--- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, "Combs, Mike"

>> Not only could we not keep up with the population increase I don't
>>
>>know that you could get that many volunteers
>
> Given the ideal living conditions and climates made to order that
one could have in
> orbital settlements, I think
> finding volunteers might not be that hard. Of course it's true
that (I think) less than 1% of
> the population of
> Europe decided that immigrating to the New World was the thing to
do, and similar
> percentages will probably
> hold in the future.

Hello Mike, opps, sorry, excuse me, --- *ACCENT ON* --- G'day mate,
;-)

Ah, I'm sorry, please forgive me, it's an Aussie joke sort of but it
helps to introduce my first point. You would be surprised how many
people think we really speak like that, and to tell the truth at times
as few of us do, though when most people (I mean from overseas, not
counting the kiwi's, they don't count as from overseas, at lest from
here) hear me speak, they usually ask what part of England I'm from.
Like most popular myths or stereotypes, it exists only peoples
imagination's. Mind you there is a grain of truth in most popular
myths. A lot of people have these strange beliefs about Australia (a
few of them amaze me) and some of our native wildlife, there is the
idea that swimming at an Australian beach is a constant battle with
sharks, everything that moves is venomous and that you will see
kangaroos bounding down the streets as soon as you step off the plane.
I'll grant you that we have a lot of sharks but the ones in the
rivers (rare, snakes are more common and I'm not joking about that)
and the harbours and bays (several kinds, most very small - less than
2 metres and some without teeth, well they have teeth but not like
normal sharks teeth) are pretty harmless and the even the dangerous
ones in the ocean don't normally bother people (true we have had 3
fatal attacks this year but they are the first in years, we've only
had something like sixty or seventy since colonisation, 200 years, I'm
pretty sure about the numbers but going from memory I'll stand
corrected if anybody has other numbers). We do have a lot of venomous
spiders and snakes but few problems with them, if you leave them
alone, most of them will leave you alone. As for the kangaroos, the
only place in Sydney you'll see them is in a zoo, finding one
wandering the streets of the main cities is so rare as to be a news
item, *except* here in Canberra. Our capital is not very large, just
300,000 people and spread out over a large area with lots of bushland
between suburbs, giving the fauna plenty of green corridors to move
around in. With nobody to shoot at them (discharging a firearm in a
city is frowned on and will earn you a stay as a guest of her majesty
at the Iron Bar Inn) they are very common and have little fear, damn
things are also a traffic hazard, I see them dead on the roadside
everyday. So in fact in Canberra you can get off a plane and see a
kangaroo running down a street (although I will grant you it isn't
likely, the airport has a big fence).

All of this is a round about way of pointing out the problem of urban
myths and wishful thinking and how most people who think about any
type of space habitat have this kind of utopian dream of a large full
fledged O'Neil colony that is open to public immigration, that is even
less likely than getting off the plane in Sydney and being greeted by
that kangaroo, it's possible but don't hold your breath.

The amount of effort and expense of building a habitat is huge and
without an overwhelming reason to build it will not be done on a large
scale first up. A far more probable scenario is a small basic station
that like Mir will start as new and will soon become small, cramped,
dirty and less than comfortable. This may then be expanded to become
a larger and more comfortable place where people will want to live and
not just work. This station will either be government (most likely
military) or belong to a single company (or a consortium). The
advantages of a station in orbit from a military point of view is
incredible, of course there are treaties to control this but.. Even
if you don't arm them an orbital station can do a lot of things and it
would be very hard to convince everybody that it wasn't armed. In
fact that may even be a problem that a habitat may have to overcome.
You build a large O'Neil colony and start to send power back to Earth
in the form of beamed microwaves and are feeding industry with cheap
nickel and platinum group metals as well as high tech trade goods.
Down below you have green groups (not the ones who can do maths, the
others who think electricity is the work of the devil) raising hell
because you are cooking birds in the path of the beam and everybody on
the ground under it (yes, I know that is not the way it works) and are
killing the Earth by pumping in all that energy into the biosphere and
melting the ice caps. Then the others worrying about those large
masses falling out of the sky everyday, to that you add the
governments who object to having you looking down on them. Now just
about everybody with an education will understand that those
objections are fit only for landfill but you can be sure that somebody
will make them and then somebody else has to refute them and then
somebody else will make them again and so it goes around. Some of the
people will believe the crazy claims, giving rise to the urban myths
leading to death by a thousand cuts.

