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Re: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining




In a message dated 9/12/97 11:32:40 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker)
wrote:

>Jim,
>
>> w this sounds interesting.  Maybe we should start a list, or at least a
>> scussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for
>> starships.
>
>If Benson is correct on the composition of the majority of near Earth 
>asteroids, they would be a far better choice for mining than the moon
>or Mars. His original announcement months ago was what prompted my 
>discourse on why do we want to go to another star system just to get 
>back down into one of those nasty gravity wells. Especially when there
>is so much useful, profitable stuff floating around up there where it 
>is easy to get at, once you get up there in the first place.
>
>Lee

Well if you can get back and forth between the stars, geting up and down from
a planet is trivial.  On the other had its estimated that the resources of
this starsystems are enough to support a human population hundreds of
thousands, to hundreds of millions of times our current population.  So
colonizing star systems with our limited tech seems pretty dumb.  Which make
the push to explore other stars with our current limited tech pretty thin.

Kelly