Here's an interesting Gerard O'Neill story, told by Gregg Maryniak during his debate with Mike Gold on the Economist site (http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/360):
NASA must send humans to the moon to reduce the perceived risks that are barriers to investment in operations in the Earth-moon system and beyond. Governments historically reduced commercial risk by sponsoring or conducting expeditions that eventually led to economic activities and human settlement. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University told me of a meeting that he once had at the Electric Power Research Institute, the research organisation sponsored by many US electric utility companies. As engineers and scientists they were impressed by the fact that utility scale power had been beamed wirelessly, with collection efficiencies of nearly 90%. They understood that using lunar materials to build these orbiting collectors would profoundly improve the economics of such systems. But their issue was perceived risk. They said, "Professor O'Neill, we believe all of your technical arguments. But you must understand that in the utility business, the only risk we are willing to take is the risk that tomorrow, water will not flow downhill." NASA having humans (and robot precursors and assistants) operating on the lunar surface and within the Earth-moon system will reduce perceived risk and be critical to gaining the experience and the financing necessary for commercial space operations.
So for anybody who assumes there was a widespread rejection of the logic of High Frontier in the electrical utilities industry, there wasn't. There was just a reluctance to take the risk.
Regards,
Mike Combs
