Chunnel as metaphor (was Bootstrapping Hawaii)

>
> > All of your examples aptly demonstrated my point. They were all
> > interlinked to a greater economy.
>
> Eventually...

The bicycle tinkerers didn't
scoop up dirt with their hands conjure up a fire, melt iron out of
the dirt, palant their rubber trees and harvest the rubber . . .
they were part of a larger economy.
Hey, guess what? Space inhabitation won't do that either; not initially. That requires big factories and that comes later.
Yes, but it doesn't help the venture that follows it and needs to be
in space. Yes it does, it's a necessary stepping stone. You've got to learn to walk before you can fly.
It doesn't consume any space resources. Not initially, no. However it's cheaper once you get past a certain scale of operation (and NOT before) to use in situ resources. We need a way to get over that hump. Space tourism is the most likely route we have right now.
It doesn't need space infrastructure. Wrong. Hotels, space transport- once orbital flights are more routine, people may well want to visit the moon for example. That needs shielded transportation. Then there's food production. Do you really want to launch all the food from the ground all the time? It's expensive.
It can exist just as a prolonged ride in a spaceship. Yes. That's an advantage; initially, because it's initially cheaper, but as you scale things up, it's more expensive to do it that way; and that fact is also an advantage, because businesses love saving money.
TangoMan