THE GREAT DEBATE (ver 1.0)

Combs, Mike wrote:

>
> *From:* smasters@... [mailto:smasters@...]
>
> I recently got Robert Zubrin's `The Case for Mars'. The first quarter
> of the book is little more then a giant argument why we should go to
> mars.
>
> And I think some of the arguments he makes against O'Neill's concepts
> are simply wrong. If anybody's interested in looking at my criticisms
> of his criticisms, have a look
> at http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/case_spc.htm#Robert_Zubrin and
> http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/spacsetl.htm#zubrin.

Oh wow. I just read this. What a doofus Zubrin is.

Mirrors? Hard to make? Zubrin is on drugs.

Making mirrors in space is so unbelievably trivial. I've done it.

Well, not in space. I used a vacuum pump. All you need is a hot piece
of aluminium (typically heated using tungsten filament) and a flat
piece of something, glass, plastic anything really. And a vacuum.
Has to be a good, hard vacuum.

The aluminium vapourises and sticks to the glass. Not exactly rocket
science.

Actually, we made a half silvered mirror. To make a full silvered mirror
you like, leave it longer. Real high tech. Takes a minute maybe.

It's routinely done for telescope mirrors, there the only difficulty is
making the vacuum. Oh, I see what Zubrin means, I mean where would you
find a vacuum in space, it's just all too difficult for Zubrin!

> Regards,
>
> Mike Combs
--
- Ian Woollard (ian.woollard@...)

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding technological
civilization?"
- Gerard O'Neill