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Re: starship-design: Finances
> From owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Thu Jan 31 09:29:26 2002
> From: "jakesmiley" <jakesmiley@netzero.net>
>
> I'm missing the connection between airplanes and space travel. What
> makes you think that they can be compared correctly? I think Toxic Roach
> pointed out the difference between space travel and flying best when he
> said, "people do it [flying] to get where they need/want to go". You might
> have people want to go into space, but I doubt that anyone will ever _need_
> to go.
>
If his/her business will be in space (a space hotel, or a mine
on the Moon...) he/she will need.
> Also, airlines have always suffered the repercussions of accidents.
> People don't stand in line for an airline that kills its customers. The
> reason you don't usually hear about the airline industry going bust every
> time there's an accident is because, typically, only one airline suffers.
> Demand for their services shifts to competing airlines (competition, ain't
> capitalism great?). Unless, of course, the airline that suffered the
> accident is the only provider of services in a given area (market monopoly,
> don't capitalism suck?).
>
Monopolies don't last long if they are not supported by governments.
[...]
> Anyway... I guess I should reconsider my position on the novelty of
> spaceflight. Not because of Las Vegas, no the secret of Las Vegas is greed
> and lust. Spaceflight has no potential payback for tourists, and sex in
> space ... well, you'd really have to be into bondage to make that work.
> Actually, I'm thinking about Paris and other European cities of note.
> Dirty, crime-ridden, and just about as cramped. The food is usually
> terrible, the people tend to be rude, and you're never allowed to touch
> anything. Yet people come back from these trips saying what a wonderful
> time they had... So maybe spaceflight wouldn't wear off quite as I thought.
>
Consider also the art of creation of fads and fashions.
> I have my doubts about those surveys that say most people want to go. I
> talk to people about it and their first response is always, "Wow. That'd be
> neat." However, if you keep talking to them you'll discover that they don't
> even consider it a possibility. How accurate can these surveys be? The
> people taking them are all thinking about Star Wars-type accommodations
> anyway. They never stop to think about the reality of the situation.
> (Given the outreach programs abounding today, I find ignorance of what space
> travel is like intolerable. Like those Navy guys who launched a satellite
> with a fan in it so they could cool their processor.)
>
Really? Do you have some source & details, it would be nice
as a piece of space humor.
> C'mon... It's a war on the other side of the world, where we're
> bombing a country forward into the stone-age.
>
Wrong - the opposite is true. Talibs were on the straight road
into the stone age; bombings actually turned Afghans back from
that way. Consider the history of Japan & South Korea
after the WW II and compare them with, say, North Korea.
> Morally, sure it's a big thing. But
> from a service provider POV, this shouldn't be such a big deal.
>
Wait a while, the business there gets now a chance for a big start.
> I don't understand the ocean liner question. Are you trying to say the
> fact that you offer an exclusive service will allow you to survive?
>
> Not enough bandwidth? What are we trying to do? Play UT on a LAN
> system? ;] I'm talking about raw data. No pictures, no sounds, no perks
> whatsoever. Distributed computing isn't for the users, it's for data
> crunching.
>
Wow, for the data-crunching's sake? I always thought the data crunching
is for the users. Not to say that pictures & sounds are also
data as good as any other, often requiring quite much crunching...
-- Zenon Kulpa