What could be achieved

The thread on having to leaving Earth within 25 years got me thinking.
What would be achievable? This is a useful policy question, as
sometimes it helps to see the obstacles. When reengineering a process,
you can sometimes struggle to make a 5% improvement. Then you hear
that a competitor has made a 90% improvement. Just this knowledge
alone suddenly clarifies the way forward.

So what could be achieved?

Is launch capacity a serious obstacle. If America had to, it could
launch 1 shuttle C per day at a unit cost of $100 million. That would
be $36 billion for 36,000 tons to orbit per year. Much cheaper than
the Defence budget.

But what would be the next obstacle?
- We still don't know how to build closed system life support gear.
- For really large colonies we would still need to process lunar or
NEO material
- To do so we would need to manufacture solar panels in space

What else?

Once we know what could be achieved, we ask, apart from money, what's
stopping us.

In article ,
Alex Terrell wrote:
The thread on having to leaving Earth within 25 years got me thinking.
What would be achievable? This is a useful policy question, as
sometimes it helps to see the obstacles. When reengineering a process,
you can sometimes struggle to make a 5% improvement. Then you hear
that a competitor has made a 90% improvement. Just this knowledge
alone suddenly clarifies the way forward.

So what could be achieved?

Is launch capacity a serious obstacle. If America had to, it could
launch 1 shuttle C per day at a unit cost of $100 million. That would
be $36 billion for 36,000 tons to orbit per year. Much cheaper than
the Defence budget.

But what would be the next obstacle?
- We still don't know how to build closed system life support gear.
- For really large colonies we would still need to process lunar or
NEO material
- To do so we would need to manufacture solar panels in space

What else?

Once we know what could be achieved, we ask, apart from money, what's
stopping us.

Sheer numbers? The teeming masses of Earth could not all leave in 25
years with current or forseeable technology. Space tethers or elevators
would improve matters, but the population will still be growing fairly
quickly. I don't think even the entire population of the US, or even
of California alone, would be able to go to the stars if the clock
started ticking tomorrow.

The failures of BioSphere II (though we learned a lot) show us we have
not yet mastered the complexities of ecosystem manitenance.

Now, if you postulate that we are spending the 25 years in order to
establish a permanent presence in space, and that the rest of the
population will be left to die, I think you're going to be facing the
significant problem of absolute chaos among those who aren't going.

Why should they spend the last years of their lives slaving so that
[insert hated group's name here] will go to the stars? "No, let 'em die,
just like the rest of us." It would be cultural and economic disaster,
and even a 36 billion dollar/year program would probably be infeasible.

Of course, if you somehow kept the pending disaster secret, and spent
a bunch of black project money which would otherwise go to the military
on putting a hundred thousand people or so in orbit and on the moon (with
plans for Mars), you could just barely pull that off, with luck, but
keeping that secret would be difficult at best.

--
Aaron Brezenski
Not speaking for my employer in any way.

"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
m...
The thread on having to leaving Earth within 25 years got me thinking.
What would be achievable?

If you had 50 years, you could test your hardware first. In 25 years, you
could launch a fair number of people, but it would be high risk. All of the
missions would be one way, so we would probably resurrect the Saturn V
booster and have more than one launch site. We might go nuclear, but it
would take time to build and debug the first nuclear rocket.

You could launch DNA, eggs, and sperm from 10,000,000 people and tell them
that if they're lucky, they'll have a baby in 1000 years. You could also
launch a lot of information, but I don't know the best way to store
information for 1000 years. Maybe the lunar poles will be cold enough to
preserve things. You would want to launch a huge amount of machinery into
space. You might end up launching 1000 people plus tons and tons of
machinery and supplies.

"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
m...
The thread on having to leaving Earth within 25 years got me
thinking. What would be achievable?


25 years is a whole generation, I would think that the majority of the
human population could get off planet in that time.

Inflated habitats in LEO with a few years food, perhaps using glycol
synthesis to supplement food supply. LEO is cheaper to get to and would
probably not require additional radiation shielding. Assuming 5000kg
per person at $200/kg delivered, (I think this is possible within ten
years, definitely within twenty five), this is a million dollars per
person within twenty five years.

Now days such a massive initiative would be run in the private sector,
no monopoly could survive such an international war mentality, not
considering the availability of small players. In short order there
would be a large labor pool in space not otherwise employed,
(effectively idle in bunkers), I would expect them to go for extra
terrestrial resources. I would expect Lunar mining to kick in within
ten years and self sufficiency within maybe twenty, though it would
perhaps be thirty years before it was totally necessary.