On a positive track the first generation of space habitat we should
give way to larger and more civilian habitats were the people living
there are not all employed by one company/government who built the
habitat with an economy directed entirely to one end and you start to
have an internal economy with secondary and support industries but
really the main hurdle is the cost which has got to come down a long
way before large scale civilian immigration happens, this will come
with scale but that takes time. Now unless somebody comes up with a
new kind of way to orbit (that is a very cheap way) then I feel we are
stuck with this as much as I dislike the added wait.

I don't know that the ideal weather and idyllic living conditions in
the, hmmm..let's see, I guess about third generation habitat (the
kind that O'Neil envisioned) would be enough of a draw for the average
man on the street, for you (I feel safe in that statement) and most
definitely me (I *know* about that one) it would be enough (hell, I'd
go to the first generation, even with the noise, smells, cramped
spaces and other discomforts) but consider the down side for most
people; first it would be the equivalent of moving to a new country,
then there is the problem/costs of visiting the family and friends
back home (unless that cheap transport or some other kind of virtual
visit comes about), the long list of strange laws and new customs you
will have to learn (living in a small, closed environment you need to
take special care of your waste, how you water the garden, making sure
the doors are closed and keeping track of the other special living
conditions) some of which may on the surface seem pointless and
arbitrary (but in fact would be there to stop really serious problems,
consider for example a person with a desire to die and take as many
others to god with them) and there are others but they can all be
summed up by saying you may need better bait than just a comfortable
house and rain by timetable. The other side of this coin is that a
desire to live in orbit would most likely not be the only
qualification to live there it would be too expensive to take just
anybody, also you have to make sure those who do go are going to want
to stay and will fit in. You are right about the conditions though,
life in a habitat has the potential to be the best possible. If it's
designed right it would look like you were living in the kind of
pruned, trimmed, neat, polished, planned, perfect forest/Garden of
Eden/tropical island/rural countryside/rustic village or what ever
else takes your fancy that has never existed in reality. The real
beauty is that all of these are possible, one habitat could be 18th
century France and the next polished steel and glass 28th century,
open parkland or tropical rainforest with as many kinds of lifestyle.
Of course this would all be surface and under the skin I think the
realities of keeping what is in fact a very complex machine running
would force a strong similarity. Habitats as fashion?? Interesting
idea.

>> or that shipping excess people is the way to control population
>> increase. Aside
>> from the right or wrong of transhipping population you don't cure a
>> disease by treating the symptoms, you need to get at the cause.
>>
> Very true. In this case, the root cause is actually poverty. As
you say, if we can help the 3rd world
> to raise their standard of living, population growth will slow.

This brings up an interesting paradox. You really need two things to
have a space habitat, the technology to build it and the money to
afford it. Part of the world can afford it and part can not, do we
spend the money to build what many will say is a rich mans amusement
or do we spend the money helping those who couldn't afford to build or
go to a habitat? Building a habitat will, repeat WILL be attacked as
a waste of money that should be spent feeding the poor but I really
believe that we would be making an investment that would allow us to
not only feed but raise to equality those poor. If a habitat didn't
return the investment in it 100 times within a single life time I
would be stunned, in fact stunned is not a strong enough word, a
habitat or better yet many habitats should have the potential to make
the world wealthy, that is not to say everybody would be equally
wealthy but that's how the world is.

>> But I don't agree that we don't
>> currently have *any* frontiers but this would be a
>> wonderful addition
>> to the ones we have and open to more people and
>> certainly the best.
>>
> I meant "frontier" only in it's most literal sense, i.e. a
> new place where people can go to live and raise families.

Yes, I knew that;-)but still we do have a few real frontiers here but
I can only think of two and they are kind of limited. Real frontiers
are important but not as important as the less tangible type and while
we have more of them, this one is so much bigger with so many
possibilities, in fact in one sense, this frontier has all the others
as just small parts of it.

Darren Brown

From: Darren Brown [mailto:Darren.Brown@...]

All of this is a round about way of pointing out the problem of urban
myths and wishful thinking and how most people who think about any
type of space habitat have this kind of utopian dream of a large full
fledged O'Neil colony that is open to public immigration, that is even
less likely than getting off the plane in Sydney and being greeted by
that kangaroo, it's possible but don't hold your breath.

Well, I didn't intend to imply that it would happen anytime soon. Only that
I think it will happen in the long run.

