Questions about "The High Frontier"

On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:18:14 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

This brings up the interesting question of currency; if you're not going
back to Earth, what's the point of having money accumulating in a bank
account their?

....Kids, kids, kids, the answer's pretty ****ing simple. Give them
lots of money, but jack up the hell out of the cable TV bills so
they'll actually have something to spend all that cash on!

"I'm a space welder. I make $4500.00 USD an hour."

"Wow! That's cool! You must be rich!"

"Nope. My cable bill is $1M USD a month. Which means I have to work 60
hour weeks just to make sure I can watch all the games on Sunday when
they're beamed up to the habitat."

"****. That sucks dawg dicks, man."

"Yeah, but at least the beer, pretzels and popcorn are covered in the
basic rations package..."

OM
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"Mike Combs" wrote:

The points you make might well be valid for the present era, where space is
mostly about scientific exploration, with commerce consisting of little
beyond communications and earth-resources satellites. Perhaps I should have
more cautiously said that when space commerce becomes less about beaming
data down to Earth, and more about hauling loads around, energy will become
the dominant consideration in space. And I think even with the space
transportation improvements we're anticipating to make all this happen, that
will continue to be the case for quite some while.

The central chicken-and-egg dilemma is embedded in that paragraph. You
could equally well say that for 40+ years "space commerce" (i.e. space
activity pursued because it pays) has been limited to "beaming data
down to earth" ( a catch-all for commsats, remote sensing, GPS etc)...

....precisely *because* the very first step in "hauling loads around"
is so expensive in energy. When such a tiny fraction of what you put
on the pad gets to orbit, the first ledge in the wall of our gravity
well, you face a very high price either to go further... *or* to bring
back a reusable (with its TPS, heavier airframe, and landing
equipment, all of which subtract yet more from payload).

(And please, please, please: all of you who are about to
condescendingly inform me that "propellant is cheap" and "the energy
cost of a pound in LEO is comparable to flying it to Australia" ...
don't bother. All of the other contributions to high costs -- the
conflicting demands of performance and robustness, the amortization of
expensive R&D over a small number of units manufactured and small
number of launches, the infrequently used infrastructure and standing
army -- are ultimately traceable back to the energetics of that
10-minute dance with the rocket equation. If you disagree, feel free
to stand your Australia-bound airliner on its tail and throttle up.)

So ideas about "the space transportation improvements we're
anticipating" tend to fall into three categories:

(1) do a lot more of what we're doing, reusably or otherwise, to
spread the fixed costs over more flights and achieve economies of
scale

(2) apply the energy in non-rocket mode (catapult/gun launch, laser
launch, space elevator, etc)

(3) use cheaper-per-pound energy (nuclear-thermal, GA Orion, assorted
magic breakthrough tech to be announced)

None of them are cheap up front; all require a faith that they will
open up commercial possibilities faster than those paying the bills
(whether investors or taxpayers) run out of patience.

John Schilling wrote:

For any place we're going any time soon,
you only see delta-V budgets of several times exhaust velocity during the
initial launch from Earth. And that affects any destination equally; the
first step's a doozy.

Or "a bitch," as I wrote in Ad Astra online. The flip side of the
optimism people usually find in the Heinlein/Stine "once you're in
orbit you're halfway to anywhere" is that it can also be stated as:

"Getting out of the gravity well eats half your delta-V budget by the
time you catch your breath just 200 miles up"... so you're paying
through the nose for everything beyond.

http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra...t1_050818.html
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra...t2_050824.html
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra...t3_050829.html
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra...t4_050901.html

Hop David wrote:

The futility of dicking around in LEO has nothing to do with the
potential of the moon and other space resources.

This "futility of dicking around in LEO" meme is getting old. The
Freedom Alpha ISS experience does *not* prove there's nothing
worthwhile to do in LEO; it proves that if you plan your space station
on the premise that you have a robust, frequently-flying,
cost-effective space truck (the one you wanted in 1972) instead of the
finicky, infrequently-flying, expensive STS you actually got, it will
turn out to be

1) way over budget and way behind schedule
2) under-staffed and under-equipped to do most of what you had
intended to do, and incapable of significant free-fall R&D because
equipment/personnel manifests are so inflexible
3) running out of service life by the time it's [whatever you end up
defining as] complete

When people talk about "dicking around in LEO," the implication is
"...instead of doing all those exciting and profitable things beyond
that we coulda been doing instead." Like it or not, Hop, until we can
get to LEO a lot more cheaply, none of those other "resources" in
which you see so much potential can be more than a stunt or a proof of
principle. And when we *can* get to LEO a lot more cheaply, a lot more
things *will* be worth doing there.

