GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

The Need for a Frontier...

POSTED BY: NANITE1018
UPDATED: Monday, July 31, 2006 16:19
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Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:59 PM

NANITE1018


Basically, we humans need a frontier. A place where we can expand and start anew, do things differently. We don't have one. The whole planet is within 24 hours of any other part of the planet. Or less. That's too small to get a fresh start. Plus, there's no where left to go. Everything is claimed. All land is controlled by someone else, and so only war can really carve out a portion for a new country. Frontiers (as evidenced by the New World colonization and the Westward movement in the US) allow for new systems, new ideas, innovation, and invention. Enormous benefits result. Structures remain fluid, there is an influx of ideas and new inventions, and an overall kind of hope that if things aren't going so well here, well then i can try again, really start fresh somewhere very very far away. Governments on the frontier tend to be almost libertarian, small, functional.

What do we see today? Big governments (not necessarily a bad thing), and they are enormously, ludicrously inefficient (a terrible thing, especially when coupled with big government. efficient big government might be okay to good, but a big inefficient government isn't very good at all). A general lowering of dreams. We don't dream of the stars anymore, not most of us. We don't dream of a far far better world and actually believe it's possible. Well, most of us don't. We are becoming more and more conservative, innovation is slowing it's exponential growth (it'll always be exponential, it is just not exponentiating as fast as it was say 50 years ago). No new social systems can be tried. Pollution is becoming a huge issue, our energy supplies are dwindling, and our population is rising. Earth doesn't have the capacity to support us, especially if standards of living improve dramatically in the developing world (such as if they became developed) and if our population continues to grow. Extinctions are happening (i think i remember reading this somewhere) a thousand times or a hundred times faster than the standard background rate, why? Because of people. The Earth can't support us. Even if we stopped growing now, and developed far more efficient systems to support us, and stopped growing, levelled off totally, we would still be living in a negative sum game. Some believe the world is a zero-sum game (it can't be a positive sum game, everything is pretty much claimed, all the land at least. There's only so much resources on Earth after all, so there are limits, and we're pushing them). It's not. There will always be inefficienies, we'll always lose some small fraction of usable resources each year. it's inevitable, everything is at least just the slightest bit inefficient. The Earth is a negative-sum game.

So how do we solve it? What frontier is left? Where do we get our resources from? Easy: Space.

Yes, space. Outer space that is. The planets and moons, the asteroids and comets. There are enormous reservoirs of resources out there. One asteroid (16 Psyche) has enough iron-nickel to supply the worlds current demand for a milllion years! If we built giant space colonies that rotated to create artificial gravity, the maximum population size for one with current technology is about 10 million, although if you pushed it to the absolute limit you could get up to ten times that. And that's today. It might be possible to build ones that can have a billion people live in them. Even assuming inefficient use of resources, a million tons a person for such a system is about 100 times higher than the average estimate for the highest necessary. But let's say a million tons a person is necessary. How many could Colonies (or as O'Neill called them, Islands, i'll call them O'Neill colonies or Colonies from now on) made from the Moon support? About 10 trillion people if not more. It's been estimated there are enough resources in the solar system to support somewhere between as few as 100 trillion people and as many as 10000 trillion people, if not more. 10 quadrillion people! That's comfortably. So basically, the limits to growth in the Solar System are basically super far out, way beyond what people would normally call "limits to growth". And of course, if we ever dig approach the limits, there are nearly 400 billion other stars, and probably 10s of billions of solar system at least as rich as ours in the galaxy. In space, there basically aren't any limits.

Now that is what i call a frontier! Virtually unlimited resources, virtually unlimited energy (solar power), unlimited space (for all practical purposes). It'd be easy to get away from whoever people you don't want to be near. Easy to try new things. Easy to do whatever the heck you want. Space is our new frontier. We need a frontier, or we will stagnate, and eventually die (from either disease, famine, war, or a natural disaster such as an asteroid strike or something). Our choice is space or death.

What do you all think about it? Do we need a frontier? Is space that frontier? And if so, can we, do what is necessary to get there and take advantage of it?

"We're still flyin'."
"That isn't much."
"It's enough."

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006 7:34 PM

NANITE1018


Bumpage

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006 7:41 PM

CALIFORNIAKAYLEE


Interesting read, Nanite.

I think the desire to go into space is natural, especially for Browncoats. We live in an age where shuttle launches barely make the evening news (unless something goes wrong), and where we have the technology to sustain human life in space for extended periods of time. What we don't have is the money to do it on a large scale, or the driving necessity to make us devote the money.

I don't think any of us will see a full Colony in our life times. We might see eccentric millionaires building recreational space ships or full off-planet homes for themselves. But unless a hugely necessary resource (oil, good soil for crops, etc.) is found on a planet, moon, or asteroid; or unless some huge world crisis forces us to start moving off world, I doubt we'll even see the beginning stages of large scale colonies.

But I hear what you're saying about frontiers. There are two frontiers, other than space, that I can easily point to. The first is the oceans: I know very little about this frontier, other than to say that there are *still* areas of the ocean floor that are unmapped. There's so much about them that we don't know.

The other frontier is technology. I know, I know, not the physical frontier you were thinking of. But hear me out. All those things you described -- escaping big government, trying out new forms of society, dreaming of better worlds, looking into the black and wondering what's possible -- are alive and well on the technological frontier. The two areas of the technological frontier that I am most familiar with are Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual World creation.

The cutting edge research and development being done with AI is amazing, but I think you'd find virtual worlds more to your liking. Talk about dreaming of a new world! Working with technology that allows you to build an entirely new world from the ground up -- literally, from the rules of gravity on up -- and then opening that world up to hundreds of thousands of people... People who have the complete anonymity of the internet, who can start over, start a life different from their "real" one, live as whatever they want to be. It's powerful stuff.

The sociological studies of such worlds are unbelievable. We're seeing behaviors and societal norms that would *never* have happened in the real world. Most of the worlds are presented in the context of a game (i.e., World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc), but there are many out there that are just *worlds*, and the technology to allow anyone to create their own virtual world is just over the horizon.

I know this isn't the sort of frontier you're dreaming of. I know most of us want to experience life in the black. But I really don't think any of us will get that chance. For now, I'll take whatever frontier I can get.

~CK

You can't take the sky from me...

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:08 PM

NANITE1018


I understand that it'll take something big to overcome our inertia and get the ball rolling, to start the expansion into space. But that resource you were thinking of, is easily found. And that is everything. That asteroid has enormous amounts of iron-nickel, and small amounts of other elements. Such as platinum. Platinum is worth more than 12000 dollars a kilogram. That's quite a lot of coin for a very small amount of stuff. And then there is energy, which we need a cheap supply of. Solar Power Satellites could be built that could be huge, way bigger than anything that could be on Earth, and also be more efficient than is possible on Earth, with absolutely no night, and no atmosphere to block the sunlight, they'd be at least 50% more efficient than ground based arrays, but would most likely require less in terms of maintenance and weigh next to nothing in construction because there is no gravity, and therefore little need for structural supports. We could definetely use solar energy for all our poewr, particularly if we did it from space. And then there is space manufacturing, which could make alloys and crystals and things that are simply impossible to grow on the surface of the Earth, things that may turn out to be very powerful or in demand or worth a great deal of money here on Earth.

