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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
All successful corporations are realistic and pragmatic - they are
looking for profits now, or at most a few years from now, not possible profits 20, 30, or 50 years in the future. No one has found a way to make space colonization pay off in the short term -or- the long term, although I hope someone will think of something at some point. After all, a moonbase is clearly within our technological capacity and has been since 1969. That we're not building one is entirely an economic matter. On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 09:31:15 +0100, "Paul Blay" wrote: "Hop David" wrote ... Mike Combs wrote: or alternately if we had turned away from fossil fuels due to Greenhouse Effect concerns, Don't see the U.S. doing that. Too many Americans _like_ cooking frogs. And many American companies have more realistic views than Mr "post ice-age" and Mr "green conspiracy" of this group. |
#12
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
I see all those mentions of "economics" up this thread; but maybe that
usage is too global. From here, I see a strong candidate for relevant detail. If the money is there to do bases and settlements on Luna and Mars, then where does it go? For an answer, read the news and watch your TV. Guns; tanks; aircraft; high-technology weapons; etc etc. All grown out of money stripped out of any other use and spent for these dead-end applications. Weapons and military technologies burn up money indirectly but to same effect as shredding it into landfills. If you've missed my point, where do all those people in all those restless parts of the world get all those guns and grenade launchers they are carrying around? And when did military combat ever build anything? It is so much easier, and so much more spectacular, to destroy an architectural work in moments, than to build in over years. Seems to me, a better explanation for the lack of any forward-looking space program is simply that in a military vs space economic competition, space loses. An established armaments industry and military-industrial complex, sucks up all accessible money, before the space travel and settlement complex can reach it. The one thrives, at a price of terrible waste and destruction; the other starves. Meanwhile, here comes the future. With our human race concentrated in one small single vulnerable place in all the universe, we are gambling no astronomical Killer comes along. For whoever is interested, plenty of warning is there to see. Doesn't anyone know any better? It's a gamble we will eventually lose. Cheers, well, maybe not -- Martha Adams |
#13
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
In article ,
Ultimate Buu wrote: "G EddieA95" wrote in message ... optimisticly, most fossil fuel reserves will be gone in 30-50 years, and there is a real chance of the production peaking in not more than 10. No, there's lots of coal out there, and using it will still be cheaper than SPS, tho all the natureworshippers will need to be told to sit down and shut up. You're forgetting nuclear as well. There's enough uranium to last at last 150 years if not more. Beyond that, fusion will most likely be a reality. Actually, there's 6000 ppb of thorium in the Earth's crust and 1800 ppb of uranium, totalling very roughly 10^30 joules to play with. If you assume a civilization that consumes one hundred times more energy than we do now, that's enough for over thirty million years and by the end of that period we should be no more than thirty years away from commercial fusion. I've been noodling around with ideas for deep crustal mining, too. There's an entire subterranian ecology down there that has not been made human oriented yet, although the paltry amount of energy it has to use limits what one can do with it. -- It's amazing how the waterdrops form: a ball of water with an air bubble inside it and inside of that one more bubble of water. It looks so beautiful [...]. I realized something: the world is interesting for the man who can be surprised. -Valentin Lebedev- |
#14
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
In article ,
James Nicoll wrote: In article , Ultimate Buu wrote: "G EddieA95" wrote in message ... optimisticly, most fossil fuel reserves will be gone in 30-50 years, and there is a real chance of the production peaking in not more than 10. No, there's lots of coal out there, and using it will still be cheaper than SPS, tho all the natureworshippers will need to be told to sit down and shut up. You're forgetting nuclear as well. There's enough uranium to last at last 150 years if not more. Beyond that, fusion will most likely be a reality. Actually, there's 6000 ppb of thorium in the Earth's crust and 1800 ppb of uranium, totalling very roughly 10^30 joules to play with. If you assume a civilization that consumes one hundred times more energy per unit time! per unit time! -- It's amazing how the waterdrops form: a ball of water with an air bubble inside it and inside of that one more bubble of water. It looks so beautiful [...]. I realized something: the world is interesting for the man who can be surprised. -Valentin Lebedev- |
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
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#16
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OT Stoopid politics stuff (Was Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
"alnilam" wrote ...
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 13:08:53 +0000 (UTC), (Martha H Adams) wrote: Weapons and military technologies burn up money indirectly but to same effect as shredding it into landfills. If Not true. There is a direct benefit from military expenditure. It's called freedom. Yeah, but the _other_ direct 'benefit' from military expenditure is oppression. Military expenditure is a (modified) zero sum game. If every country and organisation bearing arms around the world had its military equipment halved overnight the net effect would be pretty small. In fact it's easy to make the case that the change would be positive because oppressive regimes tend to need forces to keep their populations in line more than healthy democracies do. Put it the other way if military equipment world-wide was doubled over- night the net effect would be small and negative by exactly the same reasoning. |
#17
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote: (James Nicoll) : You're forgetting nuclear as well. There's enough uranium to last at last 150 years if not more. Beyond that, fusion will most likely be a reality. Actually, there's 6000 ppb of thorium in the Earth's crust and 1800 ppb of uranium, totalling very roughly 10^30 joules to play with. If you assume a civilization that consumes one hundred times more energy than we do now, that's enough for over thirty million years and by the end of that period we should be no more than thirty years away from commercial fusion. I've been noodling around with ideas for deep crustal mining, too. There's an entire subterranian ecology down there that has not been made human oriented yet, although the paltry amount of energy it has to use limits what one can do with it. Check out: http://inisjp.tokai.jaeri.go.jp/ACT98E/04/0401.htm http://ito01.gs.niigata-u.ac.jp/jcej/e24_0500.html http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jsac/analsci/pdfs/a16_0429.pdf Noted and saved. Using seawater avoids the potential problem I saw with crustal manipulation, that tiny volume changes in tall columns can produce annoying swelling or subsistance at the surface. It's hard to make a long term hole in water. -- It's amazing how the waterdrops form: a ball of water with an air bubble inside it and inside of that one more bubble of water. It looks so beautiful [...]. I realized something: the world is interesting for the man who can be surprised. -Valentin Lebedev- |
#18
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
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#20
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Why space colonization never happened as envisioned
James Nicoll wrote: Using seawater avoids the potential problem I saw with crustal manipulation, that tiny volume changes in tall columns can produce annoying swelling or subsistance at the surface. It's hard to make a long term hole in water. A much greater problem for deep hard rock mining, IMO, is stress at great depths. Of course vertical stress grows as you go deeper. And in many cases side stress is even greater. This used to mystify before the theory of plate tectonics came along. Hop http://clowder.net/hop/index.html |
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