Mars Family Robinson

From: sraj [mailto:sraj@...]

> The O'Neil concept or any other similar concept advocating human
settlements in free space, can be defended on its own
> merits, without pulling down other concepts.

I hear what you're saying here, but unfortunately, mindshare is somewhat
of a 0-sum game. There are tons of space advocates out there right now
who are fairly ignorant of who Gerard O'Neill was or the conclusions of
his research, and it's largely because they are chiefly reading Zubrin,
and assuming that nobody before or since Zubrin has ever had any better
ideas. Especially when Zubrin devotes a significant portion of his
writing to assuring his audience that they may safely ignore O'Neill's
work.

I probably wouldn't be as critical of Zubrin as I am if it weren't for
his very deliberate attempts to "pull down" the O'Neill concepts. I've
spoken with some Mars advocates who felt that it was really a case of
Zubrin striking back. In their world-view, O'Neill struck first. But
O'Neill only made fairly broad and academic remarks like the fact that
planets lie at the bottom of gravity wells, or that one can't use solar
power continuously on the surface of a planet. Certainly nothing like
the very specific attacks Zubrin has made on High Frontier.

> P.S: Proposing human settlements based on SPS alone also seems dicey.

I'll confess, I'd be happier if there were two or three markets which
looked as promising as SPS. But I just don't see anything else that
even comes close.

> Solar Power can also be generated on Earth in vast barren regions in
the tropics, SPS may not be required.

Earth-based solar is not as well-suited for generation of baseline
electrical power. And the ecological impact would be far greater.

> Tourism to space hotels sounds like a more practical proposition to
start with.

One big advantage space tourism has over SPS (in addition to at least a
small amount of real-world validation) is that unlike SPS, it can start
out very small, and then ramp up gradually. SPS, by it's nature, has to
be an enormous project in order to be economical.

Regards,

Mike Combs