Now, i know it'd be hard, really hard. But i think it might just happen that some of us Browncoats might actually be able to live in the black someday. Who knows, maybe Firefly will actually happen, maybe not exactly, but private spaceships, criminal jobs, dozens of "worlds" and "moons" (in this case man-made) where people live. Maybe, by 2517, almost everyone will live in the black, or at least many people. It's a wonderful thought.

And as to the oceans, yes they are a frontier. And they are very close. Problem is they don't have that much room. I mean to build something in the ocean is as hard as building something in space, because of all the problems with the water and such. Do i think that millions of people will one day live under the surface of the ocean? Yes. But i just don't see it as a big enough frontier. i mean you would be so close to the other people on the planet, there might be too much interconnection, and not much chance of simply leaving altogether, and disappearing. There is a huge amount of resources, yes. But not enough to sustain us for more than a few hundred years. We will eventually HAVE to move into space, because we will simply not be able to squeeze anything else out of this ol' rock.

As for technology, yeah it isn't the kind fo frontier i was thinking of. Of course science and technology are important frontiers, and virtual reality doesn't take much in the way of resources. I love the idea, and think it'll be a reality and very important part of the future. But again, the basic necessity remains: there's only so much gose down here to use, and we'll eventually use it up due to inevitable inefficiencies in recycling technologies. Eventually, space will be absolutely necessary for our survival.


You know, the whole idea in Firefly of Earth getting "used up" and people being forced to leave and colonize space is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves first. I just hope we don't have to use up Earth to move out into space. It's such a beautiful place, it wouldn't be good to burn it all up and use everything up until we couldn't live here anymore.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 2:07 AM

PIZ


Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
You know, the whole idea in Firefly of Earth getting "used up" and people being forced to leave and colonize space is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves first.
I disagree with much of what you wrote. It's not at all inevitable that Earth will get used up. Just one example: there's a lot of new science that strongly suggests that oil is a renewing resource - it's constantly being produced, and in quantities that will always exceed our use of it. The planet is not even beginning to come close to the start of the edge of overpopulation, and the most reliable forecasts suggest a large downward trend in population over the next few centuries. In economics, there's no such thing as a zero- or negative-sum game, unless irrational brakes are put on human achievement and innovation by repressive governments. Without such brakes, wealth is always expanding: in the U.S. at least, even the poorest people today live better than the kings of just a few centuries ago, and there's no justifiable reason why prosperity like that can't spread across the globe if people are just left to, as Mal said in the BDM, "go [[]their[]] way."

As for physical frontiers, there is the ocean, but, again because of governmental restrictions, we are largely prevented from entering that realm. The same is true for vast areas of land that have been declared off-limits to humans - yes, there are still many, many places we could be expanding into on land, but the laws don't allow it.

In space, with ventures like Virgin Galactic, we're finally seeing the birth of private space exploration. The best thing that could possibly happen on that front is for the government to get the hell out of the way and let it happen. The accomplishments would be beyond anyone's present ability to imagine them. Consider the advances in computers and the internet - the government regulated almost none of that, and who just twenty years ago could have guessed the wonders we have now? Leave people free and they accomplish great things.

Finally, there are huge opportunities in what I'll call "intellectual" frontiers. Some of the possibilities of technology have already been mentioned, and there are many, many more. There's also a philosophical revolution that needs to take place, one that puts the freedom of the individual at the center of all moral and political decisions. That's the only way to achieve the kind of freedom for everyone that someone like Mal Reynolds is fighting to achieve for himself. Fortunately, the right philosophy must eventually win out, because only a philosophy based on actual reality can ultimately survive, since reality and not Man always has the final say. How long it will take there's no way to tell, and there will be fits and starts, advances and setbacks, but long, long term there's no other possible outcome. Mal's descendents-in-spirit will have the sky, and no one will even want to take it from them.

--
"That's what government's for: get in a man's way." - Mal

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 5:02 AM

CYBERSNARK


I agree with the nanite; we need to get the hell off this rock, if for no other reason than population (though there are other reasons that are self-evident to anyone paying attention, such as the psychological stagnation of the human race, the impending environmental collapse, and the inevitable [though still far-off] implosion of our planetary economy).

My only real worry is that we may already be too weak and passive for it. There's a huge number of people now who would find it much easier to just lay down and die when the lights go out --who are in fact eager for such a fate (as evidenced by current events in the Middle-East and elsewhere, propelled by people whose hatred outweighs their intellect and/or survival drive).

The inertia that you mentioned may end up being too strong to overcome.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 5:21 AM

MSG


I have a student ( I will call him Alex here, but it's not his name)Alex is such a little mountain man, but he's stuck in the wrong century. He needs the challenges and adventure of a new frontier. He is tough, resourceful, intelligent, and remarkable and mending and building things with minimal number of tools. He, however, is lousy at school. He hates being confined and isn't all that keen on doing the intellectual work. I wish I could send him to explore space. He'd be so great at it. All his skills have geared him toward being an explorer and it just doesn't help him in this world we have....so I hope we get a frontier soon:)

I choose to rise instead of fall- U2

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 8:21 AM

CYBERSNARK


Quote:
Originally posted by msg:
I wish I could send him to explore space.


NASA -- improving the world by sending people far away from it.

(I know that's not how you meant it, I just thought it a funny quote.)

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 8:50 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Piz:
Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
You know, the whole idea in Firefly of Earth getting "used up" and people being forced to leave and colonize space is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves first.
I disagree with much of what you wrote. It's not at all inevitable that Earth will get used up. Just one example: there's a lot of new science that strongly suggests that oil is a renewing resource - it's constantly being produced, and in quantities that will always exceed our use of it. The planet is not even beginning to come close to the start of the edge of overpopulation, and the most reliable forecasts suggest a large downward trend in population over the next few centuries. In economics, there's no such thing as a zero- or negative-sum game, unless irrational brakes are put on human achievement and innovation by repressive governments. Without such brakes, wealth is always expanding: in the U.S. at least, even the poorest people today live better than the kings of just a few centuries ago, and there's no justifiable reason why prosperity like that can't spread across the globe if people are just left to, as Mal said in the BDM, "go [[]their[]] way."

As for physical frontiers, there is the ocean, but, again because of governmental restrictions, we are largely prevented from entering that realm. The same is true for vast areas of land that have been declared off-limits to humans - yes, there are still many, many places we could be expanding into on land, but the laws don't allow it.

In space, with ventures like Virgin Galactic, we're finally seeing the birth of private space exploration. The best thing that could possibly happen on that front is for the government to get the hell out of the way and let it happen. The accomplishments would be beyond anyone's present ability to imagine them. Consider the advances in computers and the internet - the government regulated almost none of that, and who just twenty years ago could have guessed the wonders we have now? Leave people free and they accomplish great things.

Finally, there are huge opportunities in what I'll call "intellectual" frontiers. Some of the possibilities of technology have already been mentioned, and there are many, many more. There's also a philosophical revolution that needs to take place, one that puts the freedom of the individual at the center of all moral and political decisions. That's the only way to achieve the kind of freedom for everyone that someone like Mal Reynolds is fighting to achieve for himself. Fortunately, the right philosophy must eventually win out, because only a philosophy based on actual reality can ultimately survive, since reality and not Man always has the final say. How long it will take there's no way to tell, and there will be fits and starts, advances and setbacks, but long, long term there's no other possible outcome. Mal's descendents-in-spirit will have the sky, and no one will even want to take it from them.