The amount of effort and expense of building a habitat is huge and
without an overwhelming reason to build it will not be done on a large
scale first up. A far more probable scenario is a small basic station
that like Mir will start as new and will soon become small, cramped,
dirty and less than comfortable. This may then be expanded to become
a larger and more comfortable place where people will want to live and
not just work.

Another scenario where permanent space settlements come about more by
evolution than revolution is one where space tourism turns out to be a more
viable business plan than SPS.

On a positive track the first generation of space habitat we should
give way to larger and more civilian habitats were the people living
there are not all employed by one company/government who built the
habitat with an economy directed entirely to one end and you start to
have an internal economy with secondary and support industries but
really the main hurdle is the cost which has got to come down a long
way before large scale civilian immigration happens, this will come
with scale but that takes time. Now unless somebody comes up with a
new kind of way to orbit (that is a very cheap way) then I feel we are
stuck with this as much as I dislike the added wait.

I'd agree with this. The "company habitat" built to support a single
industry may be needed to get the effort started, but the broader economy is
needed to make this thrust a sustainable one.

I don't know that the ideal weather and idyllic living conditions in
the, hmmm.....let's see, I guess about third generation habitat (the
kind that O'Neil envisioned) would be enough of a draw for the average
man on the street,

I only know that some of the most expensive real estate in the world is in
regions where the climate is considered ideal. Would ideal climate all by
itself be enough to convince someone to immigrate to space? Probably not,
if that wasn't already their orientation. But I think it would be an item
on the list of enticements.

then there is the problem/costs of visiting the family and friends
back home (unless that cheap transport or some other kind of virtual
visit comes about),

True, but I would say that here the costs and difficulties of visiting
friends on Earth would be much less than for settlers on Mars, and there's a
large number of people who anticipate mass settlement of Mars despite this.

and there are others but they can all be
summed up by saying you may need better bait than just a comfortable
house and rain by timetable.

I'd agree that the living conditions all by themselves would not be
sufficient reason for immigration. The folk who immigrate will do so
because they are driven to the frontier by something which fires their
blood. But the living conditions will be pretty nice icing on a preexisting
cake composed of the desire to be on the edge of the frontier.

This brings up an interesting paradox. You really need two things to
have a space habitat, the technology to build it and the money to
afford it. Part of the world can afford it and part can not, do we
spend the money to build what many will say is a rich mans amusement
or do we spend the money helping those who couldn't afford to build or
go to a habitat? Building a habitat will, repeat WILL be attacked as
a waste of money that should be spent feeding the poor but I really
believe that we would be making an investment that would allow us to
not only feed but raise to equality those poor.

You might be interested in reading this:
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/wannabe.htm

Regards,

Mike Combs

From:
Darren Brown [mailto:Darren.Brown@...]

All of this is a round about way of pointing out the problem of urban
myths and wishful thinking and how most people who think about any
type of space habitat have this kind of utopian dream of a large full
fledged O'Neil colony that is open to public immigration, that is even
less likely than getting off the plane in Sydney and being greeted by
that kangaroo, it's possible but don't hold your breath.

Well, I didn't intend to imply that it would happen anytime soon. Only that I think it will happen in the long run.

The amount of effort and expense of building a habitat is huge and
without an overwhelming reason to build it will not be done on a large
scale first up. A far more probable scenario is a small basic station
that like Mir will start as new and will soon become small, cramped,
dirty and less than comfortable. This may then be expanded to become
a larger and more comfortable place where people will want to live and
not just work.

Another scenario where permanent space settlements come about more by evolution than revolution is one where space tourism turns out to be a more viable business plan than SPS.

On a positive track the first generation of space habitat we should
give way to larger and more civilian habitats were the people living
there are not all employed by one company/government who built the
habitat with an economy directed entirely to one end and you start to
have an internal economy with secondary and support industries but
really the main hurdle is the cost which has got to come down a long
way before large scale civilian immigration happens, this will come
with scale but that takes time. Now unless somebody comes up with a
new kind of way to orbit (that is a very cheap way) then I feel we are
stuck with this as much as I dislike the added wait.

I'd agree with this. The "company habitat" built to support a single industry may be needed to get the effort started, but the broader economy is needed to make this thrust a sustainable one.

