Two spheres

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 23:42:37 -0000
From: "George Perkins"
Subject: Two spheres

> We have clearly two fields of influence. One are the fruits,
> altruistic, must-do-it now, government dependent type space obsessed
> freaks. The other are serious mainstream business investors.

Given. Every field of human endeavor attracts fruits; but space
advocacy seems to attract very noticeable ones.

> The former are brain tunneling themselves towards moon and Mars.
> They depend on philanthropists and government leaders to get to
> their Paradisiacal vision of scruffing on hazardous terrain in a
> rocksucking world.

> The later has no preference except to make a good profit.

Okay, I'll give you the latter; but I think the fruits come in too many
flavors to be so easily summed up. remember Roton? Also, don't dismiss
everyone eager to head to Luna or Mars as a fruit; some of them do have
pretty clever ideas.

> To attract the investors we've got to have a good thing.. some great
> money-making highly profitable opportunity.

> Sitting in space isn't good enough. We have to have something that
> will sell.

Also given; incidentally, has anyone here been keeping up with the
metallic glass research? They seem like a really cool family of
materials that are just utterly impossible to manufacture under the
influence of gravity. I've heard pundits say that materials from space
can never be a paying proposition, with certain very low mass and high
value items as potential exceptions (He-3, for example), but the metal
glasses give me hope. Whether or not platinum family metals will sell
on Terra at reasonable prices may yet depend on demand for platinum
being created - by, for example, a hydrogen fuel cell based energy
economy.

> Economically, space is much more cost effective than choking on a
> big rock. The positive flip side to a positive cheap existence is
> dynamite products and services.

Agreed - if you are talking about planetary sized bodies. For me the
critical consideration is the Delta-V from the surface of the body to
its C3=0 orbit. To me, then, Luna makes a certain amount of sense; as
do Phobos, Diemos, Vesta, Ceres, & etc.

> Ideally, stuff already in HUGE demand on earth that we can make and
> sell or carry-out or perform better than earth yet sell at a lower
> price and/or afford a better profit potential for any participating
> wholesalers and distributors.

> A good, highly appealing, product mix is naaded.. not just one
> product. Most new businesses never succeed with just one product.

Absolutely! A 'Killer App' for space manufacturing (like you allude to
in your first paragraph above) would be GREAT, but even in the absence
of such an advantage, space should offer a wide variety of goods and
services. Some will fail. Others, we can hope, will succeed.