--
"That's what government's for: get in a man's way." - Mal


Yes it is. Inevitable i mean. In what world do you live in where oil is produced faster than we use it? I highly doubt somehow that oil is being produced at the rate of several billion barrels a day. And even if it was, what about the environment? Global warming is going to be a problem, a big one, if we keep using fossil fuels. And look for a second at places like Africa. Let's see, famine, plague, war... hm. Yeah, and why is that? Because there are too many people.

We are pushing the boundaries of Earth. For example, the demand for fish has led to overfishing to the point that fishing is not a profitable industry without government subsidies. Other industries will have such problems too, as the standard of living in the developing world increases, particularly in India and China. If China got to, in 50 years, the US's per capita use of oil and gas and coal, we would basically see gas prices about 3 times higher than we have now. 9 bucks a gallon, if not more. That would basically wreck the global economy. Extinction is occurring a thousand times faster than the normal background rate. Why? Us. We cannot just stay here forever. Even if you say we shouldn't expand, we'll have to use space resources to maintain that steady-state.

And even if you say there is no such thing as a zero sum game, you must admit that the economy is closed, there is only so much wealth to be had. Without infinite resources there is a closed economy. The Solar System has essentially infinite resources. Earth does not. We live in a closed economy.

Thanks cypersnark for backing me up. You too MSG.


"Bootstrap- Making Money in a Closed Economy, Until Something Better Comes Along"-- Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter. I LOVE that book.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 12:20 PM

PIZ


Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
Yes it is. Inevitable i mean.
Sorry, but swallowing the conventional "wisdom" hook, line, and sinker isn't going to make one see clearly. All the information is out there, I leave it to you to look into it as I did. Suffice to say that nearly none of what you posit is accurate.

--
"That's what government's for: get in a man's way." - Mal

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 1:58 PM

CITIZEN


Quote:
Originally posted by Piz:
Just one example: there's a lot of new science that strongly suggests that oil is a renewing resource - it's constantly being produced, and in quantities that will always exceed our use of it.
Actually no there isn't. You are talking about the Abiotic theory of Oil production, which is:
A) not new science by any means
and
B) has little or no credible evidence to back it up.

In fact the oft heralded 'proof' of the Abiotic theory has to do with the oil wells on Eugene Island, which started production at 20,000 barrels a day, dropping to 4000 over it's lifespan. All of a sudden the wells jumped back up to 15,000 barrels again, 'proof' that the well had refilled. Except it wasn't, it was proof that a geological fault had supplied the well with more oil from a deeper reserve.

Oil wells grow all the time, never because the amount of oil in them is increasing, but because rules for reporting capacity stipulate that only AVAILABLE capacity, Oil we can actually get at is to be reported. As more wells are dug to a reserve, and technology for obtaining it are improved the available capacity and thus the reported capacity of the reserve increases, but not the actual capacity. This is why Geologists and even big oil companies don't hold stock in the Abiotic theory of Oil creation.
Quote:
The planet is not even beginning to come close to the start of the edge of overpopulation, and the most reliable forecasts suggest a large downward trend in population over the next few centuries.
All I can say to this is, since when?
Quote:
In economics, there's no such thing as a zero- or negative-sum game, unless irrational brakes are put on human achievement and innovation by repressive governments. Without such brakes, wealth is always expanding: in the U.S. at least, even the poorest people today live better than the kings of just a few centuries ago, and there's no justifiable reason why prosperity like that can't spread across the globe if people are just left to
Economics doesn't look at the real world, it looks at a theoretical model and that's it. Economics doesn't take into account resources running out, it assumes they won't. As the joke goes:
A physicist, a chemist and an economist were stranded on an island. Upon exploring they come across a can of beans washed up on the shore, but they have no can opener.
"We can smash the can open with a rock!" The physicist says.
"No," The chemist retorts "if we leave the can on that rock in the sun the beans will heat up and the pressure will push the lid off."
The economist shakes his head. "Let’s just assume we have a can opener..."

There’s two nonsensical statements here, firstly that wealth is always expanding, and secondly that even the poorest people in the United States are richer than kings of old. Seriously come on now that's just silly, you think Kings lived below the poverty line (as the poorest do in the US) or live in cardboard boxes on the street (as the very poorest do in the US).

Wealth constantly expanding just completely ignores the fact that the wealthiest nations on the planet are wealthy BECAUSE of others being poor. We are wealthy because we have taken the resources and labour of others without paying for it. We couldn't be wealthy without the third world, so wealth simply cannot spread to the entire planet.
Quote:
governmental restrictions
Before we get a hard on for blaming all the worlds woes on government regulation we should probably remember why these regulations were put in place in the first place. They weren't always there you know (you can check, all regulations stipulate the date they came into effect ) so at one point there was little or no regulation of business. Nowhere is this more apparent than in 19th century England, where lead was added to food, varnish was sold as sweets, people died because they were sold miracle cures that killed them and the pollution of the Thames was so bad London air was un-breathable with the stench. Yeah a real paradise that regulation really Fd up.
Quote:
Fortunately, the right philosophy must eventually win out, because only a philosophy based on actual reality can ultimately survive, since reality and not Man always has the final say.
Yes, I believe that is largely the point here. Changing our philosophy before reality steps in and brings us and our current one down.

Back to your stipulation of non finite resources this is something not at all based in reality, unless you have some new theory that disproves the laws of thermodynamics within a closed system?


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 4:45 PM

NANITE1018


Thanks Citizen for backing me up. And actually Piz, the thing about overfishing is real. It cannot be profitable without subsidies.

And the thing about China and India is correct. We use as much energy as China. They have more than 4 times as many people. If they and India came up to American levels, the world usage of energy would double. That would probably all come from oil and coal, so oil prices would at least double, if not triple, or quadruple as the rest of the world comes on-line. We'd have 15 dollar a gallon gas if the whole world used as much as we do per person. And that would totally trash our economy. Not to mention the environment.

What part do you have proof that i am wrong on? Because i would love to see it.

And thanks again Citizen.

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 3:44 AM

NANITE1018


bumpage

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 8:21 AM

ALCON


Hey Nanite, I'm about to disagree with you on a couple of things, but before you jump on me: I agree we should go to space. Agree so much that I'm currently training to become an Aerospace Engineer and make it happen.

However, some of your ideas I've been over and have substantial problems in em:

I'll start with O'Neill Colonies. They have a substantially sized following among space enthusiasts, however they are extremely impractical. Think about it, why in the heck would we move all that material off a planet (which takes a huge amount of energy) when we could just build on the planet itself? The answer is we shouldn't. It'd be cheaper and better to just burrow into the ground and build down there. The moon has just as much access to solar power as an O'Neill colony would and better protection from radiation by burrowing. The only things that would be different would be the gravity (1/6th g's instead of a generated 1 g) and the mobility (but why in the world would you build a drive into an O'Neill colony anyway? If it's any decent size then you won't be able to propell it anywhere at any speed with out using more weight of fuel than the weight of the entire colony with out the drive!) It is far cheaper, more efficient and just better to simply build on the moons and worlds that exist rather than try and build whole new ones.

Even more reason to simply build on the existing worlds: we could start now, we have the technology. The manned Mars mission they are currently considering could be used to start a colony. Here how: When they go to Mars the base they use gets left behind. Its capable of supporting five people for several years. When they go again they bring a new one. Again, it gets left behind. Each time they bring a new one, eventually they'll have a colony capable of supporting hundreds of people.

