Eventually living on other planets

[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

[enorbet2]

Sometimes the only way to learn how to do a thing, is to begin doing it. Tracking the fortunes of nations due to pure Science ("useless" at the time) should provide at least the commitment to devote say 10% instead of less than 1% of a country's budget, Understanding what we risk if we don't, even to intangibles like childrens' desire for education and a career, should rightly drive that figure to 15% minimum. The hurdle is certainly higher as it is no longer likely for a modern day set of Wright Brothers to solve major problems on a part-time basis. However just as aircraft utterly changed a world that could see little or no use for them beyond buzzing pigeons, doesn't it follow that we should trust in the odds that higher hurdles have higher rewards that we can't see until we leap them, or have we learned nothing from a historical constant?

[Moontanman]

I think it's important to dispel the urban legend of space travel being enormously expensive. The budget of the US space program from the very beginning to now is a very small percentage of the budget of the military. Even smaller compared to the entire GNP of the US. As for it being too expensive to bring refined metals to the earth from Jupiter's Lagrange points this is simply not true. By using various gravitational accelerations and such materials can be brought o earth orbit for very little energy expenditure. Much like using gravity assists to drive a space craft from the earth to Jupiter sending on back would take very little energy. Atmospheric braking can be used to bring such material to th surface of the earth. Moving stuff around the solar system is not an energy intensive endeavor. Bringing stuff from the surface of the earth to space is very energy intensive and will take controlled nuclear energy for it to be done realistically. Solar energy can be used to smelt metals from asteroids. Nuclear energy can also be used for this. In space nuclear energy really comes into it's own. The main problem will be establishing the infrastructure, once it is place anything is possible.

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I think it's important to dispel the urban legend of space travel being enormously expensive. The budget of the US space program from the very beginning to now is a very small percentage of the budget of the military. Even smaller compared to the entire GNP of the US. As for it being too expensive to bring refined metals to the earth from Jupiter's Lagrange points this is simply not true. By using various gravitational accelerations and such materials can be brought o earth orbit for very little energy expenditure. Much like using gravity assists to drive a space craft from the earth to Jupiter sending on back would take very little energy. Atmospheric braking can be used to bring such material to th surface of the earth. Moving stuff around the solar system is not an energy intensive endeavor. Bringing stuff from the surface of the earth to space is very energy intensive and will take controlled nuclear energy for it to be done realistically. Solar energy can be used to smelt metals from asteroids. Nuclear energy can also be used for this. In space nuclear energy really comes into it's own. The main problem will be establishing the infrastructure, once it is place anything is possible.

Thats all great in theory Moonman but there is nothing in an astoriod that cannot be found within the earths crust. In all the known geology of the solar system the richest deposits of rare base metals lie around hydrothermal vents in the earths oceans.

[maddog]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Thats all great in theory Moonman but there is nothing in an astoriod that cannot be found within the earths crust. In all the known geology of the solar system the richest deposits of rare base metals lie around hydrothermal vents in the earths oceans.

The best know method I've heard to capture resources with enormous rewards to figure a
method to capture the metals directly from the Earth's oceans. A viable technology that is
not here yet. Maybe within the next 50 years. Innovation has a way of turning things
upside down. At the same time just staying on Earth cause that's where we have been all
these years and why go elsewhere is like not bothering to prepare for a coming hurricane.
An asteroid/comet will likely hit the Earth if we don't get prepared. To do so correctly, one
must make a presence in space. The logistics require it.

maddog

[Boerseun]

Jeez - I wished I shared your optimism, Moontan.

You propose to accelerate ore from a Lagrange Point around Jupiter, to Earth.

1) How do you propose getting the ore to the L point in the first place?
2) How do you expect to stop the ore, Earthside? You proposed atmospheric braking, which means you're happy with it raining rock all over the world? This, of course, is ignoring the utter and total cock-up you'll make of the atmosphere, as 80%+ of your ore burns up into the atmosphere, before hitting somebody's house to smithereens.

Spaceflight is cool. Space colonization is cool. Hell, it's awesome. But so are ten gazillion other pie-in-the-sky concepts. And the amount of available ore of any kind in the Earth's crust will be cheaper by orders of magnitude for many, many years.

If we run out of tin, what to do? Did all the tin ever mined, magically disappear? No, they're lying in landfills. Landfill mining will, also, be much more profitable than any space-based mining you can imagine.

Also, as to the cliché about the Wright Brothers inventing flying: Imagine if the purpose of every flying machine ever built was merely to get the pilot to Antarctica. Would it be such a good idea? Airplanes are cool, because they get you from one perfectly hospitable place to another.

