I was in conversation with someone and the High Frontier came up and
they pooh-poohed it and pointed me to the *definitive debunking*
written by Steven Den Beste. This I had to read, so I went to the URL
and low and behold I come across a strawman stuffed to the limit with
all sorts of assumptions - I immediately thought that Den Beste must
be an alias for Bob Zubrin :)
or "spot the loaded assumption" and compile a comprehensive list of
what's wrong (or right) about the essay.
http://denbeste.nu/entries/00001113.shtml
TangoMan
having read this article - found that there is a definite planet
bias in it - what is an economy - just a way to have some make more
money than others - in a space society there should be enough
resources to allow all to have basic needs met - ( home, food,
clothing, etc.). In reference to age, on the planet people retire
(basically mandatory ) to allow the younger generations to have
work. there is no reason to do so in space where there may not be
enough people - get older and take over other jobs that do not
require large physical inputs ( many professionals who have such
jobs work well after 65 - doctors, botanists, people who just love
what they are doing). Another assumption is that there is only one
colony - with multiple colonies you can have some migration of
people and their skills so the assumption that you have to be
pigeonholed rings false.
On earth many isolated communities survive quite well without
massive inputs (most inputs are not needs but wants anyways)
and as for infrastructure you are starting with a plan - you can
build the capability of infrastucture ahead of time ( no need to dig
up main street for that subway) so that rings ignorant -
how is that for a start?
Well, let's see:
accept, is that we go from ISS and MIR and Skylab to a mutimegaton
mass habitat of a hundred thousand people in one step. No. Get rid
of that assuption and much of the insurmountable problems turn out to
be quite surmountable after all.
Yes, as has been pointed out, there is also the unstated assumption
that there is one and only one habitat. Ever. "A self-sustaining
high-tech society might require 10 million people, or even more." So
what if it does? Just build more habitats until you have ten million
people, or even more. And of course this also solves that pesky
little "unregulated breeding can't be permitted" problem, too.
Designed communities have been done before, and the fact that nations
such as Australia, the United States, and Canada even exist if proof
that they can work.
Every argument this guy makes could have been applied to Jamestown,
IF we assumed that only the one town would ever be built, and IF we
insisted that the town be a city of a hundred thousand from the
beginning, and IF we assumed the other things which are assumed here.
From: ssi_list@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ssi_list@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Frank
excerpt:
"The L5 society originally suggested mining it on the moon and
shooting it towards Lagrange Point 5 with mass accelerators on
the
surface of the moon. To mine and refine millions of tons of mass
on
the moon would itself require a substantial moon colony. But
that
whole concept ignores one basic problem: how do you stop those
capsules when they reach the L5 point? Momentum is always
conserved;
you've got to get rid of it some way. For each ton moved to
stable
orbit, you're going to require a lot of fuel for rocket engines
to
slow the stuff down"
You know, there sure is a lot of misunderstanding on this point. When I
wrote my Space Settlement FAQ, I made and put up in front of me a sign
that said, "K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Stupid". So when it came time to
talk about where the lunar ore flying out the mass-driver goes, I just
said, "...to a point in space where it can be easily retrieved". One
can get into a multi-page discussion of Lagrange point stabilities and
achromatic trajectories. But after seeing so many people either make
the above mistake, or mistakenly assume that the mass-driver launches
its payloads into low lunar orbit, I finally decided to compromise a
little, and at least add the parenthetical "(Earth-moon L-2)".
I agree that decelerating masses mined on the moon will need a
lot of
energy. But building a habitat has not to depend on masses mined
on
the Moon. Masses mined on asteroids will not carry this heavy
gravitation well ballast.
There's no need for us to agree with Den Beste's above comment because
it's factually wrong. There's also no need for us to give up on the
moon for this reason. The originally lunar proposal was just fine; Den
Beste's argument derives from a fundamental misunderstanding of the
proposal on his part.
Ideally the habitat would be built near the asteroid which
delivers
the most material.
This would be a fine strategy if the only goal were to build a home in
space, and do it as cheaply as possible. But in all likelihood, for the
first generation of space habitats the goal will be to provide housing
for space workers who are serving an existing market. And at the start
of the process, the only market in existence is Earth. I still expect
that the first habitat will be built in High Earth Orbit in order to be
close by to the market being served. That said, in the long term, I
fully expect the vast majority of space habitats will be built as you
describe: close by to an asteroid with a wide variety of raw materials.
Regards,
Mike Combs
In India when building houses you will frequently find a worker throwing
bricks to another person at a higher level. When the brick reaches the hands
of the worker at the higher level it has almost zero velocity. It should be
possible to launch the raw material from the Moon at just the right
velocity.
From: "Combs, Mike"
To: ; "Space Settlers maillist (Space Settlers
maillist)"
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 8:48 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] RE: [ssi_list] Steven Den Beste Strawman
From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of sraj
> throwing bricks to another person at a higher level. When the
> brick reaches the hands of the worker at the higher level it
> has almost zero velocity. It should be possible to launch the
> raw material from the Moon at just the right velocity.
That's pretty much the idea. A payload's journey from the end of the
mass driver to the L-2 point constitutes a long climb up the gravity
well of the moon. The payload's velocity declines from a km/sec regime
to a km/hour one.
And even then, the constant impact of incoming payloads will most
certainly /not/ require a continuous countering thrust from the RCS, as
some seem to think. The vector of the impulse will be along one of the
two stable axes of the L-2 point. The impulses will push the catcher a
certain distance away from L-2, but will not make it leave. When the
impulses cease, the catcher will "spring back" to the L-2 point.
Regards,
Mike Combs