The plan was written by Robert Zubrin and others (who's a fanatic, don't get me wrong, but his plan is a good one). The one NASA is considering has been rather modified from it, but the basic idea is the same. If you want to know more about it, check out the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Now as to the orbital solar arrays: no go. Beaming the energy down to Earth you would lose all the advantages of gathering it from orbit. Not to mention that lack of need for structural support, launching the arrays into orbit in the first place would be prohibitively expensive. Its not practical and not worth it.

A far better course to travel would be fusion/fission. Fusion is nearing breakeven. The next generation of reactors may pass it. Fission has gotten a whole lot safer (we're talking 100s of times safer) and cleaner since the days of Chernoble (which was a flawed design in the first place anyway) and Three Mile Island (which was more a success story than a failure, the safety mechanisms by and large worked). The radioactive waste we create isn't a whole lot more radioactive than the fuel that went in. The Earth is full of radioactive stuff so really it's not that big a deal. We just need to find a subduction zone (the one in the ocean would work) lower them down (not just dump) and make sure they get sucked back into the Earth. Problem solved. So if we need energy we should go the way of building Fission to replace as much coal as possible now, and work on Fusion. As soon as Fusion is feasable build Fusion reactors.

As to the issue of do we need to go to space? Yes! Of course we do! Even if the Earth wasn't starting to groan under our weight we should go to space. Just becuase there's a whole universe out there waiting for us to explore, how can we not? What are we doing sitting on one little rock when we could be spreading life across the cosmos, learning, building and meeting who knows what beyond our wildest imaginations! Yes there's a big hump to getting off the planet right now, but once we're over that hump, once we get established out there its smooth sailing. We just need to push over it.

I have more to say on the topic, but I'm sleepy right now and starting to not make sense, so I'm gonna stop.

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 8:51 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Alcon:
Hey Nanite, I'm about to disagree with you on a couple of things, but before you jump on me: I agree we should go to space. Agree so much that I'm currently training to become an Aerospace Engineer and make it happen.

However, some of your ideas I've been over and have substantial problems in em:

I'll start with O'Neill Colonies. They have a substantially sized following among space enthusiasts, however they are extremely impractical. Think about it, why in the heck would we move all that material off a planet (which takes a huge amount of energy) when we could just build on the planet itself? The answer is we shouldn't. It'd be cheaper and better to just burrow into the ground and build down there. The moon has just as much access to solar power as an O'Neill colony would and better protection from radiation by burrowing. The only things that would be different would be the gravity (1/6th g's instead of a generated 1 g) and the mobility (but why in the world would you build a drive into an O'Neill colony anyway? If it's any decent size then you won't be able to propell it anywhere at any speed with out using more weight of fuel than the weight of the entire colony with out the drive!) It is far cheaper, more efficient and just better to simply build on the moons and worlds that exist rather than try and build whole new ones.

Even more reason to simply build on the existing worlds: we could start now, we have the technology. The manned Mars mission they are currently considering could be used to start a colony. Here how: When they go to Mars the base they use gets left behind. Its capable of supporting five people for several years. When they go again they bring a new one. Again, it gets left behind. Each time they bring a new one, eventually they'll have a colony capable of supporting hundreds of people.

The plan was written by Robert Zubrin and others (who's a fanatic, don't get me wrong, but his plan is a good one). The one NASA is considering has been rather modified from it, but the basic idea is the same. If you want to know more about it, check out the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Now as to the orbital solar arrays: no go. Beaming the energy down to Earth you would lose all the advantages of gathering it from orbit. Not to mention that lack of need for structural support, launching the arrays into orbit in the first place would be prohibitively expensive. Its not practical and not worth it.

A far better course to travel would be fusion/fission. Fusion is nearing breakeven. The next generation of reactors may pass it. Fission has gotten a whole lot safer (we're talking 100s of times safer) and cleaner since the days of Chernoble (which was a flawed design in the first place anyway) and Three Mile Island (which was more a success story than a failure, the safety mechanisms by and large worked). The radioactive waste we create isn't a whole lot more radioactive than the fuel that went in. The Earth is full of radioactive stuff so really it's not that big a deal. We just need to find a subduction zone (the one in the ocean would work) lower them down (not just dump) and make sure they get sucked back into the Earth. Problem solved. So if we need energy we should go the way of building Fission to replace as much coal as possible now, and work on Fusion. As soon as Fusion is feasable build Fusion reactors.

As to the issue of do we need to go to space? Yes! Of course we do! Even if the Earth wasn't starting to groan under our weight we should go to space. Just becuase there's a whole universe out there waiting for us to explore, how can we not? What are we doing sitting on one little rock when we could be spreading life across the cosmos, learning, building and meeting who knows what beyond our wildest imaginations! Yes there's a big hump to getting off the planet right now, but once we're over that hump, once we get established out there its smooth sailing. We just need to push over it.

I have more to say on the topic, but I'm sleepy right now and starting to not make sense, so I'm gonna stop.


I'll go one at a time:

O'Neill Colonies: The whole point of O'Neill colonies is that they would create 1 g gravity! Also, living in zero-g screws up people's biology and so trying to colonize the asteroids would be practically impossible if the people would ever want to go to a planet or a moon ever again, without O'Neill colonies of course. Plus, O'Neill colonies are remarkably efficient. They are, in fact, millions of times more efficient than planets because they don't have all that wasted stuff to create gravity. And you would never take it off a planet, well maybe, for the first couple, but actually they would probably be built using lunar material (if we had to) or asteroidal material (preferable to all other sources). And the later ones would all be made (most likely) from asteroidal material, which is of far more use to people in O'Neill colonies with 1g gravity than in asteroids with .01 or .001g gravity. So it'd be far better to use O'Neill colonies using asteroidal material to colonize the solar system. You can fit more people more comfortably that way. Of course you wouldn't tear apart something like Mars or Venus or Earth or Mercury or something. But the smaller moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune may prove useful in a pinch for building O'Neill colonies. And then there is the Main Belt and the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, all of which would essentially be useless for centuries if not thousands of years without the use of O'Neill type colonies.

I know all about Zubrin's plan. And i love it. I think it is a great idea, and i think Mars is an important place, somewhere we DO need to colonize and explore. But it isn't going to be big enough for very long. Of course we should go and explore and colonize, i just don't think it is the frontier that really matters to humanity in the long term, except as being the first step. The asteroids are our true home, more efficient and whatnot than planets. Who knows? Maybe aliens are so disinterested in planets they simply ignore them and stay on the borders of star systems, out in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. But i do love Mars, and think manned Mars missions are going to be vital in overcoming the general intertia toward space travel and colonization we have today.

And as to power: i agree that fusion will most likely be most important in our long-term futures, and i do support nuclear power. But there is something to be said for SPS systems. For places without much infrastructure, they'd be better than solar arrays because they'd be cheaper and smaller while supplying the same amount of power (i'm referring to rectennas). Plus, fusion will take a while to start up. And for near-Earth space and closer to the Sun, solar is pretty good. Plus, it doesn't cost anything, so space manufacturing will probably run on solar energy in near-Earth space. Which it will most likely for a while. In reality, SPS systems would only be a bootstrap. A band-aid to ease investors worries and give them tangible and quick returns on some of their investment. The really big industries will be asteroid mining, space manufacturing (although that'll be relatively small in comparison to the others, at least for Earth revenue), and He-3 mining from the Moon and later Saturn and the other gas giants.

Thanks for your input, and i greatly appreciate your support on this issue. We may disagree on method, but we have the same objective: to get off this rock!


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Thursday, July 20, 2006 8:58 AM

NANITE1018


What time zone are you in by the way? Because your sleepy at 2:30 in the afternoon (my time).

