Space could provide many people with jobs.

There will be 400 million unemployed labor's world-wide in the next
decade.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1133000/1133980.stm

Space could provide a lot of jobs for people in mining, building, and
and transportation.

--
- Annapolis Linux Users group http://www.linuxlovers.dhs.org
- _o
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There will always be unemployment, but space can reduce the amount of
unemployment and also overcome the limits to growth (which is the whole idea of
it anyway), but it would also allow for more spending to make sure that those
who are unemployed don't have to live in poverty (this all assumes that money
will still exist, for all we know there may be no need for it, particluary when
nanotech is figured out, but we will have to wait to find out).

--- Theodore Knab wrote:

Hi Theodore,

Thats a super point you just made - and what it does is give us another
first class argument to help persuade the governments and industrialists
of our planet to invest more in space. Back when Nixon cancelled the
Apollo Program in the States I understand he got around 300,000 top
scientists and engineers sacked as a result, but they all got other
jobs, however those who'd had all these other jobs then had to get other
jobs etc., all down the line. In addition, many small businesses went
out of business, those the employed guys had been spending their money
in before they became unemployed, and this spread across the US. They
reckon the end result as the chain spread downwards was that something
like 3,000,000 roadsweepers and suchlike ended up unemployed in the U.S.
In this way top space projects employ around 10 times as many people
indirectly than directly.

If we can find space jobs around the Solar System for a 100 million,
that'll be a billion, not a hundred million jobs in the long run. At the
recent BROHP Conference in Charterhouse I ended my talk by telling young
folk not to try to become astronauts if they want to get paid to go to
space. "Become the best wine waiter on this planet and you'll have a
good chance." was my last sentence. Space tourism will take up a lot of
that slack, but not enough. You are very right! We need lots more space
projects to solve terrestrial unemployment problems.

Best wishes, Andy.

Theodore Knab wrote:

> Space could provide many people with jobs.
>
> There will be 400 million unemployed labor's world-wide in the next
> decade.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1133000/1133980.stm
>
> Space could provide a lot of jobs for people in mining, building, and
> and transportation.
>
> --
> - Annapolis Linux Users group http://www.linuxlovers.dhs.org
> - _o
> --- _ \<,_
> --- (_)/ (_)
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
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Ryan Healey wrote:
>
> > There will be 400 million unemployed labor's world-wide in the next
> > decade.
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1133000/1133980.stm
> >

These sorts of projections are always a function of the assumptions.
The assumptions are a function of the (sometimes unconscious) biases of
the people writing the report. Thus, I usually ignore projections.

A more interesting figure is the current number of unemployed. This can
be a real number based primarily on data, although the way you do the
counting matters a lot. According to the same article, the number of
currently unemployed is about 160 million, out of a total world
population of 6 billion. If you assume half the people are of working
age (which this article does), then the world unemployment rate is 5%,
which sounds pretty low to me. Later in the article it says there are 1
billion un- or underemployed people suggesting that underemployment is a
greater problem than unemployment. However, the definition of
underemployment is pretty slippery so the details of how they count
matters a lot to the interpretation.

> > Space could provide a lot of jobs for people in mining, building, and
> > and transportation.
>

--
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an
accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020
goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need
to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid
are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500
times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space
colonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their
colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.