Science Forums 2

[maddog]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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?

It is a cost-to-reward ratio here that is important. A Spanish Galleon could say cost
(rough guess) less than say $50,000 in today's dollars. In daily maintenance was probably
less than $500 in today's dollars. Yet it's potential reward benefit (per voyage) could be
$10 - $500 Million in today's dollars. This is what drove the Spanish to build them.

This will be the same for our solar system. From a book I read back in 1972, by the
Club of Rome, "Limits to Growth". It predicted what is starting happen now. The cost
of raw materials will start going up due to their scarcity. The first to go will be the little
materials like: Cadmium, Chromium, Gallium, Germainium, Palladium, Berylium, and
others. Their prices in raw cost may shoot up 10x while more common commodities
like Alluminum, Iron, Tin, etc will go up more modestly. There will be some technology
enhancements either reclaiming by recycling or by finding new sources (you mentioned
the Oceans). Some point this century this will still not be enough. You will then need
to go out there. Your alternative is to stop producing, and just have an agrarian civilization.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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 well better spent at home. I wouldn't say it's clear at all.
Believe me, I really do hope so. But I am yet to see any compelling reasons why.

So far as I am aware the Constellation program is still on track with NASA. The commitment
to go to Mars was taken off the table as to far out there (or maybe couldn't met by 2020
is more likely). The Constellation program still has provisions to go back to the Moon,
build a base (or two) as permanent settlements. To replace the ailing Space Shuttle.
What is really needed and has as yet not been provided for is some workhorse type
vehicle to haul stuff around the Earth-Moon system. Such a vehicle would look something
like a Space Shuttle for landing on Earth (assuming Hypersonic Flight ever gets working
right). The rocks on the moon are similar to a bauxite that is rich in Alluminum.
What is rich in the rocks and soil of Mars is Iron (some Nickel, Tin). The asteroids will
have in addition to Iron, Nickel, Tin, Tungsten, etc, it will have all the hard find
Elements: Indium, Osmium, Iridium, Germainium, Gallium, etc.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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?

Robotic mission still have their place, doing sensing work, going places and looking at
stuff. In the short it will be less expensive to launch new ones. In the long run, if the
commitment to go, it will be less expensive to launch them from space because your
already there.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

It didn't take much for small towns out west in the 1800's to have something to offer
that wasn't available in the east before there were people willing to pay for it. This is
what drives economies. So before Countries there will be Communities in space.
Groups of people offering what is cheaper or not available at all for a fair price.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

Automation is fine. In every automated factory today there are people involved (fewer
yes, but not 0). They may be involved in Research, fixing the machines, management.
If every a total factory can be run without people, we are in essence saying that Human
Beings have become superfluous. This may become true. Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems
even today, thinks that Machines may take over the world within a 100 years.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

You would best to do the smelting and refining of the resources out there first. More
people.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

A term used for moving whole asteroids like we herd animals would be propelled by
Mass Drivers. Fuel from the asteroid itself. Other more cost effective forms of propulsion
are required. Fusion is close (current less than 2x input). Some else maybe.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

Even you subscribe to going into space. If your that far out, ya' might as well go whole hog.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Even the Apollo missions lost public interest and support after the first moon landing. I just don't see it happening.

Apollo lost interest because the original visionary was shot, goal met, end of vision. No
one was willing to own the vision past the origin. This is at risk here too. The resource
on this planet have not been managed well. Where we go from here will determine
whether we make it into space. If not, we will likely not make it as a civilization either.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

Yeah!

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

You are not looking. Expansion is a natural thing (1). The infrastructure on Earth to long
term support 8+ billion people is at risk on Earth (that is with a Civilization). With that
most of the Earth will perish.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

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.

You are handing space over to the Machines. This may be the way. I would be afraid of
that future. One where Humans have become irrelevant.

maddog