For or Against . . .

--- In spacesettlers@y..., "Brad Walsh" wrote:
>
> My short answer opinion is that that may be too high a figure, but
not by that much.

I'm not stating 250,000 peope as a fact, just as a "thinking outside
the box" type of argument to see where it leads us. The conventional
wisdom is small, bootstrapping efforts but if we follow that line of
reasoning, how do we ever achieve habitation while maintaining a
positive or neutral balance of payments, or for that matter, survive
without massive, budget busting subsidies?

Automation and robotics may reduce the number of people required
> to fill all the necessary manufacturing and service job
functions. Since
> this is the first habitat, we can assume it does not require
sufficient
> genetic diversity to continue human reproduction indefinitely
(i.e. it isn't
> a generation ship moving farther from earth every second).

Agree with you on automation and robotics issues, with the caveat
that there'll be a cost/benefit analysis to determine that issue.

I can think of
> no other factors besides genetic diversity and diversity of job
skills that
> would make such a minimum number necessary, unless its a minimum
number of
> combat troops that can be raised to thumb their noses at earth.

Basically, my concern is, as you deduced, the minimum number of job
skills. I'd hate to see the following scenario played out . . the
mission controller saying "And we have lift-off of STS mission
number 256, transporting toothbrushes and toilet paper to the 1,000
hardy pioneers in orbit. STS mission 257, scheduled for next week is
on schedule for delivery of the essential shoes, pillows, razor
blades, pharmaceuticals, band-aids, watches and other personal items
for our band of pioneers."

As I think through the whole process of establishing a habitat, I'm
finding I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea of critical mass
of population. The numbers are definitely open to debate.

I've privately reached a conclusion in which I think habitats will
never be economically self-sustainable while small in size. The
alternative for all that industry in space will be either earth
launched or space fabricated, tele-robotically operated facilities
from earth. No cities in space, because incrementally, at each
decision step, the cheaper alternative will be to not send people
into orbit, therefore, more and more events will happen in space,
but not necessarily include more and more people.

So, my thinking came around to posing the question of an all-or-
nothing scenario.

In a nutshell, I'm hoping that with enough critical mass of
population in orbit, the economic decisions WON'T favor earth
launched industrial facilities and space fabricated, tele-
robotically operated complexes. That the cost benefit analysis will
show it cheaper to have even more humans in orbit to operate these
facilities.