In order to make significant progress in a brief period of time we need
cooperative action between the various space oriented websites and
individuals. We also need to recruits individuals outside of the space
oriented groups to provide research, funding, publicity, etc.
Reduced Launch Costs
Increased Solar Cell Efficiency
Improved Mass Driver/Railgun Technology
Improved Energy Transmission/Conversion/Storage technology
Improved Device Energy Usage Efficiency
Teleoperation
Improved Materials properties
Space based mining and manufacturing
Secondly, we must identify non space groups that would also benefit from
improvements in the above technologies
Satellite Companies
Environmentalists
Energy Utilities - especially those where energy is expensive
Energy Consumers
Both lists above can probably be greatly expanded.
Then we must convince each group that it is in their best interest to
cooperate.
IE both the mars and moon societies would benefit.
Then analyze the resources available that can be acquired and committed from
each group towards each project. Resources include financial, engineering
talent, political and media contacts, etc.
For the first step, I would like to set up a separate list, and invite a
representative from each significant group (the assorted mars, moon, etc.
societies...) to join.
I have some ideas that could rapidly increase the rate at which engineering
challenges can be overcome. I also have some ideas for acquiring
significant amounts of funding.
If you think this would be a good idea, I'll set up a mailing list on a
friends server, and we can begin posting potential groups to invite.
Tom M.
TomM@...
I like Tom's idea of cooperation among all of the "space development" groups
which are willing to do that. I teach a university course, The Colonization
of Space, nearly every term, so it is part of my job to keep track of what
is going on in this field, and I can tell you that it is hard with their
being so many organizations. I know about the usual industrial practice of
not wanting to make available to others the ideas which it is hoped will
make your company rich, so I know not every organization will be able to
cooperate. But it might help many find us and so promote our ideas if there
were a place in cyber space where these ideas are merged. I also wrote
earlier about Las Vegas, and wonder how a real shop in the Star Trek
resort-hotel, and maybe other places also, would go over. One could sell a
lot of standard museum type merchandise, society memberships, as well as
copies of O'Neill's and Zubrin's books, etc. Of course ultimately these
space advocacy groups will want a physical presence in the Moon-Base and
Mars-Base (or what-ever) resort-hotels that I think could have a bright
future.
Cheers, Jay S. Huebner at jhuebn@...
I wrote a long reply about not needing another list and then realized
that I would be perfectly happy if everyone took all non technical
topics off to Artemis or some other list of their choice. A selfish
choice but I removed myself from the Artemis list because of the non
technical noise to signal ratio. One thing about having many lists is
that we sort ourselves according to interests and those of us not
interested can have less in our in boxes.
Mitchell James
www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)
>
> First, we must look at areas where all space groups can benefit.
>
2 Increased Solar Cell Efficiency
3 Improved Mass Driver/Railgun Technology
4 Improved Energy Transmission/Conversion/Storage technology
5 Improved Device Energy Usage Efficiency
6 Teleoperation
7 Improved Materials properties
8 Space based mining and manufacturing
I'm not sure everybody would agree on that list - from my perspective
the important ones are 1, 4, and 8; the others might be useful but
either are already "good enough" or can't be expected to improve very
much more. #4 might be one of the keys to bringing in non-space groups
though (auto-makers are involved in fuel cell and flywheel energy
storage projects these days, for example).
> If you think this would be a good idea, I'll set up a mailing list on a
> friends server, and we can begin posting potential groups to invite.
I do think it's a good idea though. The National Space Society has made
some statements along these lines already. How do you actually get these
groups to work together though? Anyway, let's set up the list and see
what we can do!
Arthur Smith (apsmith@...
>
> > First, we must look at areas where all space groups can benefit.
> >
> 1 Reduced Launch Costs
Political reality check:
Lower launch costs do not benefit "everybody".
Existing powerful vested interests from the western launch vehicle lobby
fight very hard to keep launch costs high. This is because they want
to make money by selling the existing generation of launch vehicles.
