Jumping the Gun.

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

> OK, let the radius be a mile! Is that frightening?

It is to NASA, which feels it will have accomplished something
extraordinarily remarkable when it finishes a structure about the length
of a football field.

> The space programme is unlikely to get public support unless
> it is about families living in space. Humans are basically
> social animals.

Amen to that.

> 2) Get a foothold on Mars and Moon (With families living there)
>
> 3) Build O'Neil type habs.

This is minority thinking, but I almost feel that an Island 1 habitat in
Earth orbit might become possible before the first families are settling
on Mars.

> (P.S. Since we were on the subject of trade as an impetus to
> space exploration it is worth reading Drucker's 'The New
> Realities', where he suggests that we are shifting from trade
> in goods and services to a 'Knowledge Society'. If Knowledge
> is what we exchange in Post Modern society, the settlement on
> Mars will pay for itself!).

I've heard this argument before, and personally, I think it oversells
the information component of our global economy. It's not the case that
the information components are replacing the more material components.
It's just that the global economy has grown much larger, with the
addition of new information components which never existed before, and
continued growth in the material sectors. I can't see an entire
community of several thousand people whose sole export is information.

It's the same error Marshall Savage makes with his GEO habitats. We
don't need jobs which can still be done despite living beyond the Earth.
We need jobs which are BEST DONE beyond the Earth. In my opinion,
O'Neill is just about the only space thinker who successfully outlined
such work.

Regards,

Mike Combs