On Oct 26, 8:22 pm, Monte Davis wrote:

When people talk about "dicking around in LEO," the implication is
"...instead of doing all those exciting and profitable things beyond
that we coulda been doing instead." Like it or not, Hop, until we can
get to LEO a lot more cheaply, none of those other "resources" in
which you see so much potential can be more than a stunt or a proof of
principle. And when we *can* get to LEO a lot more cheaply, a lot more
things *will* be worth doing there.

Not the least among my objections to people grumbling about this
"dicking around in LEO" is that I can no longer remember all the names
of people who have paid about $20M a piece to "dick around in LEO".
None have returned complaining that the experience didn't live up to
their expectations (nor have I heard that from any astronaut.) LEO
contains "nothing" in the sense that it's just about as jam-packed
with vacuum as most other parts of space, but it's also got less
cosmic ray load, a nice view of Earth, and microgravity to play around
in. As Rutan was recently lamenting, a lack of payloads is holding
back launch innovation, but "tourism" may well supply a lot of
payloads for the next few decades.

-michael turner

On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:18:14 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:



Jim Davis wrote:
This is where you *completely* lose touch with reality. Spend your
money *where*? Your scenario requires that a space worker
*permanently* physically isolate himself from the vast bulk of
humanity. The potential for possible monetary transactions (to say
nothing of *social* transactions) are comparably circumscribed.

This brings up the interesting question of currency; if you're not going
back to Earth, what's the point of having money accumulating in a bank
account there?

Well, they could use it to pay people on Earth to send up rockets full
of goodies for them. Or to pay people on Earth to perform services on
Earth that are nontheless of value to people in space, like maintaining
the Earthside end of an interplanetary broadband internet feed.

And that's assuming *everyone* who goes out into space, goes out there
to stay, even unto the death. Realistically, even in the end state,
you're almost certainly going to have a mix of people who go to space
to work for a couple years and then move back to Earth somewhat richer
for the experience, people who go to space to live and work for a couple
decades and then go back to Earth to retire in luxury, and people who
go out into space to live and die.

The former two groups have obvious use for Earthly currencies and bank
accounts, so even the latter will be able to use their dollars or euros
or whatever to buy goods and services locally.


I think this is pretty much a non-issue, akin to claiming that Hawaii
needs a seperate currency and isolated banking system on account of
Mainland dollars and bank accounts being of no use to Hawaiians.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

"John Schilling" wrote in message
...
I think this is pretty much a non-issue, akin to claiming that Hawaii
needs a seperate currency and isolated banking system on account of
Mainland dollars and bank accounts being of no use to Hawaiians.

I think this one pretty much nails it. The space economy will just become
an extension of the terrestrial economy. That is, until you start sending
colony ships on one way trips to other stars.

;-)

Jeff
--
"When transportation is cheap, frequent, reliable, and flexible,
everything else becomes easier."
- Jon Goff

"Jim Davis" wrote in message
. 96.26...

But there's an equally big difference between working in space (or
an oil rig) and living there *permanently*.

Certainly. My argument is that the consortium doing the space construction
work may come to have a preference for employees willing to live in space
versus ones who only commute there to work.

You'd have to
come back to Earth to start spending your money on a nice car,
fine restaraunts, or European vacations.

You make that sound so...unpleasant.

Not unpleasant for the worker. Inconvenient (and perhaps expensive) for the
consortium doing the space construction.

This is where you *completely* lose touch with reality. Spend your
money *where*? Your scenario requires that a space worker
*permanently* physically isolate himself from the vast bulk of
humanity. The potential for possible monetary transactions (to say
nothing of *social* transactions) are comparably circumscribed.

Settlers in the new world chose to significantly isolate themselves from all
of Europe. They did so willingly. Of course there was the potential for
family life in the new world. The potential for local monetary transactions
was there. I'm willing to allow that people won't start to settle space
until there's a compelling economic opportunity, and the potential for
family life.

Mike, you really don't get it. Workers in oil-rig-type space
habitats have the same potential for family life as workers
in...well, oil rigs. You don't seem to grasp that *many* people are
very attracted to careers where the 2000 odd working hours per year
are heavily concentrated. Many people will cheerfully work 80 hour
weeks for six months away from home if the other six months are
free.

What I can't seem to get across to you is that people won't be popping back
and forth between Earth and HEO the way off-shore oil-rig workers can pop
back and forth between there and the shore. I think tours of duty in HEO
are a lot more likely to be 2 years than 6 months.

It is madness to suggest that someone who lives on earth will have
less potential for a family life than someone who lives in a
Stanford Torus or Bernal Sphere.

I'm making no such argument. I'm arguing that the analogy with off-shore
oil rigs is not a perfect one, and certainly breaks down where the expected
duration of tours of duty are concerned. A guy working a few tens of miles
off the coast can have a family life on land much more easily than someone
working half-way to the moon can have on Earth.

And yet there are numerous terrestrial examples where that is
precisely the case. But of course space will be different.

