what we really need to go into space

> Today I met with one of the economic strategists for Lord Abbot funds, and
> had a very interesting conversation with him about capatilism. Plainly
> speaking, it is by far the most effective way of raising standards of living
> and producing the economies necessary for (keyword here) SUSTAINED growth
> that will support the types of efforts we all want to see. Space endeavors
> are, at the moment, very costly and require large amounts of many things,
> including capital. The time scales necessary for the sustained development
> of Space Faring absolutely require a sustained economic support. Without it,
> the resulting stagnation will result in resources being diverted to other
> things necessarily. This is economics 101.

IMHO if the system you reference worked we'd already have space
settlements and alternative energy systems (whether from space or on the
ground). Instead we got a failed GeoStar corp, a failed LAWN project
(not to say either GPS or wireless networking was a bad idea, just that
business in practice can be pretty savage, and any profits will go first
back into the company before any new venture like space settlements),
lots of other projects spinning their wheels in the mud, etc. Space
development is not going to come from a vision of bank balances -- it
will come from a vision related to life. And, likely as not, if we don't
clean up the various messes on Earth first, we may never get to the
stars (nor would we be worth of them). The bottom line is people like
you or TangoMan float through circles of finance and you can see how
they just aren't going to put significant money in it (other than as a
hobby -- like Jeff Bezos) or that of many other worthwhile ventures any
time soon. The larger system is eating itself from the love of money.

The alternative "sustainable 101" perspective:
http://www.pembina.org/publications_search_newsitem.asp?id §ion=

"Fertile Obfuscation: Making Money Whilst Eroding Living Capital

Author: Mark Anielski; the Pembina Institute
Date: Jun 2000
Focus: genuine progress indicators, economics
Format: electronic PDF file available for download; 56 pages
Price: no charge
Status: download from this website

There are two fundamental flaws of misplaced concreteness in economics.
First, is the obfuscation of the Greek root word "oikonomia", which
refers to study of the well-being and stewardship of the household,
habitat or natural environment. Instead economics has become more
aligned with "chrematistics" (a word almost forgotten in modern
dictionaries) which refers to the study of wealth or a particular theory
of wealth as measured by money. The second greatest error in economics
is the confusion of wealth, which is a magnitude with an irreducible
physical dimension, with debt (money), a purely mathematical or
imaginary quantity (Daly, 1996). The shortcomings of measures of
oikonomia, such as the GDP and national income accounts, have long ago
been acknowledged by many. The emergence of new measures of economic,
societal and ecological well-being is evidence that some of these
shortcomings are finally being addressed.

Yet even these important reforms in national accounting towards a more
honest assessment of the oikonomia of the nations will be meaningless
without understanding the fundamental root of the economic growth
paradox, that is the nature of money and how its creation (and
destruction) affects the well-being of nations. Money is the lifeblood
of all economies yet few understand how it is created and how this
process leads to destruction of living capital (human, social, and
natural) and the real wealth of nations. Only fundamental reform of
monetary policy and the process of money creation will the chrematistic
world of virtual wealth (stock markets, currency markets) become aligned
with oikonomia - stewardship of the physical world and human experience
of quality of life. This paper challenges both economics and business
disciplines to explore not only the reform of national accounting
systems to provide a more meaningful barometer of the oikonomia but also
the reform of traditional financial and management accounting systems to
measure social, environmental and financial performance. Most
importantly, the paper calls for a fundamental reform of monetary
policy, the elimination of fractional reserve banking, and the alignment
of money creation to oikonomia objectives of improving or sustaining the
real wealth of nations."

Download the report.
http://www.pembina.org/pdf/publications/fertile.pdf

--Paul Fernhout