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 1:05 PM

NANITE1018


more bumpage!

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 1:37 PM

KANEMAN


I have also heard that when they stop pumping oil from a well and go back at a later date its full again...As we all know now "fossil fuel" is an out dated word. Oil doesn't come from dead dinosaurs and trees. Bury a cat in your back yard...keep looking no oil!...I believe oil is constantly created in the inner earth. A byproduct of plate tectonics? Has anyone else heard this...Don't recall where I heard this...Kind of made sense to me. We have been told for years that we will be on the decline of the oil production curve...But that keeps getting revised..."By the year "blank" we will be out of natural gas"...Then it gets changed?

I love what you guys think about space exploration...Is it possible? Plausible?...What would we eat?..Don't we need sunlight for vitamin A or D production...or something like that?...

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 1:53 PM

CITIZEN


Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
I have also heard that when they stop pumping oil from a well and go back at a later date its full again...
This hasn't actually happened, I defy you to bring up an account. As I said this is largely from the Eugene Island wells, which are, I might add, now on a steady decline.
Quote:
As we all know now "fossil fuel" is an out dated word. Oil doesn't come from dead dinosaurs and trees. Bury a cat in your back yard...keep looking no oil!...
Coal actually has the leaf patterns of fossillised plants, Oil is the byproduct of millions of years of pressure and geologic processes on dead animal matter, largely crusteaceans and the like. Of course burying a cat for a few months in the back yard isn't going to produce oil, it won't produce a fossile either, is that proof that fossilised Dinosaur bones don't exist? No pressure, no eons of geologic processes acting on the fossiles, no oil.
Quote:
I believe oil is constantly created in the inner earth. A byproduct of plate tectonics? Has anyone else heard this...Don't recall where I heard this...Kind of made sense to me.
This is the Abiotic theory, but what has never been explained is how this works, how plate tectonics or any geologic process produces oil from thin air (or rock as the case maybe). Your very much right, it is not a Science, it is a belief, just like creationism and it requires ignoring scientific evidence and faith.
Quote:
We have been told for years that we will be on the decline of the oil production curve...But that keeps getting revised..."By the year "blank" we will be out of natural gas"...Then it gets changed?
Except of course we are seeing exactly what is expected. In the US alone Oil production peaked around the 1970's and is gradually falling off, in a way very consistent with the bell curve. Big oil spent $8bn US looking for Oil in 2003 and found $4bn US worth of Oil, clear signs that Oil is getting rarer and thus harder to find.


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Thursday, July 20, 2006 3:12 PM

NANITE1018


Thanks Citizen. And to Kaneman:

Well, we'd grow food. Pretty simple, huh? All the necessities of life can be found in the asteroids, therefore all we need is to mine and asteroids and we have everything we need to live in space for basically forever. So we grow our food using sunlight (pretty simple close to the sun, not too difficult using parabolic mirrors farther away from the sun. if necessary we could simply manufacture food. Then we could eat molded protein like on Firefly!). And our habitats would most likely have sunlight reflected in through mirrors to produce a standard day/night cycle like on Earth. And of course that would take care of the vitamin D problem. And farther away we could either use parabolic mirrors for that purpose or if not, then we might produce our own light.

There aren't any insormountable obstacles. It'll take a lot of effort to get off world, but once we're out there it's pretty much smooth sailing.

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 4:24 PM

KANEMAN


Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
I have also heard that when they stop pumping oil from a well and go back at a later date its full again...
This hasn't actually happened, I defy you to bring up an account. As I said this is largely from the Eugene Island wells, which are, I might add, now on a steady decline.
Quote:
As we all know now "fossil fuel" is an out dated word. Oil doesn't come from dead dinosaurs and trees. Bury a cat in your back yard...keep looking no oil!...
Coal actually has the leaf patterns of fossillised plants, Oil is the byproduct of millions of years of pressure and geologic processes on dead animal matter, largely crusteaceans and the like. Of course burying a cat for a few months in the back yard isn't going to produce oil, it won't produce a fossile either, is that proof that fossilised Dinosaur bones don't exist? No pressure, no eons of geologic processes acting on the fossiles, no oil.
Quote:
I believe oil is constantly created in the inner earth. A byproduct of plate tectonics? Has anyone else heard this...Don't recall where I heard this...Kind of made sense to me.
This is the Abiotic theory, but what has never been explained is how this works, how plate tectonics or any geologic process produces oil from thin air (or rock as the case maybe). Your very much right, it is not a Science, it is a belief, just like creationism and it requires ignoring scientific evidence and faith.
Quote:
We have been told for years that we will be on the decline of the oil production curve...But that keeps getting revised..."By the year "blank" we will be out of natural gas"...Then it gets changed?
Except of course we are seeing exactly what is expected. In the US alone Oil production peaked around the 1970's and is gradually falling off, in a way very consistent with the bell curve. Big oil spent $8bn US looking for Oil in 2003 and found $4bn US worth of Oil, clear signs that Oil is getting rarer and thus harder to find.


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.


Just went online. From what I'm reading about this debate..Is that the abiotic view is backed by 50 years of scientific data...The renewable fossil fuel opinion is based on no data period..Called an "eighteenth century relic" that we in the west have grasped onto. There seems to be no debate in the eyes of the Scientific community only for journalists, tree huggers, and alarmists. The scientific community has known oil is produced deep in the earth out of crystalline basement rock....They have found and have been pumping it for years we just never hear about it. All data used to support a "Peak oil" argument goes on the assumption oil is made from decaying organisms close to the earth's surface. And I repeat there is no Scientific evidence to back it up.zero..Fossil fuels is a theory. It appears an out dated one at best.

As for US oil peaking in the 70s...There hasn't been a refinery built here since when...You guessed it the 70s. coincidence? If you can't drill and can't refine = decline in production.

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 4:56 PM

ROCKETJOCK


Quote:
Originally posted by Alcon:--

Three Mile Island (which was more a success story than a failure, the safety mechanisms by and large worked).


THANK YOU! I was beginning to wonder if anyone else out there got this fact.

In terms of proportionate damage to the environment, if the Exxon Valdez had been the S.S. Three Mile Island, the oil spill would have consisted of a crewman accidentally dropping a quart of WD-40 over the side.

Quote:
The radioactive waste we create isn't a whole lot more radioactive than the fuel that went in. The Earth is full of radioactive stuff so really it's not that big a deal.


And again, common sense, such a breath of fresh air. I'm in favor of nuclear power because every form of power production produces some kind of poison -- I'd rather have that poison in a concentrated form that can be safely buried than in the form of chemical pollution that enters the biosphere in megaton lots.

(And yes, I include solar power too--nearly every case of skin cancer on Earth has overexposure to solar energy as a cause, and solar power cells contain chemical poisons that can leech into the environment. And since wind farming is dependent on solar warming of the atmosphere, it's not exempt.)

"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn

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Friday, July 21, 2006 5:20 AM

NANITE1018


bump

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Friday, July 21, 2006 5:42 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Just went online. From what I'm reading about this debate..Is that the abiotic view is backed by 50 years of scientific data...The renewable fossil fuel opinion is based on no data period..Called an "eighteenth century relic" that we in the west have grasped onto. There seems to be no debate in the eyes of the Scientific community only for journalists, tree huggers, and alarmists. The scientific community has known oil is produced deep in the earth out of crystalline basement rock....They have found and have been pumping it for years we just never hear about it. All data used to support a "Peak oil" argument goes on the assumption oil is made from decaying organisms close to the earth's surface. And I repeat there is no Scientific evidence to back it up.zero..Fossil fuels is a theory. It appears an out dated one at best.