If somebody comes along and lowers launch costs, the existing western
launch lobby would lose market share, so they have fought tooth and nail
to prevent this from happening.
Why do you think there was quota limit on using Russian and Chinese
launchers for so many years ?
The Russian quota is gone as of Jan 1st this year, but the Chinese quota
still exists.
===
There are lot of nice ideas here, but do not assume "everybody" will
agree with your defitinion of a "benefit". There are very powerful
forces who want to keep things just the way they are today.
I agree that there will be disagreement about what the 'important' stuff is
to do, and that there will certainly be groups that are opposed to any
change because they benefit from the way things are now.
cooperate need only do so for the items that they feel are important or
would benefit from, the rest they can feel free to ignore.
Mainly I feel that there is currently a lot of duplication of effort and a
minimum of cooperation even where there is a great deal of agreement, and I
would like to change that...
Tom M.
TomM@...
I would like to see food and all other life sustaining commodities added
to Arthur's list, perhaps as just one item. Many human colonies on Earth
failed by not providing adequate amounts of food; many that we know about
(historical) and surely millions more in prehistory. Millions of would be
human colonizers died of starvation wondering how they or their leaders
could have been so short-sighted. We should not let that happen again.
Imagine appeals for money for care-packages for Mars at $ 100,000 or more
per pound of food and 8 months delivery time.
Sincerely,
Jay S. Huebner at jhuebn@...
>
> Lower launch costs do not benefit "everybody".
>
> Existing powerful vested interests from the western launch vehicle lobby
> fight very hard to keep launch costs high. This is because they want
> to make money by selling the existing generation of launch vehicles.
> If somebody comes along and lowers launch costs, the existing western
> launch lobby would lose market share, so they have fought tooth and nail
> to prevent this from happening.
>
launch the same stuff much cheaper, why wouldn't they do that and even
further maximize their profits through the differential between what
they can charge and what it actually costs them? The same argument has
been put forward in the past re sunk costs in the telecommunications
industry, for example, but in actuality they all seem to have pretty
much adopted the nice new fiber optics techniques that infinitely
multiply bandwidth despite the lack of a market... Boeing and Lockheed's
managers may be shortsighted in some ways, but I don't see how they
could avoid taking advantage of cheaper launch technology if that was
actually available to them. Sure they'll avoid spending money on R&D,
and yes they'll act as protectionist as they feel like. And they might
be reluctant to re-tool for some new technology; but it would be
abdicating their responsibilities to their stockholders not to take
advantage of vastly less expensive launch technology if it was actually
available to them.
Arthur
>
> I would like to see food and all other life sustaining commodities added
> to Arthur's list, perhaps as just one item.
item:
8. Space based mining and manufacturing
(i.e. this would include all the stuff on In Situ Resource Utilization,
including Oxygen generation, Hydrogen and other volatile extraction,
metals, and use of whatever "dirt" was available to grow plants...)
Arthur
> I rarely buy this sort of argument though... If Boeing et al could
launch the same stuff much cheaper, why wouldn't they do that and even
further maximize their profits through the differential between what
they can charge and what it actually costs them? <
This is due to cost-plus accounting. This means that the government
will pay a certain small percentage over what it costs the company to
produce it. While this might sound fair in theory, in practice it
gives a strong incentive for government contractors to do everything
they can to push up the costs, so they get greater profits.
--JohnWheeler
> This is due to cost-plus accounting. This means that the government
> will pay a certain small percentage over what it costs the company to
> produce it. While this might sound fair in theory, in practice it
> gives a strong incentive for government contractors to do everything
> they can to push up the costs, so they get greater profits.
>
> --JohnWheeler
for the last ten years or so almost exclusively. Except that the US
govenment's concept of firm fixed price is that they get to know
everything about the contractors rate structure, costs, job estimate
justification, etc. so it ends up amounting to estimated costs plus a
little profit. There is really no such thing as market price in
government contracting.
Mitchell James
www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)