Re: To Kelly

[KellySt@aol.com]

RE: Tim replies to Kelly:
> 
> >> OK, but we don't need much manufacturing after the initial build up. It
> >> takes much less effort to keep what you have than to build something
from
> >> scratch.
> >> Also a big amount of the 95% spend on manufacturing are the cost for raw
> >> materials, I expect the cost of mining raw materials will be less at TC
> >> because we can pick the easiest sites. No deep-sea oil drilling, most
ores
> >> we need will be somewhere near the surface.
> >
> >Raw materials will be in space.  MOst of the best ore beds on earth are
> >crashed asteroids.  We can go to the source!
> 
> Yes, that's what I meant, so that means a saving of say 80% with respect to
> the raw materials. Thus we have 5% spent on R&D and 15% spent on other
> man-power.

80% 5% and 15% of what?


> >> I still don't see why it is not possible to scale things down. If you
need
> >> 1 million people to feed 3 million people why can't you do with 100
workers
> >> for 300 people?
> >
> >Actually it takes a couple dozen people to feed 3 million people.  But to
> >maintain a socyiety it takes millions of differnt professions.  You cant
> >train 100 people, to each do 60,000 professions and do them well.  And we
> >arn't in a good position to deal with a lot of sloppy workmanship.
> 
> I hoped you would take the word feed not literally...
> Anyway a lot of these professions are sub-divisions of other ones, how many
> "professions" are taught at universities and schools? All economic,
> administrative, trade and a lot of social professions won't be needed that
> bad in a small independant colony. You said yourself that the bigger the
> group, the more coordination is needed.

I was speaking of professions in the sence of jobs.  Yes you could do without
a lot of coordinators in a smaller group.  But you'll need someone good at
all the little jobs a society takes to keep it runing (not to mention a
starship).


> >Earth got life very quickly after it cooled.  Mars may have life.  Then
their
> >is Venus whose crust is wrong which makes it to hoot.  What does that give
> >you for odds?  And is it an average sample?  Given the extreams of
> >temperature, radiation, chemistry, etc.. that life lives in on earth.
> > (icewater, nuclear reactor cores, water hundreds of centigrade above 0,
> >deserts) I'ld expect to find life almost anywhere.
> 
> What kind of live lives around nuclear reactor cores? I've heard that some
> old corpses were not decomposed because they were burried in a cave where
> the radiaton level was so high that even the decomposing bacteria couldn't
> live there.

Depends on the type of bacteria.  Yes a type of bacteria (or maybe an alge?)
was found living inside some of the old reactor cores.  (I think the new
sealed U.S. reactors are to clean to feed them.)  They have also found things
on the ocean bottom that thrive in water heated to hundreds of defrees C and
loaded with heavy metals, or in a few cases that were happily eating old
toxic waste dumps.  

> Mars may have life but if we won't check it we can't be sure, so lets
launch
> a simple rocked, that takes some samples and analizes them for some traces
> of life.

Technically we did that with Viking in the '70's.  There turned out to be a
design defect in one of the three tests, but since all three tests didn't
confirm life, the official possition of NASA is that life on Mars has been
disproven.

> >Venuses temp is NOT due to its atmosphere.  Its due to its crust, its a
> >fraction of the thickness of earth crust and doesn't insulate well enough
to
> >keep the surface cool.
> 
> So after the venus cools down slowly, the crust will get thicker and it may
> become like Earth?

If the sun doesn't swallow it first.  Its been cooling for 4.5 billion years,
so I think its a bit to slow to make it in time.


> >> I'm not sure, would recycling not have a bigger influence on reducing
the
> >> need for raw materials? Taking all the rubbish down means that the
rubbish
> >> on Earth would increase, and we already have to much of that.
> >
> >For ecology purposes moving heavy industry off planet would do more than
> >anything else to ease ecology strain.  Of course their are international
> >political and cultural problems with that (proably a couple of wars with
the
> >third world).
> 
> Heavy industry on Earth is so dirty because it uses a lot of energy and
> doesn't take enough care about its side-products. When fusion becomes
> normal, energy is very clean. And in space you can't just leave all the
dust
> flying around either.

Well its not just that.  When you have to throw away 90% of the ore you mine
to get the remaining good 'refined' part, you generate a lot of waste.  Mines
tend to be more than a little messy too.  Fusion wouldn't intrinsicly change
any of that, or much about industry in general.  Of course if you move
everything off planet you've obviously removed all the sources of Earth based
polution.

