why outer space?

Ed Minchau wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers@y..., Al Globus wrote:
> >
> > AIDS in southern Africa is huge disaster and the local govenments
> are not
> > doing much about it.
> >
> Not much they CAN do about it. There is no cure, drug cocktails are
> prohibitively expensive; ...

There's a lot governments can do about it. Distribute condoms, prosecute men
who beat up women who ask them to use condoms, test prostitutes and get HIV
positive women out of the business (with subsidies if necessary), admit that
there is a problem, provide AZT to HIV positive pregnant women, have top
officials publicly use condoms, etc. etc. etc.

>
> Wow, big things happening at NASA right now, directors getting fired,
> ISS elements being axed (ie US habitation module), new launch
> vehicles being axed (X33 dead as of today), deep space missions being
> axed (Pluto/Kuiper belt probe, Solar probe) talk of merger with the
> Astronomical Society, new focus on a manned Mars mission...
>
> What's going on there? Is this just part of the change in the White
> House, or is this part of a long-range plan?

Wish I knew. In my little piece of NASA things are just chugging along.

Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020 goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500 times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space colonies,

each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.