I don't know that the ideal weather and idyllic living conditions in
the, hmmm.....let's see, I guess about third generation habitat (the
kind that O'Neil envisioned) would be enough of a draw for the average
man on the street,

I only know that some of the most expensive real estate in the world is in regions where the climate is considered ideal. Would ideal climate all by itself be enough to convince someone to immigrate to space? Probably not, if that wasn't already their orientation. But I think it would be an item on the list of enticements.

then there is the problem/costs of visiting the family and friends
back home (unless that cheap transport or some other kind of virtual
visit comes about),

True, but I would say that here the costs and difficulties of visiting friends on Earth would be much less than for settlers on Mars, and there's a large number of people who anticipate mass settlement of Mars despite this.

and there are others but they can all be
summed up by saying you may need better bait than just a comfortable
house and rain by timetable.

I'd agree that the living conditions all by themselves would not be sufficient reason for immigration. The folk who immigrate will do so because they are driven to the frontier by something which fires their blood. But the living conditions will be pretty nice icing on a preexisting cake composed of the desire to be on the edge of the frontier.

This brings up an interesting paradox. You really need two things to
have a space habitat, the technology to build it and the money to
afford it. Part of the world can afford it and part can not, do we
spend the money to build what many will say is a rich mans amusement
or do we spend the money helping those who couldn't afford to build or
go to a habitat? Building a habitat will, repeat WILL be attacked as
a waste of money that should be spent feeding the poor but I really
believe that we would be making an investment that would allow us to
not only feed but raise to equality those poor.

You might be interested in reading this:
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/wannabe.htm

Regards,
Mike Combs

--- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, "Combs, Mike"
> From: Darren Brown [mailto:Darren.Brown@a...]

Greetings Mike, people I know are getting the messages and any lurkers
out there,

Sorry about the delay in responding but things are really busy here,
I'm in the middle of move at work and I'm doing landscaping at home,
all this leaves me with no time.

Right, to start;

Prior Message;
DB
All of this is a round about way of pointing out the problem of urban
myths and wishful thinking and how most people who think about any
type of space habitat have this kind of utopian dream of a large full
fledged O'Neil colony that is open to public immigration, that is even
less likely than getting off the plane in Sydney and being greeted by
that kangaroo, it's possible but don't hold your breath.

MC
Well, I didn't intend to imply that it would happen anytime soon.
Only that I think it will happen in the long run.

Mike I hope you didn't take my comments as criticism of your views,
they were not meant as such. In fact I must assume that the contents
of your web sites reflects your thinking to a large extent and I hold
your site as one of the nets rare gems. I know you didn't mean things
were going to happen instantly, what I was pointing to is the problems
faced by anybody involved in discussing/planning/building or living in
a space habitat and how a lot (but not all) of them refuse to accept
that maybe, just maybe things aren't going to be the same as the
picture they have in their heads. I would like to expand on that and
give you a hypothetical but first I'll respond to your other comments.
By the way, I agree with you, I also think it will happen and it will
be in the long run.

DB
.will start as new and will soon become small, cramped, dirty and
less than comfortable. This may then be expanded to become a larger
and more comfortable place where people will want to live and not
just work.

MC
Another scenario where permanent space settlements come about more by
evolution than revolution is one where space tourism turns out to be a
more viable business plan than SPS.

Yes, this spreads the cost and allows time for people to learn what
they need in a habitat. As for tourism, this may be the largest plum
on the tree, just add up what people spend on recreation. Australia
has a history of being a resource economy, we either grew it or dug it
out of the ground to sell to somebody else. Tourism is now our
fastest growing sector and has become a key economic basic, in some
parts of the country it is almost the only significant industry. In a
way it is a natural industry for us, 19 million people with an almost
near continent almost as large as the USA, with every kind of climate
(in fact you could ski the snow fields on Monday and skin dive a
tropical coral reef on Tuesday) and geology, from mountain top to dry
salt lake (granted our mountains aren't all that high but they do for
most people). You can enjoy what ever kind of holiday you want from
backpacking in camping grounds and youth hostels (we get a lot of
backpackers) to 5 star resorts on a tropical island and high tech
amusement parks to eco-tourism and cave diving in the middle of an
arid plain that is one of the driest places on Earth or if you like
the quirky how about a black tie dinner and opera, open air in the
middle of a few thousand miles of desert or a yacht race that's
guaranteed to not have any water (no, I'm not making that up, we have
a race called the Henley on Todd which is run on the Todd river at
Alice Springs -check a map, it's in the middle - at the time of year
the race is held the Todd river has no water, they carry the boats).
Tourism could well be the way to pay for our first steps to life in
space, a number of companies (well known hotel chains included) have
expressed an interest in orbital hotels. From there you could branch
out to a manufacturing base and then to other things. America
followed this gradual path with explorers blazing a path and others
coming alone after. While this sounds like a template for space the
two are a little different. Back when America was being opened up
anybody who wanted to could just pick up sticks and pick a direction
and, this is the important part, to a large extent they could live off
the land. In space you are always going to find you need contact with
a support base of some kind. Australia had a different history, we
started as a government funded project (a prison and dumping ground
for disruptive persons, which goes a long way towards explaining us)
which started to attract people to fill in the gaps the government
didn't bother with. Even a prison needs supporting infrastructure and
the people who supply that have needs that requires more people to
supply who have needs that requires more people and round and round
we go. What a viable space habitat really needs is a growing internal
economy.