As for US oil peaking in the 70s...There hasn't been a refinery built here since when...You guessed it the 70s. coincidence? If you can't drill and can't refine = decline in production.
Your going to have to back this up. Firstly both the common view and the Abiotic theory (which no, isn't scientifically backed at all) both came from the 19th centuries. Abiotic lost out because there is evidence to the contrary, some still hold to it because they can't wake up to the reality, no resource is infinite, no resource.

As I said I defy you to bring up one account of an Oil well refilling, or any of this scientific evidence for the Abiotic theory. The Abiotic theory IS not backed by 50 years of scientific evidence; it's backed by 50 years of heresy and coincidence.

As for the refinery thing, think about it, who's going to build a refinery to refine oil which isn't there? You're confusing cause with effect.

All the Abiotic theory is, is a rehashing of the cornucopia.


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Friday, July 21, 2006 7:13 AM

RABBIT2


The biggest hurdle to overcome before space colonisation becomes a reality is the fact that, to date nobody has managed to build a life support system that is totally closed.
Yes, we can keep people alive in orbit almost indefinately provided we keep resupplying them with food and air but that method is only workable as far as the moon.
Mars is a LONG way from Earth if something critical (like a `catalyser`} breaks down or you find that you`ve introduced something in to the colony ecosystem thats going out of control.

--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?

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Friday, July 21, 2006 10:25 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Rabbit2:
The biggest hurdle to overcome before space colonisation becomes a reality is the fact that, to date nobody has managed to build a life support system that is totally closed.
Yes, we can keep people alive in orbit almost indefinately provided we keep resupplying them with food and air but that method is only workable as far as the moon.
Mars is a LONG way from Earth if something critical (like a `catalyser`} breaks down or you find that you`ve introduced something in to the colony ecosystem thats going out of control.

--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?


Well that is true. Mostly because we haven't A) tried hard enough and B) built large enough stations. You see we humans have only built 3 space stations. All were rather small. But if you built dozens, and built huge ones, ones where you could use biological processes to regulate the environment (such as plants in the largest, other times you may use bioengineered algae and such). Then you'd get very efficient life support systems. And of course, once we get a really large number of people up there (probably no more than 100000 would be necessary), we'd be able to import materials from the Moon or the asteroids. And that would ease some of the problems. The import levels probably wouldn't be very large, maybe a few thousand tons a year for the biggest colonies. And as the year's pass we'll get better and better. Look at it this way: Earth does it. So we know it is possible. All we have to do is design the right system.

Granted, we've tried it with Biosphere 2 and whatnot. But those weren't very large. And technology is getting far better. Plus, their approach was kind of retarded. Mini-ecosystems? Come on. Doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you use bioengineered algae to weed out the pollutants (we've got bacteria and algae that can eat pretty much any pollutant, even toxic waste and oil!) in the water, and use algae or photosynthetic bacteria to produce oxygen and scrub CO2 from the air? We can do far better than they did. We only need a little bit of practice (probably not much at all).

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Friday, July 21, 2006 11:13 AM

CITIZEN


Well a technological approach is only absolutly necessary on a station or ship (then perhaps not even then). A planet would have enough space for a more natural eco-system, air recycling via plant matter for instance.

Re-breathers are improving, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that this sort of technology will improve to the point it'll completely reverse the CO2 put into the air by respiration. This is technically possible by seperating the carbon from the oxygen atoms in the CO2.

We already have the technologies for water reclimation, the major hurdle would be reclaiming the water in all the ways we shed it, sweat waste breathing and so on. It shouldn't be too hard, I'd of thought a dehumidifier would be able to take out all the water evaporated into the air, and we can already reclaim water from waste.


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No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Friday, July 21, 2006 2:48 PM

NANITE1018


There aren't any major problems with the development of perfect/near-perfect life support systems. there aren't any major problems in fact with colonizing space, except the will to do so. I really can't see how Browncoats wouldn't want an expansion into space. Kind of seems strange to me. It would ensure the survival of humanity for pretty much eternity. And it would provide humanity with a new stage to play out the human story. That's what Firefly is all about insidently, the human story, played in the background of a humanity that has spread out into space.

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Friday, July 21, 2006 3:26 PM

CITIZEN


Well we seem to have some hardcore capitalist purists around these parts, people who believe nothing is worth doing unless it makes money. While colonisation of space costs money and merely ensures the survival of the species it's just not worth doing.

In the short term there's no profit in the continued survival of our species, and in the long term the money's already been made, so who cares .

I'd remind people that before they talk about private space exploration those private companies are not interested in space exploration but exploitation. At the moment that means satellites and trips into low Earth orbit. If NASA or another space agency put colonies on the Moon, Mars or developed technologies to exploit extra terrestrial resources private companies would exploit them, perhaps even make them profitable, but they WILL not come up with them.

There's no money in exploration unless you find something, then the money is in what ever you find, not the exploration itself. Space exploration is also on the grand scheme fairly low return on your investment, far better to let someone else (like NASA) to do the actual exploring, then step in and make all the money from whatever has been found. This is how it is, has been and always will be done.


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
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Saturday, July 22, 2006 12:17 AM

RABBIT2


Quote:
Granted, we've tried it with Biosphere 2 and whatnot. But those weren't very large. And technology is getting far better. Plus, their approach was kind of retarded. Mini-ecosystems? Come on. Doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you use bioengineered algae to weed out the pollutants (we've got bacteria and algae that can eat pretty much any pollutant, even toxic waste and oil!) in the water, and use algae or photosynthetic bacteria to produce oxygen and scrub CO2 from the air? We can do far better than they did. We only need a little bit of practice (probably not much at all).

Actually,Biosphere 2 was a good experiment that taught us some of the things NOT to do when setting up a life support system, it was`nt quite the failure the media tended to lable it as.
You `re right about using bioengineered algae and bacteria but you are also going to need controls on them otherwise (to use Biosphere 2 as an example) you end up with your colonists spending all their time scraping algae off the windows to allow their food plants to get enough sunlight.
Yes we need practice with this, preferably someplace where you dont get killed if something goes wrong.





--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 3:46 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Well we seem to have some hardcore capitalist purists around these parts, people who believe nothing is worth doing unless it makes money. While colonisation of space costs money and merely ensures the survival of the species it's just not worth doing.

In the short term there's no profit in the continued survival of our species, and in the long term the money's already been made, so who cares .

I'd remind people that before they talk about private space exploration those private companies are not interested in space exploration but exploitation. At the moment that means satellites and trips into low Earth orbit. If NASA or another space agency put colonies on the Moon, Mars or developed technologies to exploit extra terrestrial resources private companies would exploit them, perhaps even make them profitable, but they WILL not come up with them.

There's no money in exploration unless you find something, then the money is in what ever you find, not the exploration itself. Space exploration is also on the grand scheme fairly low return on your investment, far better to let someone else (like NASA) to do the actual exploring, then step in and make all the money from whatever has been found. This is how it is, has been and always will be done.


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No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.


