RE: SUO: Multi-Source Ontology (MSO) Draft Ballot Question
Murray Altheim wrote:
> 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 think you mean "Rich"!
> 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.
Actually, congress passed, and Bush signed, an increment in
the Space Elevator research being done at ISR, the primary
knowlege developer for the SE.
While its true that this year's increase is small compared
to the total eventual budget, I've seen total cost estimates
for the SE ranging from $10B to $15B. Of course, these
estimates will be refined as we proceed with systems concepts
and with SWNT and MWNT nanotube technology development. But
they are the latest estimates of what that will cost, so I
stick with the thought that, given nanotube technology develops
like most of the materials scientists think it will, our cost
of putting material into space will drop sharply with the
first space elevator, and become common carrier costs when
we have a plethora of them.
So space research budgets will go into making the Moon
and Mars habitable and self renewing. There appears to
be a lot of water on the Moon, which can fuel plasma
engines to travel among the Moon, Mars and Earth. Plasma
engines are the most economical way to traverse space,
but they can't land; they need the space elevator technology
to handle the terminal link of these voyages.
Given the two technologies and the two added bases, we
should make great strides this century.
I only wish we were putting that kind of money into stem
cells and genomic research.
> 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.
The only time the US came even close to "empire" status
was when we took Cuba and the Phillipines from Spain. Notice
that we gave both of them the freedom to choose their own
destiny, along with Panama, Puerto Rica, Haiti, the Dominican
Republic, Granada, France, Germany and Japan. So I find it
ironic to hear people say the US is establishing an empire.
> Pushing China into an unnecessary arms race is hardly helping
> anybody, as we've seen repeated over and over again in history.
Who's pushing? We didn't start this one. The Chinese have
published plans to establish military capabilities in space,
and have studies showing that smaller forces with space
weapons can defeat larger forces without them. Its up to
us to defend ourselves. Since we never keep the countries
we have to fight in, our only reason for building a strong
national defense is to keep ourselves free. We are the
only large nation that has never lost a war on our own soil
(except for the South in the civil war), and we plan never to
do so. Any other strategy is flawed.
> 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.
The population keeps climbing. Hooray for birth control,
and a partial hooray for China's extreme policies to limit
population growth. There are many very poor countries that
need help with controlling population growth, but that sounds
like genocide to the media.
As for global warming, that "risk" is so amazingly unsoundly
supported by any real science, its amazing that anybody but
the media would take it seriously.
As for the environment, we in Southern California have fresh
air most of the time now because we took action in the sixties
to control emissions, to establish monitoring bodies, and to
find technological trump cards that help clean up the air.
There are lots of environmental issues, and they need attention,
but the environmental extremists are the least equipped to
realistically deal with them.
> Murray
Just to add more coal to the fire, I've seen a plan (somewhat
crazy, but still a plan) to control global warming by having
a moon base develop a suite of giant sunshields and put them
in orbit around the earth to block enough sun to counteract
so-called global warming. See a nutty description at:
http://www.androidworld.com/prod60.htm
The point is that there are lots of other ways to handle the
environmental issues. What we need are deeper studies to
figure out which ways make sense technically and economically,
and which ways just don't.
That's my prescription for the future threats we've identified,
but there are lots more (asteroid impact, ...) including some
we haven't even thought of yet.
JMHO,
Rich