Re: starship-design: The Case for Space

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: KellySt@aol.com
> 
> In a message dated 10/16/99 10:41:50 AM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl writes:
> 
> >> From: KellySt@aol.com
> >> 
> >> In a message dated 10/15/99 9:17:18 AM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl writes:
> >> 
[...]
> >> Over here even places that were very isolated were abandoned. Once you
> >> packed up to move somewhere, its pretty easy to do it again.
> >> 
> >If we speak of space, it is all okay if some colony 
> >in Valles Marineris packs up  and moves to Tharsis Ridge
> >(or even to Ganymede...)  ;-)
> 
> But then your not talking colonies, as much as mining camps.
> 
But just such a mining camps have a weird tendency to grow up
into big colonies with time...


[...]
> >> The later only happens after the colony gets big an diverse enough 
> >> to absorb the interest and money. That doesn't happen to most places
> >> unless they have a huge long term cash flow and are a place people 
> >> want to stay at, in space it could take a very long time.
> >> 
> >Possibly, but in space there might be other factors that may 
> >change that - see below.
> 
> Might is a little word to stack up against centuries of history.
> 
One example of a particular "might" I have given 
later on in my letter.


[...]
> >> With nano-tech space industry may have the legs shot out 
> >> from under them.  Why worry about cheap high grade ore, 
> >> if you can process anything and get pure materials?  
> >> Why worry as much about cheap power if power plants can grow 
> >> from nanotech seeds? Zero-G manufacture is a joke if you can 
> >> assemble to the atomic scale down here. Investment funds 
> >> to space stations and platforms would be diverted 
> >> to the more profitable and promising nanotech development projects. 
> >>
> >Hmmm, you seem to have a point here.
> >I constantly have a hidden fear that it will be nanotech 
> >that finally gets mankind rather that other things...
> >However, it will also make the space technology much cheaper,
> >lighter, and more comfortable for humans to live in space,
> >so maybe that side prevails.
> 
> Get us?  We can read that as good or bad.  As a tech, its possible 
> capabilities are stagering.  Up side we can all become rich, superhuman, 
> and damb near immortal.  Downside we could all get killed.
> 
I referred to your downside here.

> >> Same way space development funds are now being 
> >> draw off by internet projects.
> >> 
> >Ahh, so I now see the source of the "Space Internet" idea...
> 
> ??
> 
I am not sure if I remembered the name properly.
I refer to the idea expreseed recently (was it by Al Gore, 
or Dan Goldin?) of setting an interplanetary Internet
so that data from future space probes (especially on Mars)
can be accessible by everyone online.
Looks like trying to divert these funds going to internet projects
back to space... ;-)

-- Zenon