DB
On a positive track the first generation of space habitat we should
give way to larger and more civilian habitats were the people living
there are not all employed by one company/government who built the
habitat with an economy directed entirely to one end.

MC
I'd agree with this. The "company habitat" built to support a single
industry may be needed to get the effort started, but the broader
economy is needed to make this thrust a sustainable one.

See my last point.

DB
I don't know that the ideal weather and idyllic living conditions in
the, hmmm&..let's see, I guess about third generation habitat (the
kind that O'Neil envisioned) would be enough of a draw for the average
man on the street,

MC
I only know that some of the most expensive real estate in the world
is in regions where the climate is considered ideal. Would ideal
climate all by itself be enough to convince someone to immigrate to
space? Probably not, if that wasn't already their orientation. But I
think it would be an item on the list of enticements.

Okay, here I have to disagree. The worlds most expensive real estate
is in and around the worlds business and political districts, New
York, London, Tokyo. Maybe being an Australian my concept of ideal is
odd but I don't think the climate in any of them is ideal. The tall
building in most CBD's are not there for the view, you only build up
when it is cheaper than out. People pay big money for a desirable
place to work and then they pay big money for a place to stop working,
the CBD or the retirement/vacation town. When I lived in Sydney I
lived in a suburb in the outer west, a long way from where I worked in
the CBD, with an equally long commute, the two reasons for this were
cost, something affordable but large enough for a growing family and
being near my wife's workplace and my family. The closer to the CBD
the more expensive and the smaller the house with the cost reaching
crazy levels in the city, the most expensive real estate being the
most desirable work places. On the other side of the work divide is
the small sea side village where my in-laws live. It is far enough
from Sydney to be a very inconvenient commute, so no city workers but
it is attractive enough and close to Sydney to bring in huge numbers
of tourists/ vacationers during the season to make the housing costs
equal to the Sydney CBD. The big money is where you work and where
you play. Now having said that I will give concede your point that an
ideal climate would be an enticement but would add it would be an
enticement to live there and also to play there.

DB
then there is the problem/costs of visiting the family and friends
back home (unless that cheap transport or some other kind of virtual
visit comes about),

MC
True, but I would say that here the costs and difficulties of visiting
friends on Earth would be much less than for settlers on Mars, and
there's a large number of people who anticipate mass settlement of
Mars despite this.

I couldn't agree more. Of course people would soon make new friends
and eventually the family would be on the habitat anyway, this is
really no different to the situation 100 years ago and both your
country and mine managed to get a population, the question is why? My
view, because what they were coming to was better than what they had
and my case some of them had no choice. ;-)

DB
and there are others but they can all be summed up by saying you may
need better bait than just a comfortable house and rain by timetable.

MC
I'd agree that the living conditions all by themselves would not be
sufficient reason for immigration. The folk who immigrate will do so
because they are driven to the frontier by something which fires their
blood. But the living conditions will be pretty nice icing on a
preexisting cake composed of the desire to be on the edge of the
frontier.

Hell yes. If you are going to be a pioneer it's better to be one with
a comfortable wagon and hot water.

DB
This brings up an interesting paradox. You really need two things to
have a space habitat, the technology to build it and the money to
afford it. Part of the world can afford it and part can not, do we
spend the money to build what many will say is a rich mans amusement
or do we spend the money helping those who couldn't afford to build or
go to a habitat? Building a habitat will, repeat WILL be attacked as
a waste of money that should be spent feeding the poor but I really
believe that we would be making an investment that would allow us to
not only feed but raise to equality those poor.

