economics of bootstrapping

>
> This is best imagined in a common anology with this
> method of development by imagining a snowball rolling
> off the top of a mountain. As it rolls down it gets
> larger as it gets more mass. Given enough distance,
> it will have the force of an avalanche and be
> unstoppable.

Here's the problem with an uncritical involation of precedent. Let's
say you've done this snowball trick on many mountains before and
it's always worked. So now you climb another mountain and start the
snowball rolling. It rolls down the hill, gathering more snow, and
keeps growing. All of a sudden it enters a steel mill and encounters
such high temperatures that it melts very quickly, even while it
continues on its downward slope. Result: Stopped and destroyed.

Moral of the story: for the precedent to hold, the conditions have
to be the same.

The conditions of orbit have no common goods that were always
available and usually free on all past frontiers. When orbital
ventures may come to require a common good, they may individually
find it too expensive to provide, thus they may find it impossible
to proceed to the next step, resulting in stalled progress.

> > Just as Mercury and Gemini validated procedures for
> > later use by
> > Apollo, I agree with you that construction and
> > telerobotics will be
> > useful in future risk minimization calculations. Can
> > they make money
> > though? Is it the technology that will help the
> > bootstrap effort or
> > is it the business itself that will help the others
> > that follow it?
> > Or does it not matter which?
>
> I don't know if they'll make money or not, though as
> it being built up in the context of national security,
> it will come to fruitition. This in turn will be an
> important milestone in the bootstrapping process.

I take it from your response that you think it will be the
technology that is important to the bootstrap effort. That's fine. I
accept your opinion. I think a good case can be built for this
opinion.

> I'll see if i can find an online reference for the
> reason NO is produce over the next few days. It has
> to do with the heating of molecules in the air caused
> by reentry.
>
> Ryan Z

Thanks, much appreciated.

TangoMan