Dust in space isn't a big problem unles you fly through it at high speed.
 But they probably would do it so the dust was swept up by a planet or blown
out by the sun.

> >Stuff can't be recycled forever.  After a while it just doesn't make any
> >sence.  Right now we in the (throw it all away) U.S. have litle real
problem
> >with waste disposal (though an incredible amount of political problems).
> > about 80%-90% of our garbage is paper and similar compustables.  The
small
> >fraction of metals and plastics %5ish, can be broken down or shiped into
> >space if you crazy enough.  Besides if the industry moves off planet to
get
> >to the resources, the materials to be recycled would need to be shiped up
to
> >be recycled anyway.
> 
> Shipping up takes large amounts of energy, that means an environmental
> problem unless you use fusion power.

Well I was assuming fusion or nuclear power (or fussion electric rocket
motors), but you could also just assume the fuel is synthasised in space.

> >No I ment no food raiseing.  Oh, you can have a couple of tomato plants in
> >your apartment for recretion.  But farm systems weigh too much if your
only
> >going out for a couple of decades..
> 
> But why did you speak about veggies(10 tomatos a year?), bread/pasta(corn),
> meat/chickens(need food=plants too)?

I don't follow.  10 tomatos a year?  Why would frozen/irradiated/cryoed food
need to be feed?  I was just saying I was expecting to feed the crew a normal
diet, of normal food, just like they would get from a grocery store.
 (Withthe exception of very light concentrated emergency rations.)  I was
expecting to do no/none/zero farming on board the ship. I did mention the
crew could grow a few plants in their rooms if they wanted, but all planing
assumes no extra solar food production.

> >I know ther are dozens of differnt anti-biotics each tailored to various
> >things (and most becoming ineffective), but I don't know much more than
that.
> 
> You are talking about the small-spectre anti-biotics. The ineffectiveness
is
> caused mainly by the not finishing the cure and thus allowing the bacteria
> to become resistant.
> Broad spectre are useful if a bacteria with a lot of different brothers and
> sisters is active. Broad specre anti-biotics kill several different
bacteria.
> 
> > Why would you think we could fight them?
> 
> Because I think we are smart and that since life is universal it will be
> like the organisms we know because the set of chemical reactions that can
> support life is very limited. 
> 
> In fact if there is alien intelligent live (which is no doubt about) they
> will have hands like we do (a finger more or less) just because that is
> necessary to get intelligent. (intelligence without a need means nothing to
> Darwin)
> So they won't have claws or hoofs or fins because these don't need a big
> brain to use.
> They also will have some light sensative organs (otherwise a even small
> brain isn't needed). They will need touch and taste/smell senses. So that
> makes them already a lot like the organisms we know. 
> So, the don't walk on all limbs otherwise the hands cannot get
sophisticated
> enough. That makes that they are standing up if the have 4 limbs. If they
> have more limbs. More limbs is not very efficient for larger organisms that
> have to carry a brain of 1 kg.
> So they have a brain, would it be like we know it or are there some radical
> different possibilities, I don't think there are, as I said before there is
> a very limited set of chemical reactions that can be used.
> So they have a large brain similar to ours, and need a lot of oxigen to
keep
> it working. So they have one or 2 longs and hearts. They need to feed
> themselfs, so they have teeth. They are probably omnivores, planteaters
need
> to much time eating, so haven't time to do something else. Carnivores need
> all their legs to catch their prey.
> OK why not reptiles? They are half coldblooded and can't really function
> without some external heat.

???  You need to study life more.  There are other chemical combinations then
ours that can suport life.  Some are radically differnt.  Some could not
survive the presence of oxegen (as most early earth life couldn't).  We don't
know they are used, but they could be.

As for your quick anatomy breakdown.  We have hands and are the preeminent
endurence pack preditors on the planet.  Our closest runners up are Wolves.
 We have some notable anotomical differences for two preditors that
specialize in the same eco-nich!  ;)  Our bodies are however, both designed
to support the same pack endurance preditor lifestyle.  (We are adapted for
hotter climates though.)  

As for the rest.  A set of crab claws could work as well as hands.  Elephants
trucnks can pick up indevidual penuts out of lose debreis, or lift a log. 

Life has a tendence to to use incredible resourcfullness to kill us.

Kelly