cheap orbital insertion

Greetings Al,

True, I didn't mention it directly but I'm very conscious of the
problems that can come from people who are driven by ideology rather
than rational thought. I live in Australia but even here I have
notice the activities of the ELF over the past few years as well as
others in various countries. Even here we have our own groups who
for God or Gaia or some warped political cause would think nothing of
destroying a space launch system and for some it would be even better
if there were people in it at the time. Call me a cynic but a
hypothetical; suppose I found some new way to get to orbit very
cheaply and could also build a large orbital habitats at little
cost. I decide to offer them people from all over the world, if a
group wanted one I would build them a 10,000 person habitat for some
token sum. People being what they are you can be certain that while
some, such as myself, would prefer or not mind living in a habitat
that had a culturally mixed population, not all would (Australia is a
very multicultural country and I think richer for it but I will grant
that not everyone here thinks that way), so I think it is certain
that in some cases you would have a single group, be it ethnic or
religious or maybe even political, inhabiting a single habitat. If I
was then putting the habitats into clustered orbits near to Earth, to
ease traffic back and forth. How long you think it would be before
they started to carry on the same disputes they left behind? I'm
sure some will say I shouldn't build a habitat for such a group but
what would stop them from building one for themselves? When we get
the technology to build such things you can be sure that some groups
who are fed up with the immoral, heretical, inferior, barbaric or
whatever, people around them and will want to set-up their own
version of paradise and you can be certain that somebody else will
object to something about it, not to mention the possibility of trade
or political conflicts. I'd love to think I'm wrong but down here or
up there, people are still people.

I know that the odds of a very large impact event are very low but
the consequences are huge and frankly we don't need the universe to
try to wipe us out, we're more than capable of doing it ourselves. I
have a lot of faith in the ability of people to solve their problems
but the possibility of failure is still there and I would sleep
easier if we didn't have all our eggs in one basket and besides, I'd
really love to see some of the sights the universe has to offer and a
space based society gives me the opportunities as well as the
possibilities of some jobs and recreation that are out of this world,
(sorry, I just had to ;-)but I feel that when (not if) we leave the
Earth it would be great if we could leave some of our less attractive
habits as well but somehow I think we will still be stuck with people
like the ELF, just think of what they could do on a habitat. Not a
pretty thought.

Darren Brown
Canberra Australia