Re: SUO: Multi-Source Ontology (MSO) Draft Ballot Question
Richard Cooper wrote:
[...]
> Once we have the carbon nanotube technology down, the
> cost of putting mass into space drops from about
> $10,000 per pound with the space shuttle to just
> $100 per pound using the elevator. That means we can
> hoist stuff into orbit at the cost of an elevator
> ride.
>
> Then think about another smaller elevator on the Moon,
> built with materials from both worlds. That makes a
> moon base very reasonable for mining water. Then think
> about another one on Mars, so you can bring mass from
> space to Mars and back very cheaply. Add this all
> together, and you have very inexpensive and highly
> productive business opportunities.
>
> Bush's budget increase for this year is very reasonable,
> about a five percent increase.
Bill,
I won't comment on the plans you describe as being science
fiction or not, but you might note that if you've read any of
the budget analyses on this program, you're being disingenuous
in talking only about this year's budget, which as we all
know is only a tiny, tiny percentage of the hundreds of
billions that have been proposed. I used to work at NASA,
and what has been proposed as a budget increase is laughable
compared to the cost of the entire program. NASA has been
operating on a shoestring for the past decade, so offers of
hundreds of billions that will never arrive (during an
election year) is only insulting to everyone's intelligence.
Bush is literally promising the moon and you're buying it.
He'll be long gone before any of this ever begins to be
implemented, and NASA will have given up on more valuable
research in order to do some work that only benefits the
military and its contractors, who are behind this whole
scheme. They'll benefit, not NASA, or the American people.
Maybe someday the US will stop trying to be the world's
latest empire in the guise of being the world's policeman.
I wonder if the US leadership ever considers that the rest
of the world doesn't *want* them acting as policeman? Or
does none of the international news ever make it into the
US anymore? Or maybe they don't care what the world thinks.
Pushing China into an unnecessary arms race is hardly helping
anybody, as we've seen repeated over and over again in history.
We need to be sure that we as a species survive the next
hundred years. Going to the Moon or Mars, or starting a new
arms race are going to seem like a pretty stupid ideas if the
world's population continues to climb and our environment
continues to degrade as has been predicted.
Murray
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
"Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees
appointing appointees to select appointees to select
appointees. Add the fact that Bremer was appointed to
his post by President Bush and Bush to his by the US
Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic
tradition of the appointocracy: rule by an appointee's
appointee's appointees' appointees' appointees' selectees."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1130138,00.html