Economic neccessity of space colonies

--- gardener1_98 wrote:
> That aside, it may be time to shift the focus to economics. With
> the world economies becoming more intertwined, we are all kind of
> vulnerable to each others' difficulties. And it seems like the world
> economy is sluggish and moribund right now. The US and Japanese
> stock exchanges seem to be dropping like crazy (dow is down to 9,200
> or so?).

This will likely pass eventually although government action could cause it to
pass much sooner. Not really all that much of an argument for going into
space. Also the anti-space people will probably end up noticing and convince
government to simply help the stock exchanges get back up instead of spending
billions (probably trillions) going into space.

> All the more reason for our decision makers to keep pressing onward down the
> space station/space colonizing path. A co-ordinated effort among the major
> industrial countries to build a series of outposts and automated relay
> stations in the Solar System (especially Mars-Earth-Asteroids areas) could
> give the economies a long-term, steady push or stimulus.

Long term reasons are the ones that we're going to need to convince people.
Sadly our society is biased greatly towards the short term. Space Settlement
has very good ROI but you have to wait quite a bit of time for it, and spend
quite a bit of money to get it.

We here agree it's worth it but we have to convince everyone else of that.

> New technologies and methodologies that are developed along the way can be
> applied to Earthside problems. The world economy as a whole will expand and
> eventually become the "Solar" economy.

New technologies developed by the space program are already being applied to
earthside problems. Going into space to settle will likely result in a lot of
new technology to solve the problems down here, including SPS.

As for the economy becoming the solar economy that will happen. Just as there
will come a day when there are more people living in space then on this big
ball of rock and metal.

> On a personal level, what can be done? Letters to legislaters are one thing
> we can do. Another is to draw up a list of technologies and processes needed
> to enhance the colonizing effort.

Letters to pollies aren't usually all that good unless you can get a lot of
them. Of course it should be noted that letters are most effective when they
are individual and not just form letters as most of them just dispose of any
letters that seem to come from a letter writing campaign. Paper petition are
unlikely to be of much use and cyber-petitions are completely useless. I also
don't think we're going to stand out in the street protesting to make a
government spend money on space settlement (but I'm sure there'll be people
protesting to have the money spent on something else).

Getting a list of technologies and processes needed is important and will be
helpful, in fact it's pretty much already been done.

As with everything the amount of impact you have will depend on how much effort
you put it.

> One example is a compact, powerful smelting device that would operate off of
> solar power (or even RTG nuclear?). These devices need to be
semi-autonomous,
> and maybe be fitted with tractors to crawl about on the surface of an
> asteroid, and 'build beams' to build habitats.

A solar concentrator would do the job. Have it fixed in space and then use
mining equipment to bring the ore to it. There isn't much point being able to
move the smelting device around on whatever ore body is being mined.

Nuclear power would be useful if we can get it but we should make sure we can
do everything we need without it just in case we can't.

> Surely, surely this can be done. Once we build one, we can build a thousand
> or?. After the list of tech is drawn up, determine what you and a group of
> friends can tackle.

Once you have a working one you could mass produce them. We should aim to use
space resources wherever possible and also to make everything as easy to make
as we can. It doesn't really matter if we lose a little bit of effiency
because we can always just make it bigger.

> Attempt to open a company specializing in one area of the nedded tech, say,
> better solar panels, or a compact fuel-processing module or whatever you can
> think of.

I don't think we need better solar panels. The ones we've got are good enough
and more efficent panels just cost a lot more for only a little bit of extra
efficency. Better off just using concentrators to increase the intensity of
the light falling on the panels. The only thing I can think of that would need
improvement with solar panels is radiation protection but a 1cm thick piece of
glass over the panel should be enough.

> Maybe paint for a spacecraft that will double as a solar cell-collector.

I don't know how this would be possible and to be honest it probably wouldn't
be worth it to develop.

> Then, open up these companies, while at the same time, lobbying the hell out
> of congress and the Euro and Russian legislatures. Perhaps this will create
> the needed groundswell to colonize, and at the same time provide technologies
> needed to carry it out. Together, we may just be able to pull it off :-)

We already have the technologies needed to carry it out. We just don't have
the money or the equipment (but we could build the equipment with enough money).