money is in short supply

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 8:15 PM, edpell wrote:
(...)
> Given the poor condition of the US and world economy it looks like we will need to bootstrap a space colony.
(...)

Others have already exposed some objections of technical nature to you
assertions, and I would add an observation in the economic aspect: the
world economy is not exactly in poor shape. See for instance the GDP
growth of some emerging powers during 2010 - and the GDP growth of
Earth itself as a whole:

China 10.1%
India 8.30%
Brazil 7.50%
World 4.60%

I would think that what is happening is a shift and redistribution of
wealth across the world, which will naturally make the GDP growth of
some traditional powers look meager. Anyway, in absolute terms the GDP
growth of the US last year was not bad, 2.80% ...

Of course, as it is relevant for your discussion, arguably none of
those emerging powers has the space capabilities of the US yet.
(Although China has manned spaceflight, India can launch satellites
and probes and Brazil has launched suborbital test rockets.)