We have yet to have an example on Earth where the costs of getting people
back and forth are comparable. Yes, even with the 1/20 to 1/50 cost
improvement we need to get started.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:56:55 -0700, Michael Turner wrote:

On Oct 25, 9:54 am, John Schilling wrote:

Water, you can get, though only bound up in a mass of carbonaceous
non-volatiles that bears a strong resemblence to coal. And you've
got to be pretty desperate to try and squeeze water from a lump of
coal. But it's at least within the bounds of reason and plausibilty.

Actually, some people here on Earth are trying to squeeze water from
coal; mainly to improve the coal's energy yield but also, in arid
regions like Australia, to reuse the water. (I'd guess that the best
use of water wrung/evaporated from coal is to recycle it into slurry
pipelines, an application where you don't have to worry about
detoxifying the water.)

As for the idea that being 1 AU out from the Sun precludes embedded
water ice, we shouldn't be so sure. The very notion of ablative
reentry was substantially inspired by the discovery that meteorites
landed with cold interiors. How cold can they get?

According to rough calculations here

http://www.meteorobs.org/maillist/msg20222.html

perhaps as low as -25 C.


OK, fine. Of course, a one-kilometer sphere of water ice, in vacuum
and maintained at a temperature of -25C, will sublimate away entirely
in about thirty days. So why were you considering that to be a "low"
temperature again?

Somewhat more important is any layer of dusty regolith overlaying the
ice. However, even half a kilometer of regolith with 10% porosity
and ten-micron pore size only gets you about 350,000 years lifetime,
which doesn't add up to a hill of beans on an astronomical timescale.
So you really are going to want to cool things down just a tad more,
I think.

Also, the ice we're mostly concerned with here is ammonia.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

Mike Combs wrote:

Certainly. My argument is that the consortium doing the space
construction work may come to have a preference for employees
willing to live in space versus ones who only commute there to
work.

That makes no more more sense than to assert that oil companies may
come to have a preference for employees willing to live at sea
versus ones who only commute there to work. Indeed, I think the
time lost to commuting would be *greater* for workers living
permanently in space. Absenteeism would certainly be far greater.

You'd have to
come back to Earth to start spending your money on a nice car,
fine restaraunts, or European vacations.

You make that sound so...unpleasant.

Not unpleasant for the worker. Inconvenient (and perhaps
expensive) for the consortium doing the space construction.

An inconvenience that is completely insignificant compared to the
inconvenience of supporting the workers permanently in space at a
standard of living approaching that of what they can enjoy on
earth.

Settlers in the new world chose to significantly isolate
themselves from all of Europe. They did so willingly. Of
course there was the potential for family life in the new world.
The potential for local monetary transactions was there. I'm
willing to allow that people won't start to settle space until
there's a compelling economic opportunity, and the potential for
family life.

Sure. But the new world could be settled by preindustrial (and
indeed precivilized and preintelligent) means. At insignificant
cost compared to that of settling space. Which explains why they
settled the new world and not that stretch between the new world
and the old. Further, I don't think that promising workers a
standard of living comparable to the first European settlers in
America is quite the "can't miss" recruiting tactic that you seem
to think it is. Standards have improved remarkably since those
days. Trade unions and all that.

What I can't seem to get across to you is that people won't be
popping back and forth between Earth and HEO the way off-shore
oil-rig workers can pop back and forth between there and the
shore.

Of course not. Who said otherwise?

I think tours of duty in HEO are a lot more likely to be
2 years than 6 months.

I think you have very naive ideas about the costs of of supporting
the workers permanently in space at a standard of living
approaching that of what they can enjoy on earth.

I'm making no such argument. I'm arguing that the analogy with
off-shore oil rigs is not a perfect one,

What analogy is? But it's far, far better than your "new world"
analogy.

and certainly breaks
down where the expected duration of tours of duty are concerned.

Sure. Tours in space will be much longer than on oil rigs but
nothing out of the terrestrial ordinary. And the expense of
building SSPs will be much greater than that of building oil rigs
which *is* out of the terrestrial ordinary.

A guy working a few tens of miles off the coast can have a
family life on land much more easily than someone working
half-way to the moon can have on Earth.

Why? Distance isn't the issue; time is. They both have the same
amount of time to devote to their familial (and/or other) pursuits.

In fact, a case could be made that a space based workforce would
have *less* time with his family because of the necessity to work
shifts to keep the SSP production facility operating 24/7. One
could overcome this somewhat by having *three* Stanford toruses
(tori?) or one divided into three separate communities to synch up
a worker with his family but that adds to the inconvenience and
costs.

And yet there are numerous terrestrial examples where that is
precisely the case. But of course space will be different.

We have yet to have an example on Earth where the costs of
getting people back and forth are comparable. Yes, even with
the 1/20 to 1/50 cost improvement we need to get started.

And we have yet to have an example on Earth where a place was
permanently settled that required technology above a stone age
level *regardless* of transportation costs. Draw your own
conclusions.

Jim Davis