Nukes & solar panels

In a message dated 4/3/01 1:17:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, rmenich@...
writes:

<< I don't doubt your claim that having an SP-100 reactor around would be a
great benefit versus solar power for space resource bootstrapping
operations. I don't think the choice of destination (Moon, NEA,
Phobos/Deimos) changes that technical advantage.

You used the phrase, "...just because a few earth-side environmentalist
might throw a tantrum". I wouldn't underestimate the political power of
the environmentalists. I think that it is risky to design a bootstrapping
operation around nuclear power. Not "risky" in a physical sense, but
risky in a political sense. One might design a bootstrapping operation
around the assumption that there will be an SP-100 available, and then have
that idea crushed like an eggshell by the environmentalist lobby. That
wouldn't be a good outcome for us.

You say, "... then we might as well brave the environmentalists and ship a
nuke up to the moon". You're a braver person than I.

Ron Menich >>

If the Environmentalists are so powerful, how come they don't get everything
they wanted. Species are still disappearing, and habitats are being losts.
The folks clearing rainforests in the Amazon River basin don't seem to give a
damn about what the Environmentalists think, they just continue what their
doing without giving them a second though. There are people who hunt Ivory in
Africa, and people who kill chimpanzees because they like monkey meat. The
Japanese Just go ahead hunting whales (all for research purposes of course,
wink wink). Launching a nuclear reactor would likely do no damage to the
environment and wouldn't do nearly as much damage as clearing rainforests if
it crashed to Earth. If environmentalists got everything they wanted we all
be mired in a perpetual economic recession with high unemployment as the cost
of doing business or hiring people would be too high due to all the
regulations. If the Environmentalists always insist of making no compromises
with the space lobby and make their lives difficult, then all their doing is
making sure that those people clearing rainforests, stay on Earth to continue
what their doing until eventually their are no rainforests left, ditto with
whales etc.

Tom Kalbfus