To Kevin and Kelly

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

>Actually there is a three way split.  Build, repair, carry spares.  In our
>case the ship would need to be most concerned about mass.  I.E. you might
>be able to make new I.C. chips, but the chips manufacturing equip would
>weigh more then a 40 year supply of circuts.  Other things like exotic hard
>to manufacture alloys, composits, cermats, whatever, that the shuttles
>would need.  Might require equipment too large to be carried along.

If we use self reproducing robots, a chip-backery should be on board anyway.

>Bottom line things will wear out.  When it comes to the point that the
>frames, hulls, main power systems and such have reached their service
>lives.  They are not practical to repair, they are scrap.

You can remelt the metal and make new plates.

>Unless your
>proposing bringing all the equipment that every high end manufacturer uses.

Yes, but how much equipment are we talking about, we need machines for:
- Metal treatment
- Plastic treatment
- Semiconductor treatment
- Glas treatment

>Judging from the fact they work harder at maintaining there lowtech comune
>life style then I do my high tech style, I'm not sure about your
>comparison.

Using this analogy, won't the futere bring us a complete automatic world,
where no one needs to work?

>The military is probably a better example.  They need rugged equipment, and
>keep it for decades with limited upgrades.  But sooner or later it wears
>out and has to be thrown away.

Yes, but then you have had more than enough time to build a replacement.

>I totaly disagre with your assumption that a most social effort is senceles
>inovation for novelties sake.  Thing have to be replaced routinly. MOst
>industries have to live with the fact of market saturation.

A lot of computers are not being replaced because they completely don't work
any more but just because the competion has faster ones. Indeed this is not
true for all objects, like chairs etc. But if the chair is made of steel and
plastic, it is unlikely that the whole chair has to be replaced at once.
Maybe a leg will break of, but can be welded again. The plastic seat may
tear but can be easely replaced.

>In theory thats true.  Reality doesn't live there.  The limits are
>practicality.  You could break everything down to basic chemicals, ion
>separate them to acceptable prurity, and mine that like ore.  But what
>sence would that make?  Could you afford to bring along all that equiment?
>Even if you could what advantage would it give you?

Isn't it possible to make objects with unmixed materials, so that the
recycle-ability is enlarged much more, long enough to last the lives of the
crew.

>The weight estimates were from the old stanford study.  which used mixed
>soil and hydro farming.  (Hydro isn't that light, I mean water is heavy
>too.)

That water you need always, even if you use frozen food.

Timothy