Well there is already evidence of enormous profit to be had from asteroids. And the only easy way to mine asteroids and then use their materials in a useful way is with space stations and space manufacturing. And of course, O'Neill Colonies would be able to process enormous quantities of material in rather short order into complex finished products, saving billions if not trillions in launch costs. So there's lots of money to be had, it's just people think it is a little too risky or too complicated or whatever to try.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 3:49 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Rabbit2:
Quote:
Granted, we've tried it with Biosphere 2 and whatnot. But those weren't very large. And technology is getting far better. Plus, their approach was kind of retarded. Mini-ecosystems? Come on. Doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you use bioengineered algae to weed out the pollutants (we've got bacteria and algae that can eat pretty much any pollutant, even toxic waste and oil!) in the water, and use algae or photosynthetic bacteria to produce oxygen and scrub CO2 from the air? We can do far better than they did. We only need a little bit of practice (probably not much at all).

Actually,Biosphere 2 was a good experiment that taught us some of the things NOT to do when setting up a life support system, it was`nt quite the failure the media tended to lable it as.
You `re right about using bioengineered algae and bacteria but you are also going to need controls on them otherwise (to use Biosphere 2 as an example) you end up with your colonists spending all their time scraping algae off the windows to allow their food plants to get enough sunlight.
Yes we need practice with this, preferably someplace where you dont get killed if something goes wrong.





--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?


That is true. But of course, they used open "mini-climates" and whatnot. I'm talking about machines (if it's a small scale) that contain bacteria and algae in a contained environment that would scrub the atmosphere and process pollutants and whatnot.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 3:59 AM

REAVERINA1985RIVIERA


Quote:
Originally posted by Rabbit2:

Yes we need practice with this, preferably someplace where you dont get killed if something goes wrong.



Like in a big glass building near Tucson AZ.

---------------------------------------------
How many Jaynes does it take to change a light bulb?

Two. One to try to put it in and another to find a bigger hammer.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 4:16 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
Well there is already evidence of enormous profit to be had from asteroids.
And who found that out? NASA?

Who will create the technology to exploit it? NASA, ESA or similar organisations.

Then the corporations will step in, exploit it and moan about unfair government regulation making it harder for THEM to explore...

Corporate Capitalism won't save space exploration, it'll stagnate it.


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Saturday, July 22, 2006 4:33 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
Well there is already evidence of enormous profit to be had from asteroids.
And who found that out? NASA?

Who will create the technology to exploit it? NASA, ESA or similar organisations.

Then the corporations will step in, exploit it and moan about unfair government regulation making it harder for THEM to explore...

Corporate Capitalism won't save space exploration, it'll stagnate it.


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
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Not necessarily. Yes, NASA found it out. But if someone (anyone) with a little ambition and who also was the head of an aerospace company (dumb-ass Beoing or Lockheed-Martin) would try, they could do it. And even if not (unfortunately), what's it matter? I mean, if i had money i'd do it. All of those stupid people like Jeff Bezos, they're billionaires and yet they don't see anything in building a mining facility on an NEO or launching a private mission to Mars (which might only cost like 10 billion dollars, well within the range of many large companies today). How is it that no one who actually has any real dreams is in charge of a company? Does that seem right to you?

I mean, even if you did it and it cost 50 billion dollars like it would if NASA did it, so what? Cisco (not an aerospace company) has over 100 billion bucks sitting there doing nothing.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 4:36 AM

NANITE1018


Okay my last post was all freaky, sorry!

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 5:22 AM

CITIZEN


My image in the sig messes with quote tags just put a space between them.

My point is not that Private Corporations can't do it; it's that they won't because space exploration is not a good return on investment. Exploiting what you've found is profitable, but only if you've not spent huge amounts of money on exploration.

It's nothing to do with having no one of vision at the head of corporations; it's to do with what kind of person can reach that level. People who reach that level are people who make profit; dreams don't make profit, exploiting other peoples dreams once they've shown themselves to be profitable do.

Hardcore capitalists say NASA (and others) should stand aside and let the 'Corporations do what they do best'. That would be exploiting and making what NASA is doing right now profitable, NOT expanding our influence or knowledge (at least not until space travel is easy and cheap). Right now all you can expect of private corporations is space tourism and satellites in orbit. Except of course they can already get satellites in orbit cheaply enough through NASA and ESA.

At the moment all private companies can give us are trips into orbit.

Governments explore, Companies exploit. For all the blather of the free market capitalists they need the more socialist idea of NASA to get anything out of space exploration. It's one of those ironies, both socialists and capitalists thinks their way is best and the other leads to stagnation and Oligarchy, the irony is they both do without aspects of the other to prevent it...


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 11:21 AM

NANITE1018


Have you ever read Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter? It is a hard SF novel about a man, Reid Malenfant, who is the head of a massive corporate empire based on the environment. They outgas methane to provide energy, supplying 10% of the world's supply. They clean up rivers, lakes, and streams from pollutants. That kind of thing. Malenfant is a billionaire, who was origanally an astronaut. He washed-out (he had cancer, which at the time of the story is a manageable disease, but not when he washed out). So he founded Bootstrap, Inc.; his companies motto is: Making Money in a Closed Economy, Until Something Better Comes Along. And originally, Malenfant is all over the papers and tv pushing for space exploration and such. And then he attracts a bunch of cooks. Not good for business. So he disappeared from TV, but slowly built his buisness empire. Skip forward: The year is 2010, and Reid Malenfant is the owner of Bootstrap, Inc. Out in the desert, near Edwards Air Force Base, he has built an experimental facility that uses Shuttle technology (which has been scrapped after the discovery of a possible cluster of deformed babies caused by harmful pollutants from rockets in the Cape, which half of doctors don't even think exists.). It is meant to be a massive incinerator, capable of processing a tens of times more material per second than any other incinerator in the world, for less money than any other incinerator in the world. The idea is to clean up rivers, lakes, streams, and all sorts of toxic waste using said system. Well, so he says. As it turns out, it is in fact a cover-up for something much larger scale, a mission to mine an asteroid (or NEO). The news breaks and suddenly it's everywhere. There is all sorts of problems due to the the cover-up, and all sorts of legal issues involving the actual launch. Well, they eventually try to shut him down, and right before they can, he launches. And so off goes his probe to begin the mining project. Well, that causes more problems.

Anyway, why can't THAT ever happen? I mean, sure, people have to make profit, but why can't the people at the top want to make profit as a means to an end? And that end be a dream of theirs, the colonization of space, the ensuring of the continuation of the species.

And as to your thing about how companies WON'T go exploring. I don't think so. I mean, companies have researchers who do things like pure research, mostly because they know that that kind of thing normally ends up turning something up that is profitable, even if it wasn't meant to. and cheap launch systems and such, cheap space travel, long-term life-support, and all of that should make it relatively easy for companies to send out scouting parties and research teams. Part would be to scout for actual profit-generating things (which would be the main justification), and scientists would doubtless spend a portion of their time doing pure research, if only because it didn't cost much more for them to do so, and the company doesn't care as long as they get their primary objective done.

Of course, the first interstellar probes and the like will most likely be from NASA or some similar agency. But i think a lot of information about the planets and the Solar System and universe will come from companies doing research for practical aims, and adding for a small price some pure research on, if only to keep their scientists happy.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 11:44 AM

SIRIUS


My opinion is that NASA and other space agencies really need to start playing with that idea. Move the outdated and crumbling space station to a fixed position on the moon. And from there launch to Mars (so far). Or even send a probe to Mars with say some seeds, water, etc. Needed for plant life. Monitor it and see if it grows. If it takes off, then there is then a potential for the beginning of an atmosphere. It will take some time to establish and atmosphere, and I dont know what Mars atmosphere consists of now but plants need nitrogen and carbon dioxide to grow thus expelling oxygen through photosynthesis.

