The danger of coal - need SPS

Em Ter 23 Mar 2004 23:10, Thor Olson escreveu:
> 5) Where does business fit in? I haven't figured this
> out yet either so you have company. It is easier to
> make money selling global warming abatement plans than
> raising the hundreds of billions for SPS and then
> putting it to work. China is much more dependent on
> future energy sources so may go forth on an Lunar
> Solar Panel like plan if I understand their strategy
> right. They know it is dangerous to spend people in
> to space so they will be busily perfecting the robots
> that will be needed to get the cost down.

Will they? First, the launch costs of the Chinese are likely to be in the same
level of the Russians (which, by the way, have little or no research in space
robotics), so the purely economic cost of launching humans does not look much
of an issue to them. Second, the symbolic value of human life is probably not
much of an issue either, considering that we are talking about a country
where 10,000 executions a year are acceptable, smashing students with tanks
is acceptable and establishing penalties for couples with too much children
is acceptable.