MC
You might be interested in reading this:
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/wannabe.htm

I said your site was a rare gem, I've seen this and in fact in an
earlier post sent the link to Lucio. I read that and it bought a
smile to my lips, I haven't often seen anything that was so right and
at the same time so wrong. This is very much the point I was making
(albeit in a very different way) in my last post to you. One of the
problems we face (we being anybody with a desire to see the human race
spread though space) is that a lot of people have the delusions that
"GroundHog", from your "wannabe" link, refers to. A lot of people who
would be colonists really do think that a habitat would be just like
"Star Trek" or "Babylon 5" or some kind of idyllic high tech nirvana,
it will not be anything of the sort. At first life in space is going
to be very uncomfortable but the people who go there will be the ones
who have spent their life fighting to be there. Then things will get
bigger and better and we will see more people who will need more than
that burning passion to go. Think about what I said about Australia's
immigration problems in the 1940-50's, eventually you will find that
most of your first picks don't want to leave home and you will have to
take people from the second tier. Now don't get me wrong, by second
tier, I don't mean a particular ethnic group or anything like that.
At first you will have the very best, the people in the astronaut
program, the cream of the crop and even then not all of them, you can
afford to be picky. But the time will come when you have to lower
your standards and before somebody is offended I mean lower them so
that people like me can get in, people who aren't perfect physical
specimens and don't have two PhD's or some hyper-specialised skill.
Okay, what I'm about to say is bound to upset some people but not
being politically correct or polite doesn't mean it isn't true. Space
based life is going to past though certain stages, first only the best
of the elite will go, then it will open up for a wider selection of
people but the ones who a picked first will be the ones with needed
technical skills and then they will want people with fewer technical
skills but with other resources to offer (businessmen with money, for
one) and then they will need people to do the things that are less
attractive, I don't just mean menial jobs but things that those with
money won't want to do and those with needed skills are too valuable
to waste on. This is were it will be harder to fill the places. At
first maybe not but after awhile it will and then those people who
"GroundHog" talked about will be first in line. I don't say that this
is right or just but it is what happens. I have met people who have
just moved to Australia from places that are very poor or in a war or
something, who were highly skilled, well educated people where they
came from but are doing things they are wasted on but that was the
only to get here.

Okay, I've expanded on my last post so here is the hypothetical and
please give it some thought because while I don't expect it to happen
it is one possibility.

Somebody, a rich company (one of the larger multinationals), discover
a new type of very cheap way to orbit, controlled wormhole or
antigravity or reactionless space drive or a Star Trek transporters or
magic if you like, no on second thoughts the transporter fits better
and it brings the cost down to a few dollars a tonne (sorry Australia
is metric, one tonne is 1,000 Kg or 1.1 tons or 2,204.62 pounds) to
get to geostationary orbit or anywhere. They use it to cut hollows
into a large iron asteroid and start to build themselves a big
rotating habitat (they know what kind of money you could make with one
when you also have a very cheap way to orbit). Now this is cheap
enough to allow you to move all your heavy industry into orbit and
even ferry the workforce up and down each day if you wanted to or for
you to bring in any kind of resource/raw material from up there to
down here. So what you have is somebody with cheap, ready access to
space, a place to live in and a place to work, the question is;

What do you think would be the consequences of this?

How would the larger, more powerful countries react?

How about some of the environmental groups, especially the fringe/all
technology is evil ones?

What about the church groups, particularly the fundamentalist sects?

Finally how would all the above change if after moving into their nice
new habitat, they declare themselves an independent nation?

Hope to hear from you soon,
Darren Brown

From: Darren Brown [mailto:darren@...]

Mike I hope you didn't take my comments as criticism of your views,
they were not meant as such. In fact I must assume that the contents
of your web sites reflects your thinking to a large extent and I hold
your site as one of the nets rare gems.

Thanks for the kind words.

Okay, here I have to disagree. The worlds most expensive real estate
is in and around the worlds business and political districts, New
York, London, Tokyo. Maybe being an Australian my concept of ideal is
odd but I don't think the climate in any of them is ideal.

