High-productives sharing a habitat (was High-productives as virtual

>
> Behalf Of hitssquad
>
> > OK.
> > http://www.donaldedavis.com/BIGPUB/STANTRUS.jpg
> http://www.donaldedavis.com/BIGPUB/STANTRUS.jpg>
>
> The point of course being that some investor somewhere had to first
> finance the construction of that enormous torus with some expectation of
> a return on his investment. You can't assume the large space habitat
> exists first, and then establish reasons someone might have for moving
> an operation from Earth to space second. You have to establish that a
> profitable operation which has to be in space can exist first, and for
> so doing perhaps justify a certain amount of habitat construction in
> support of it second.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Combs

Exactly. We seem to be on the same point here, in that I logged on to
make the following point:

Instead of focusing on the High Frontier why don't Billionaires and
patent attorneys focus on building a City Under the Sea or a domed
city in Antarctica? Each would be cheaper than building an orbital
settlement. The glaring point that I hope jumps out from the question
is "why would patent attorneys and Billionaires go to the trouble of
building such cities."

The city has to arise for a purpose. Both scenarios are set in hostile
environments, but not as hostile as space. Both scenarios require HUGE
upfront investment, rather than simply building a house on the
outskirts of town and hooking up to a power, water and sewer grid.
Both scenarios involve long supply lines, but nowhere near as long
(energy-wise) as an orbital Habitat.

What is the purpose of spending $200 billion to establish a City under
the Sea or a domed city in Antarctica? So that a tax haven can be set
up so that a Billionaire can avoid paying $50 million in taxes per year?

Mike, you hit the nail on the head, IMO, with the Savage comparison. I
was never taken with his fanciful scenarios in that they were too
divorced from reality to be taken seriously. He also relied on
presumptions of these environments existing but never addressed the
question of how and why they would come into existence. He just took
them for granted.