My point being that if we can get up there, within a few years we will
learn how to survive. It would be a wasted effort to try and do this
before hand.

Another question is what is the minimum time required for humanity to
become self sufficient off planet?

I am guessing may be ten thousand people, perhaps ten years.

Pete.

"Mike Rhino" wrote in message ...
"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
m...
The thread on having to leaving Earth within 25 years got me thinking.
What would be achievable?

If you had 50 years, you could test your hardware first. In 25 years, you
could launch a fair number of people, but it would be high risk. All of the
missions would be one way, so we would probably resurrect the Saturn V
booster and have more than one launch site. We might go nuclear, but it
would take time to build and debug the first nuclear rocket.

You could launch DNA, eggs, and sperm from 10,000,000 people and tell them
that if they're lucky, they'll have a baby in 1000 years. You could also
launch a lot of information, but I don't know the best way to store
information for 1000 years. Maybe the lunar poles will be cold enough to
preserve things. You would want to launch a huge amount of machinery into
space. You might end up launching 1000 people plus tons and tons of
machinery and supplies.


Interestingly enough, I think that the 50 years could
have started in 1957--without an enormously different
impact with respect to economic and technical feasibility.
Mismanagement of resources is the basic problem.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com

Pete Lynn wrote:
"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
m...
The thread on having to leaving Earth within 25 years got me
thinking. What would be achievable?


25 years is a whole generation, I would think that the majority of the
human population could get off planet in that time.

Inflated habitats in LEO with a few years food, perhaps using glycol
synthesis to supplement food supply. LEO is cheaper to get to and would
probably not require additional radiation shielding. Assuming 5000kg

Anything that makes the earth uninhabitable may well clear out LEO.
For a large impact, I want to be in deep excavations in the moon,
or at least in a deep crater.

You need to codify the specific threat more. Say, you 'know' the sun will Nova
in 25 years. Does that mean we'd have to completely leave the system, or just
move outward enough to be out of frying range?

Or if you're postulating a major planetary strike, a dino killer mass
extinction nuvclear winter deal, whatever is left over on Earth has GOT to be
easier to work with than starting fresh with a bare-assed rock in space with no
atmosphere at all... right?

Just saying that not everybody would be convinced that space arks are the only
solution.

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...

Anything that makes the earth uninhabitable may well clear out
LEO.

How so?

I do not see that risk of impact in LEO should not be particularly
different to anyway else, perhaps even safer if you are on the other
side of the planet. Mass ejected back into space from the earth impact?
With a great many habitats, spread out, I expect most would survive
fine.

For a large impact, I want to be in deep excavations in the
moon, or at least in a deep crater.

While I suspect the impact risks would be slightly lower, you might only
save a tenth as many people. With the extra transport and development
costs, it might cost ten times as much. Will the odds of surviving in
LEO be less than 10%?

Pete.

(MSu1049321) wrote in message ...
You need to codify the specific threat more. Say, you 'know' the sun will Nova
in 25 years. Does that mean we'd have to completely leave the system, or just
move outward enough to be out of frying range?

Even that would depend on the size of the Nova. Space colonies will
have much better control over climate. We could currently build them
to orbit Mercury, so even with a small nova they could stay in Earth
orbit.


Or if you're postulating a major planetary strike, a dino killer mass
extinction nuvclear winter deal, whatever is left over on Earth has GOT to be
easier to work with than starting fresh with a bare-assed rock in space with no
atmosphere at all... right?

Depends how far advanced we are. At some point in the future working
with small rocks might be easier than with big planets.

Just saying that not everybody would be convinced that space arks are the only
solution.

"Pete Lynn" wrote in message
...
"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...

Anything that makes the earth uninhabitable may well clear out
LEO.

How so?

I do not see that risk of impact in LEO should not be particularly
different to anyway else, perhaps even safer if you are on the other
side of the planet. Mass ejected back into space from the earth impact?
With a great many habitats, spread out, I expect most would survive
fine.

For a large impact, I want to be in deep excavations in the
moon, or at least in a deep crater.

While I suspect the impact risks would be slightly lower, you might only
save a tenth as many people. With the extra transport and development
costs, it might cost ten times as much. Will the odds of surviving in
LEO be less than 10%?

Comparing LEO to the moon.

LEO - Cost of transporting people is less. Easier to return to Earth two
years later.
Moon - Cheaper radiation shielding.
Moon - Things can be built out of local resources. Ramping up production in
25 years is somewhat difficult, however they can continue building habitats
and farms after the disaster. Solar panels degrade, but on the moon, they
can be replaced.

If they had a lot of machinery on the moon, they could do more stuff that
wasn't planned in advance.