You're right of course. I was thinking more about places like Southern
California and Hawaii, but you're right, business is probably the greater
factor. I think this works rather well as an argument for orbital habitats
vs. settlements on the surface of Mars. First, we must acknowledge that any
kind of real estate beyond the Earth is going to be expensive to produce,
when one must provide large pressurized environments, set up a new ecology,
build up infrastructure from scratch, etc. So obviously the only ET real
estate which is going to be built is that which can command a price which
will make the investment worthwhile. Given that the most expensive real
estate is where business is, this makes me even more skeptical that much
Martian real estate will ever be developed, since Mars advocates seem unable
to propose any kind of market for Mars, and just insist they can get by
without one. I think a much better case can be made for markets in cislunar
space, and thus have higher confidence that we will build the pricey kinds
of real estate which must be assumed.

You also mentioned play in addition to work. There may be some small amount
of Mars tourism, but given the investment of time involved, I expect tourist
destinations 1 to 3 days travel time away from Earth to have much broader
markets.

What do you think would be the consequences of this?

The most profound "big picture" consequence would be that the ecological
range of the human race would have just expanded in a very open-ended way.

How about some of the environmental groups, especially the fringe/all
technology is evil ones?

The more rational ones should welcome any development which steers us toward
less reliance on the Earth for resources. But the less rational ones you're
referring to here would object from the simple argument that we don't have a
right to any resources at all, nor a right to do anything which a horse
doesn't do. I guess my only hope here is that they don't get veto power,
and that we can just leave without them.

What about the church groups, particularly the fundamentalist sects?

It's an interesting question. What if, instead of living in a land which we
are told God made, we are instead living in a land which we undeniably built
with our own two hands?

Finally how would all the above change if after moving into their nice
new habitat, they declare themselves an independent nation?

That's certainly something which folks coming from the historical traditions
you and I do would tend to hope for. It's also the reason why I think it's
futile to expect any government to fund space settlement. Anyone able to
see the handwriting on the wall is going to know that this is going to
inevitably result in the creation of new nations, ones too far away to
control.

Rgds,
Mike Combs

From:
Darren Brown [mailto:darren@...]
Mike I hope you didn't take my comments as criticism of your views,
they were not meant as such. In fact I must assume that the contents
of your web sites reflects your thinking to a large extent and I hold
your site as one of the nets rare gems.

Thanks for the kind words.

Okay, here I have to disagree. The worlds most expensive real estate
is in and around the worlds business and political districts, New
York, London, Tokyo. Maybe being an Australian my concept of ideal is
odd but I don't think the climate in any of them is ideal.

You're right of course. I was thinking more about places like Southern California and Hawaii, but you're right, business is probably the greater factor. I think this works rather well as an argument for orbital habitats vs. settlements on the surface of Mars. First, we must acknowledge that
any
kind of real estate beyond the Earth is going to be expensive to produce, when one must provide large pressurized environments, set up a new ecology, build up infrastructure from scratch, etc. So obviously the only ET real estate which is going to be built is that which can command a price which will make the investment worthwhile. Given that the most expensive real estate is where business is, this makes me even more skeptical that much Martian real estate will ever be developed, since Mars advocates seem unable to propose any kind of market for Mars, and just insist they can get by without one. I think a much better case can be made for markets in cislunar space, and thus have higher confidence that we will build the pricey kinds of real estate which must be assumed.

You also mentioned play in addition to work. There may be some small amount of Mars tourism, but given the investment of time involved, I expect tourist destinations 1 to 3 days travel time away from Earth to have much broader markets.

What do you think would be the consequences of this?

The most profound "big picture" consequence would be that the ecological range of the human race would have just expanded in a very open-ended way.

How about some of the environmental groups, especially the fringe/all
technology is evil ones?

The more rational ones should welcome any development which steers us toward less reliance on the Earth for resources. But the less rational ones you're referring to here would object from the simple argument that we don't have a right to any resources at all, nor a right to do anything which a horse doesn't do. I guess my only hope here is that they don't get veto power, and that we can just leave without them.

What about the church groups, particularly the fundamentalist sects?
It's an interesting question. What if, instead of living in a land which we are told God made, we are instead living in a land which we undeniably built with our own two hands?

Finally how would all the above change if after moving into their nice
new habitat, they declare themselves an independent nation?

That's certainly something which folks coming from the historical traditions you and I do would tend to hope for. It's also the reason why I think it's futile to expect any government to fund space settlement. Anyone able to see the handwriting on the wall is going to know that this is going to inevitably result in the creation of new nations, ones too far away to control.

Rgds,
Mike Combs