Re: RE: starship-design: Numbers needed for Colonization (was Antiproton-Cataly

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 5/11/98 9:47:33 AM, f96bni@student.tdb.uu.se wrote:

>Again a little late...
>(sickness and all)

Go home and rest, were not worth it.  ;)


>On Wed, 29 Apr 1998, L. Parker wrote:
>
>> Bjorn,
>> 
>> > The other factor, the GROWTH RATE of the colony neccesary is more a
>> > question of how "long-term" the people back on earth view the
>> > investment.
>> > I.e. when it is neccesary that the colony starts to be a net
>> > producer...
>> 
>> Umm, well that was a given in the original problem statement. ALL colonies
>> must be self-sufficient, therefore they are either net producers or at
least
>> non-negative. I'm afraid the concept of trade or commerce is out of the
>> picture, at least until someone invents a much faster way of getting there.
>> 
>
>First: Trade of information is certanly feasible! Trade of Physical
>products may also be posible given that their Value is VERY high compared
>to their mass... (Prototypes, biological/chemical samples etc...)

Very hard to do as a profit making enterprize.


>Personnaly I wouldn't consider a colony a net-producer UNTIL it starts to
>become independant of it's INITIAL "infrastructure" (i.e. the "stuff"
>brought along from Earth). Anyway, There are MANY reason why a colony
>would NEED to be a pretty large Net-producer in many areas....
>
>1) They would some how need to "repay" their investors... (Probably with
>research more than anything else!)
>
>2) They would need Growth to increase the size of the colony... (Both # of
>people and Industirial and Infrastructure size.)
>
>3) Unless the "light-barrier" can somehow be broken, it would be neccesary
>to "Planet-hop" to get to further systems... That would mean that the
>colony SHOULD be able to send out it's OWN colonizts in the forseeable
>future... (a few Centurys, MAX!!!)

To do the above you probably need a population in the millions, and a upfrount
investment that would be beyond stagering.


>Now a few other Things:
>
>Time-scales:
>To most Humans, even a Century is gona seem a VERY long time even quite
>far into the future... Just look at the excitement about the upcoming
>Milenium shift and I think that most will agree that projects that take
>1000s of years will NOT be feasible from a socio-economic POV.
>IMHO if something doesn't at least START to give results in a century,
>forget IT...

Besides, with our tech growth rate if it doesn't work out in a couple decades
its rediculasly obsolete.


>Population Growth:
>As someone pointed out, most industialized countries have trouble keeping
>their population CONSTANT, never mind increasing it... Personally I'd
>think that the Knowledge of how having lots of kids is a NECCESITY for the
>colony will help somewhat. This is still one of the BIGGEST problems
>Though.
>
>
>
>
>Bjorn

Kelly