Re: RE: starship-design: Infrastructure in space [was: FTLtravel...]

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/25/00 5:36:09 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net writes:

>Zenon has a point about oil, or more generally petroleum type substances
>
>which might be found in space. Many Terrestrial products are dependent
>upon
>
>oil for the basic material used to make them. Although it is possible to
>
>synthesize these products from basic ingredients, the processes for doing
>so
>
>have never really been developed and are therefore somewhat more expensive
>
>to use as long as there is plenty of oil around.
>
>
>
>So finding oil in space might be profitable after all. Not as a fuel but
>as
>
>raw materials to manufacture plastics, etc.


Only if the facilities use so much they it pays for them to manufacture and 
use it in space.  You have to compete with the huge efficent markets and 
manufacturing infastructure on Earth.



>On the make it in space vs. on the ground issue. Kelly's point about having
>
>learned to manufacture crystal and pharmaceuticals as well on Earth as
>in
>
>space perhaps needs a little clarification.
>
>
>
>Yes, we can now make the same substances _almost_ as well in gravity as
>out,
>
>and considerably cheaper as well. But we would never have been able to
>do so
>
>until _after_ we had done it in space. To use an analogy, if one wanted
>to
>
>paint a picture of an apple, you would take a bunch of paint and paint
>a
>
>picture of an apple, as long as you had seen an apple. But if you were
>
>blind, or had never seen an apple, it is very unlikely that the painting
>
>would much resemble an apple, even though you _knew_ there was such a thing
>
>as one. These crystals and pharmaceuticals didn't exist - and could not
>
>exist - in a gravity well until we had at least made them the first time
>in
>
>orbit.

Many were never made in space before they were made on the ground, and their 
ground manufacture is very different processes.

Irrelavant though.  The industrial money won't be going into space industries 
or infastructure.


>Lee