Also the current space ships are outdated and are falling apart. The need for a new space ship is needed. Also, there needs to be some sort of boost to the energy system to make space travel faster. It already takes a probe some years to get to its mission and having a person on board would take even longer due to the resources to sustain that person(s).

This is just what im thinking and im sure im totally wrong on some aspects.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006 12:01 PM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Sirius:
My opinion is that NASA and other space agencies really need to start playing with that idea. Move the outdated and crumbling space station to a fixed position on the moon. And from there launch to Mars (so far). Or even send a probe to Mars with say some seeds, water, etc. Needed for plant life. Monitor it and see if it grows. If it takes off, then there is then a potential for the beginning of an atmosphere. It will take some time to establish and atmosphere, and I dont know what Mars atmosphere consists of now but plants need nitrogen and carbon dioxide to grow thus expelling oxygen through photosynthesis.

Also the current space ships are outdated and are falling apart. The need for a new space ship is needed. Also, there needs to be some sort of boost to the energy system to make space travel faster. It already takes a probe some years to get to its mission and having a person on board would take even longer due to the resources to sustain that person(s).

This is just what im thinking and im sure im totally wrong on some aspects.


Well kind of. Not totally wrong. Yes there definitely needs to be a new space vehicle. But moving the space station to the Moon wouldn't be wise, it'd fall apart most likely. And as to launching Mars missions, definitely. As to launching seeds and stuff, probably not. As i've pointed out, a planetary surface isn't exactly the most efficient way of living. But even beyond that, it'd take some work before Earth life could live there, at least most of it. But that wouldn't be TOO awefully difficult. I just don't see it as worth all that effort to get a planet that you could live on to support a couple billion people when you could do way more with the same amount of resources spent on mining asteroids and such. But we should definitely send manned missions to Mars and build some bases there. Maybe some small colonies too. Give people the option of going if they want, but also give them the option of going to live in a far more comfortable O'Neill Colony.

As to the "power boost" thing. Yeah, we need better propulsion systems. Ion drives are good, except they are pretty weak. An experimental system called VASIMR is meant to have the ability to be rather inefficient and high thrust or super-efficient and low-thrust, which could really improve trip times. Propulsion systems using things like Nuclear Thermal Propulsion would be beneficial to an extent. Then of course there's Orion, which is kick-ass if you want massive payloads and don't much care about fallout from nuclear detonations. Which we do. Over interplanetary space it might not be so bad. Particularly if you used fusion pellets triggered by lasers rather than atom bombs. And then there's solar sails which are nice because they don't require fuel, and would be relatively easy to make with space manufacturing (if you had a large base for the manufacturing), and magnetic sails which are easier but not as great as solar sails.

So yeah, we've got lots of stuff in the works, theories, drawings, design studies and such. And then of course you also have good 'ol antimatter-matter reactions, which would be wonderful, if you had a cheap and easy way to mass-produce antimatter (which probably wouldn't be a good idea at this time). But, yeah. We've got ideas coming out the pigu.

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Sunday, July 23, 2006 5:22 AM

NANITE1018


bump!

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Sunday, July 23, 2006 10:23 AM

NANITE1018


more bumps!

This thread is getting the chicken pox.

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Sunday, July 23, 2006 1:14 PM

CITIZEN


I'll be back with my reply soon enough, just got a lot on, if I'm not back soon, PM because if probably forgotten...


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Monday, July 24, 2006 6:46 AM

RABBIT2


from Nanite1018
Quote:
Anyway, why can't THAT ever happen?


We need a Reid Malenfant or Delos D Harriman, someone with both the vision and the resorces available to drive something like that forwards. In the real world people like that are rather thin on the ground.
We do however, have Richard Branson and Burt Rutan. Both men have achieved a great deal in their respective fields and now that they`re working together well... maybe, just maybe.




--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?

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Monday, July 24, 2006 11:45 AM

NANITE1018


Maybe Rutan and Branson will do something. But they don't seem as ambitious as i'd like. They only have real plans up to orbit. And even the orbital part is pretty shaky. Only if the suborbital flights prove profitable. Hey, maybe though. You never know.

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006 5:06 AM

NANITE1018


Bump! Where is that Alcon guy? He seemed to have more stuff to say, and now he has simply disappeared.

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006 8:14 PM

RABBIT2


Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
Maybe Rutan and Branson will do something. But they don't seem as ambitious as i'd like. They only have real plans up to orbit. And even the orbital part is pretty shaky. Only if the suborbital flights prove profitable. Hey, maybe though. You never know.


At the moment though, they seem to be in the best position to do something. Most of the other private groups seem to be big on ambition but severely lacking in funds.
Once they get the suborbital passenger flights going and if it turns out profitable then we might see more companies trying to break in to the market and willing to fund other projects.
I`ve lost any confidence in the big national space agencies to deliver on the manned spaceflight front. They are all largely dependant on funding from politicians who always have their own agenda so things always end up takeing longer and costing more.
It might be a good idea to have another X prize, this time for the first privately owned spacecraft to orbit the earth. Or even have a series of prizes that set out a number of goals to aim for.

--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006 5:51 AM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Rabbit2:
Quote:
Originally posted by nanite1018:
Maybe Rutan and Branson will do something. But they don't seem as ambitious as i'd like. They only have real plans up to orbit. And even the orbital part is pretty shaky. Only if the suborbital flights prove profitable. Hey, maybe though. You never know.


At the moment though, they seem to be in the best position to do something. Most of the other private groups seem to be big on ambition but severely lacking in funds.
Once they get the suborbital passenger flights going and if it turns out profitable then we might see more companies trying to break in to the market and willing to fund other projects.
I`ve lost any confidence in the big national space agencies to deliver on the manned spaceflight front. They are all largely dependant on funding from politicians who always have their own agenda so things always end up takeing longer and costing more.
It might be a good idea to have another X prize, this time for the first privately owned spacecraft to orbit the earth. Or even have a series of prizes that set out a number of goals to aim for.

--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?


Actually Newt Gingrich and Robert Zubrin came up with a contest worth 30 billion dollars overall to be given to the first company that accomplishes certain goals related to Mars. The last is worth 20 billion and it would be a manned landing on Mars with at least 3 or 4 people and staying there for at least 6 months (i think, maybe it was a year). The idea was that the big guys might go for the big one right of the bat while smaller enterprises might start with others. One of them is the development of a heavy lift booster and such. It's a good idea, and i think it could be extended toward everything we need to do to really get a foothold in space until it will simply expand by itself. Also, the great thing about a contest is that you don't have to spend anything unless someone wins.

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006 6:25 AM

RABBIT2


Its the small groups that need the encouragement most since that`s where most of the new ideas and innovation usually comes from. The bigger companies and other orginisations have to much interest in the status quo.
Setting up some smaller prizes with more easily achivable targets might help here and, who knows perhaps lead to Mars long before NASA is likely to try.


--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006 7:02 PM

NANITE1018


Quote:
Originally posted by Rabbit2:
Its the small groups that need the encouragement most since that`s where most of the new ideas and innovation usually comes from. The bigger companies and other orginisations have to much interest in the status quo.
Setting up some smaller prizes with more easily achivable targets might help here and, who knows perhaps lead to Mars long before NASA is likely to try.


--------------------------------------------------

Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?


I think it is a good method to generate interest. Especially since the prizes are designed so that they should make a profit for the company that wins each prize.

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