the total surface area of the Earth, not just the land
masses:
"Here's another way of looking at it; the total world population is
around 6,490,115,551 as of this morning:
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
The total surface area of the earth is 196,940,400 square miles:
http://pages.prodigy.net/jhonig/bignum/qland2.html
So if we take divide that population by that surface area we end up with
an average of around 33 people per square mile of the Earth's surface.
Now there are a total of 27,878,400 square feet in a mile, so we end up
with one person for around every 844,800 square feet of the Earth's
surface, or to put it another way, around one person for every 8.5 city
blocks, which although they vary wildly in size tend to cover around
100,000 square feet total on average (assuming they are a tad over 300
feet on a side)

Take the oceans out of that equation and you are starting to get near
the point where we have only enough area to support our total population
via farming, particularly when areas unsuitable for farming (mountains,
forests, deserts) are taken into the equation.
When you move out into space in any large numbers, the amount of area
required for food production starts to look pretty daunting,
particularly if you want a varied diet including things like meat and
cheese, although I imagine a lot of things could be made in a synthetic
form.

Pat