Mining Asteroids

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of George Perkins

> I'm in favor of robotics but to make it pay BIG,
> and for a secure long-term foothold in space,
> we've got to add people to the equation.

And realistically, we just can't eliminate those last few people with
current-era robotics.

Jerry Pournelle once told the story of being invited to participate in a
NASA study on a self-replicating industrial system for the moon. He
said they found that replacing 80 to 90 percent of the workforce with
automation was easy. Automating 80-90 percent of the remaining fraction
was exceedingly difficult, and eliminating those last few people was
darn near impossible.

Regards,

Mike Combs