If we build it, what surprises will we find.

Okay, another question for everybody.

I've been working my way through all of the messages in the archive
and in terms of economic activity, SPS seems to be the big industry
we're all predicting.

There are also references to pharmaceuticals, and crystal growth. We
seem to be referencing research and predictions that have already
been made.

Now my thinking on research and economic activity, is best described
by "If you build it, they will come." Right now, all of earth's
economy and most of its research is dependent on a uniform gravity
paradigm.

Looking back on how the introduction of vacuum on earth expanded
research avenues and spawned whole industries that can't be
substitued with atmospheric physics. The Vacuum tube on your TV will
not work if it doesn't have a vacuum. Yes, I know that LCD screens
are here now, but I don't know what process is used for the
manufacture.

So, if cheap access to vacuum and variable gravity is made
available, not to just a select few researchers, but to a society,
what will the forces of imagination unleash? The way we think about
our immediate surroundings will be change in a very fundamental way,
so that it pervades everyday life.

I could see a habitat society leaving most unifrom gravity research
to the flatlanders and embarking in a completely new direction. I
mean why live off of a planetary surface, and still be constrained
by the thnking that goes along with it?

So, I wonder if I'm being too optimistic in this viewpoint. Do you
think that lack of gravity and easy access to vacuum will open the
floodgates of innovation as earlier discoveries of "media changes"
did, or is this not in the same category?

As for economics, here on earth we're really faced with three
constraints. The rationing of energy, materials, and intelligence.
What happens when the marginal cost of energy and material starts to
approach zero for our habitat society? With increased automation,
mined asteroids and solar energy, what happens? What happens to the
nature of work and the nature of wealth?

And if an economy and our socity starts to react to these new
influences and costs, how does it affect the flatlander economy?
After all, they'll still be faced with traditional economic
restraints. Would our economy, and those of all of the other
habitats, slowly diverge from earth, or integrate? If there is
integration, how much of our affluence will transfer to the earth's
economy? Of course, we all realize that I'm not talking about the
first habitat we build, but a time much later, when we're more
firmly established in our new environment. I can foresee a future,
where if we have a large enough population base, we'll be able to be
completely self-sufficent, because in our variable gravity
environment, we'll be able to replicate the gravity environment that
most of earth based industrial technologies require, but absent the
inventation of anti-gravity, earth will never be able to replicate
our variable gravity industries.

I see a process of economic development begining with primary
construction industries, then when a habitat is actally in place,
slowly putting in place industries to replace the high mass, low
value, but still essential, industries, then continuing to develop
along the scale of mass and value chain industries to service our
ever growing population. At some point we're manufacturing our own
clothes, breakfast cereals, sunglasses, etc. What we'll be importing
will be digital information (benefiting from the creative talent
that rises to the top of a huge population base) and from high value
electronics (how large a population will we require to build a chip
fabrication plant to just duplicate what Intel is doing on earth? -
of course I see it as quite possible that when we do build a chip
fabrication plant, it will be to exploit newly developed chip
technologies which are completely dependent on zero gravity and
we'll be the ones exporting to earth.)

Phew, . . . so what do you think? Will we be able to generate
sufficient wealth to grow our population into the millions, and do
this primarily with new technologies, or will we perpetually be a
lonely outpost of humanity. A curiousity, easily forgotten by the
masses, and economically irrelevent to humanity.