Economics, advanced manufacturing techniques and space settlements

Bill wrote:

> >
> > Poof! there goes the whole world economic system; no more famine, no
> > more shortages of any physical items - anything with a design stored
> > in memory somewhere on the internet could then be built, assuming
> > adequate raw materials and energy.
> >
> Let's start by playing devils advocate here. Who will be putting these
> designs on the internet? In fact try find blueprints on the internet.
> There aren't a lot of them out there.

But there's a lot of excellent free software. This software is easily as
complex as designs for many physical products.

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.