Science Forums 2

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Maddog

We will likely do it only after
some kind of scientific revolution regarding propulsion to get out there has occurred.

With that, I agree fully. It has to become cheap and efficient, otherwise colonization with the numbers required to make it a self-sustainable effort, will be impossible. Consider 16th century colonization. Any Tom, Dick and Harry who could afford to slap together a boat and pin a sail on it, could theoretically have partook in that particular endeavor. With Space Travel being what it is, only the elitist of elite little group will ever get there - mostly due to cost. You won't trust any fool with a billion-dollar rocket, but what if that rocket only cost $1000, for the sake of the argument?

Originally Posted by Maddog

That we will do it is clear.

It's not entirely as clear as one would hope at first glance. For instance, George Bush committed the US to return to the moon by 2020, and then to pursue human travel to Mars. These are fine sentiments. But presidents cannot commit their successors to expenses on their account. And grandiose multi-term projects promised by prior presidents have no guarantee to be delivered, if not scrapped in total by future presidents, when budgets need to be trimmed in the face of a new and different agenda. George Bush could not foresee the current economic slowdown, which might impact severely on any moon or Mars ventures when that money could be very welll better spent at home. I wouldn't say it's clear at all.

Originally Posted by Maddog

I predict in this 21st Century there will some kind of permanent facility somewhere in this solar system other than Earth.

Believe me, I really do hope so. But I am yet to see any compelling reasons why.

Originally Posted by Maddog

All things out there will require Human intervention at some point.

As long as robotic missions are cheaper, more durable, redundant, and increasingly more versatile, then I fail to see how you can come to that conclusion. If there is a problem with a space telescope that costs, for instance, $1,000,000, won't it make more sense to scrap it and launch a new one, if a manned repair mission would cost $2,000 000?

Originally Posted by Maddog

We are the locals once we colonize. We become the natives.

Countries tend to trade with other countries based on the size of the market and the value of commodities to be traded with. It will take years and years (I'm talking centuries of committed effort here) to inflate the population of any given colony anywhere in the Solar System to generate a market worth trading with. Once again we have to commit generations of future humans to a project that seems cool now.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Colonization of space will come as a result of industry in space.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, processes have been more and more automated, labour figures for any process have been trimmed to save cost. This will be even more appliccable in the face of the ridiculously high labour costs of orbital factories. You might have a single crew of astronauts observing automated processes aboard a space station, very much like we have now, and even then their permanent presence isn't really required and/or necessary. Automation makes for more profit, and the bottom line would be the final maker or breaker for our presence in space, I guess.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Once the first parts of the infrastructure is established more infrastructure can be build from resources already in space.

Finding an iron-rich asteroid is very different than having available resources to build an addition to your space station with. All that iron need to be converted into shapes and sizes required for your building project. Even then, impurities in the asteroid implies that it won't be a simple matter of just cutting the asteroid into the required sizes. Melting, alloying, casting and machining will be required. All of this requiring fuel. So I think it's a bit harder than it sounds, and massive amounts of fuel will have to be on hand to make it even remotely possible.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

sending refined metals to the earth is not an energy intensive endeavor and sending finished products back to earth would be cost efficient.

How do you suppose sending refined metals back to Earth won't be energy intensive? Remember, for any action, there's an equal but opposite reaction. That being the idea behind rocket engines and basically any means of propulsion you can imagine, you can understand that getting any resources from the asteroid belt, say, would require immense amounts of fuel. There are vast storehouses of untapped and unmined resources right here on Earth, and I think it will take many thousands of years before mining in space will become even comparably cost-eficient than just mining on Earth. This is not to mention the vast array of supporting industries required just to let a simple coal mine operate, which is one of the cheapest mining ventures currently.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

There will be things that can only be manufactured in zero gee.

Whilst that is certainly true, I cannot see how that can't be perfectly well done by automated factories in low Earth orbit. A vast labour force as implied by space colonization won't be necessary. In fact, having clunking, bulky and messy humans around your pristine zero-g orbiting platform might actually be detrimental to what you want to achieve.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

The real pay off of space colonization will be as maddog pointed trade with the Earth from the natives of the colonies.

I agree - if it was possible. But as I said above, in creating colonies of populations big enough to trade with, we have to commit tens of generations to a project that we might find cool and awesome right now. Even the Apollo missions lost public interest and support after the first moon landing. I just don't see it happening.

In closing, just the following:

I might sound like an old sour puss in appearing so negative regarding the whole matter, but we have to be realistic. We can speculate and daydream - hell, I'll even help design a futuristic Mars colony. But we have to have a very valid reason for doing so. And I haven't come accross one yet. Because not only will it cost us a lot of money right now, it will cost generations of our descendants money, for centuries to come before anything even remotely approaching what you propose would become viable and self-sufficient.

What I would propose, would be to rather spend those resources on Earth, investing heavily in robotics and metallurgy (for one), so that we can launch a single intelligent machine to Mars which can self-replicate, and with the help of its replicants build an entire city fit for human habitation. Once all that is done, the humans can move in. And all the infrastructure would be there and waiting, all for the cost of a single launch not much more expensive than the Mars rovers. I discount the original research cost, because that will have applications in the domestic economy of Earth, which will end up footing the bill for all the required research through the purchase of consumer goods generated by that new technology. This will also be a venture that will take many years, but at least then we won't be dependent on the fickle nature of human interest in such long-term projects which would be dependent on long-term support.