Space Settlement FAQ's]

--- Monart Pon wrote:
> Forwarding Dennis May's response to Ryan Healey.
>
> Ryan confuses a free market with a mixed economy
> market. In the mid to late 1800 large corporations
> regularly issued bonds with 50, 75, and 100 year
> maturities. Long term research projects were commonly
> undertaken by large and small industries alike
> [Edison and thousands of attempts at the light
> bulb]. Wealthy individuals sponsored or helped
> promising individuals in risky ventures [Edison
> helping Ford with his internal combustion engine
> automobile while working on his own electric car].
> Private companies and individuals have solved problems
> big government could not [the Wright Brothers].
> In a free market companies can make long term plans
> because the government isn't constantly interfering
> with the sources and cost of credit, they aren't
> flooded with ever changing regulations, they don't
> have to get "permission" every time they make a
> business decision, their competitors can't go to
> the government for special favors or deals, and
> the value of money [measures of wealth] don't
> change by government fiat.

There were also many problems created by the free market. For example the
Great Drepression was caused because there was no way to alter the value of
money to prevent hyperinflation. Since governments have started taking control
of the value of money it has been possible to easily stop a depression from
happening as has been done many times since the Great Depression.

In the 1920' which were heavily laise faire there was an average of about 600
bank failures a year in the US alone. By 1929 200 comporations control half
the US industry. 40% of the US wealth will be with 1% of people.

In 1933 it started getting better when a government that is willing to
legislate gets into power. A group of businessmen decide to take over the US
and make it a facist state but are stopped when General Smedley Butler reports
the offer they made him to Congress. That year the US goes off the gold
standard. In 1934 the economy of the US starts to improve and Sweden has got
out of the Great Depression as it followed Keyneian theory. In 1936 the top
tax rate is the US is 76% and Germany recovered from the Great depression due
to heavy government spending.

Interestingly, the free market caused the great depression then government got
out of it. Getting rid of the gold standard was what allowed the world to get
out of the depression (ever wondered why no one uses gold standard in wartime).

When one looks at how well behaved corporations are we find that those in the
heavily regulated sectors tend to be the best ones (e.g. the nuclear power
industry has been really good) whilst the unregulated ones are terrible (e.g.
MLM schemes).

> The eye toward a three year pay off is precisely
> because big government can't be trusted, not the
> free market. Who would have felt comfortable
> investing in a medical education when Hillary was
> attempting to confiscate 1/7th of the U.S. economy.
> My 1st cousin did NOT start his own medical practice
> and stayed in the military precisely because
> of the uncertainty caused by an un-free market.

Only a monopoly or a company with external support can continue with an
unprofitable project for more then 3 years and still exist. When government is
a monopoly at least those living under them have a choice but when corporations
are a monopoly almost no one gets a choice (competition has to be significant).

Personally I trust a democratic government a lot more then I trust most
corporations.

If you want to know what happens when a free market is implemented I suggest
you go to Chile and have a look around.

> Until there is a space infrastructure re-usable nuclear
> rockets have the advantage of being able to operate
> using a single thermally heated propellant [usually
> liquid hydrogen super-heated]. Chemical rocket
> propellants will have to be manufactured in space or
> hauled from the Earth. The oxidizer [Liquid Oxygen]
> is heavy and moving it around is very energy expensive.
> Hydrogen [from water] is super-abundant on Jupiter's
> moons and to a lesser extent on Mars.

If we are starting with the moon then the argument is useless as the moon
contains a lot more Oxygen then Hydrogen. Moving LOX around once you're in
space isn't that hard, it's getting into space that's the hard part. Nuclear
rockets are a good technology but we have to realise that for all we know we
might not be able to get them. If we can get nuclear we may actually be better
off with nuclear steam rockets. They get good performance without the cryo
storage requirements of H2(l) which can be very annoying.

> The SSTO was first worked on in 1939 Germany. They
> decided to do the V-2 rocket instead. Even two
> stages versus single stage greatly complicates
> the infrastructure requirements and makes each
> trip to orbit a big deal. Single Stage to Orbit
> makes it more along the lines of high performance
> upper altitude spy planes being fueled up and sent
> on their way. Low altitude refueling is no big
> deal compared to dropping a single stage.

SSTO is easy, it's making an SSTO reusuable that is the hard part because to be
able to reuse it you need to add things like heat shield, de-orbit fuel,
controls to land it, etc which can often remove all payload capacity.

> >Bootstrapping up to space colonies is probably the best way to go as trying
> >to build them as the first activity in space would probably cost a bit too
> >much (it could probably be done if you use lunar or asteriodal resources
> >though but no one is going to pay for it).
>
> See the above discussion concerning long term
> bonds in a free market.

Bootstraping will probably be easier as it doesn't require a large amount of
money can would get profits faster.

> Ryan Healey wrote:
>
> >Mars we should leave to the Mars Society and let them run the mission (or
> >convince a government to do that).
>
> Mars is part of the big picture, particularly if
> drawing from private investment and using the
> plentiful resources of Mars enters the scheme of
> things. There is plenty of fuel for hybrid
> fission/fusion reactors on Mars, billions of years
> worth of fuel at minimum. How could long term
> private investors ignore a platform ready to house
> an industrial machine the size of all the land
> on Earth?

Will we even manage to get fusion beyond breakeven?

As for Mars it isn't really all that good. Gravity well too steep,
Graviational field strength at surface the wrong value and it has an atmosphere
so it isn't really all that good. I'm more interested in it from a scientific
point of view.