MEOW

>"why aren't people doing so who have big money to begin with. They're risk-averse. Their money is making money already: it has to promise to make lots more money to get them interested in something risky. And it seems riskier than it is, because they don't understand it."

The reason it hasn't been done is because there are significant technical hurdles.

Yes, money would help. Technology is a barrier.

There are some millionaires in the game. Even a couple billionaires. True, the billionaires are just throwing seed money, not the whole ball of yarn. But why would we expect them to do so?

It is not an easy thing. Processing astroidal material is difficult. Some people think it very easy. I don't believe it. Processes must go from theoretical and rough benchtop to pilot to production units. New equipment must be designed and tested. And rebuilt and tested. And built for operation in space.

Then there is the matter of how you handle asteroidal material in zero g: break it, hold it, store it, send it though varous machines with all material transport issues that might exist. Actually in some ways it might be easier to process these material with gravity or with inertia from spinning facility. Note that could be infrastructure or much larger mining equipment.

In summary I don't believe the premise: we haven't done this because rich people are too risk averse.

I recall there were two Japanese companies that planned to make a space hotel in the 80s. Didn't happen. The technology and economics were right.

When you have to base your actions on a realistic business plan, the unknowns are not trivial and neither are the costs.

From: Dan Wylie-Sears
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 5:06:11 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: MEOW

> If we can make Gatesian amounts of money in space without CATS,
> then why aren't we?

Well, for one thing you can't run a start-up asteroid retrieval
company on ten grand in your father's garage. So, it's limited to
why aren't people doing so who have big money to begin with.
They're risk-averse. Their money is making money already: it has to
promise to make lots more money to get them interested in something
risky. And it seems riskier than it is, because they don't
understand it.

Then there's politics. Any big project needs lots of regulatory
approval. If you tell people your political opponent has approved a
plan to drop a thousand tons of platinum out of the sky, how do you
think that will affect the way your typical swing voter sees him or
her?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
>
> This site argues that CATS is not needed to make use of space
resources.
>
> http://www.permanent.com/ep-cheap.htm
>
> For all his arguments, I say that he is wrong. I do not make
> multiple, carefully detailed arguments; I make only one, and it is
simple:
>
> If we can make Gatesian amounts of money in space without CATS,
then