I want humans to go to the planets, the stars, and eventually the entire galaxy. But I need a damn good reason. And I haven't heard a single one. Not a peep.

So, convince me.

[maddog]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Jeez - I wished I shared your optimism, Moontan.
You propose to accelerate ore from a Lagrange Point around Jupiter, to Earth.
1) How do you propose getting the ore to the L point in the first place?
2) How do you expect to stop the ore, Earthside? You proposed atmospheric braking, which means you're happy with it raining rock all over the world? This, of course, is ignoring the utter and total cock-up you'll make of the atmosphere, as 80%+ of your ore burns up into the atmosphere, before hitting somebody's house to smithereens.

The Trojan Asteroids are already at the Jupiter-Sun L4/L5 points (roughly). Using the
concept of a Mass-Driver (material from the rock itself) is move the orbit of said rock to
in proximity of Earth (not on it). No need to worry about dodging falling rocks.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Spaceflight is cool. Space colonization is cool. Hell, it's awesome. But so are ten gazillion other pie-in-the-sky concepts. And the amount of available ore of any kind in the Earth's crust will be cheaper by orders of magnitude for many, many years.

This is what NASA does pie-in-the-sky concepts day-in and day-out to justify their
existence. Are you saying we should STOP all development ???

Originally Posted by Boerseun

If we run out of tin, what to do? Did all the tin ever mined, magically disappear? No, they're lying in landfills. Landfill mining will, also, be much more profitable than any space-based mining you can imagine.

Recycling is a required solution for the near term if not afterwards. However, its efficiency
is not 100% (at best we are 19-22% in capturing across the board, less in some items).
So there is No way that Recycling alone will be the answer. Chromium was one of the
best examples that is now in the past. The rate of production of Chromium in about 1972
would have the expected of all know world reserves depleted by about the year 2000
because of one item -- the Automobile Chrome plated bumper. In the 80's what did we
do -- almost overnight (w/i 1 yr); stop making Chrome plated bumpers and moved to using
plastic resin bumpers on all models.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Also, as to the cliché about the Wright Brothers inventing flying: Imagine if the purpose of every flying machine ever built was merely to get the pilot to Antarctica. Would it be such a good idea? Airplanes are cool, because they get you from one perfectly hospitable place to another.

This would not have made as much sense in 1903, yet would make perfect sense in
1957 (IGY). This is the major problem I see with you logic. You are using expectant
utility of where we are now for some future time. The needs may be different by the
time we are to start moving commerce out to our solar system (w/i 100 years). So it
not fair to assess why we would bother to do something in 2100 with the standards of
2009 ???!!!????

Originally Posted by Boerseun

I want humans to go to the planets, the stars, and eventually the entire galaxy. But I need a damn good reason. And I haven't heard a single one. Not a peep. So, convince me.

I am very skeptical whether a proper convincing argument is even possible when you are
so closed off to the possibility. Your mind has already been made up.

maddog

[enorbet2]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

I want humans to go to the planets, the stars, and eventually the entire galaxy. But I need a damn good reason. And I haven't heard a single one. Not a peep. So, convince me.

Perhaps I was too vague. I am less interested in what can be found and brought back from Space Exploration than what we must learn and develop to muster the capability. From my point of view, and as I mentioned supported by the history of exploration, the exploration is the primary (the cake?) and the spoils (frosting?), secondary.

The analogy is crude since the secondary folds back and through, self-feeding an upward spiral. The only argument I can see for NOT going and as soon as possible is that of some predatory militaristic extra-terrestrial race such as Stephan Hawking seems to fear. I am more of the mind of Carl Sagan concluding that the very struggle to survive such technologies required for inter-stellar travel implies a peaceful society. That alone is a worthwhile and noble goal sufficient to justify the expenditure. Add the rapidly growing problem of over population and it's a given for me, considering the alternative "solutions".

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Jeez - I wished I shared your optimism, Moontan.

You propose to accelerate ore from a Lagrange Point around Jupiter, to Earth.

1) How do you propose getting the ore to the L point in the first place?
2) How do you expect to stop the ore, Earthside? You proposed atmospheric braking, which means you're happy with it raining rock all over the world? This, of course, is ignoring the utter and total cock-up you'll make of the atmosphere, as 80%+ of your ore burns up into the atmosphere, before hitting somebody's house to smithereens.

The ore is already at the Lagrange points of Jupiter, there are many large asteroids at Jupiter's Lagrange points, not to mention ices. I was using them as an example. Moving things around the solar system is easy as long as you take long slow orbits and it is not energy intensive. Refined metals from any asteroid can be easily moved to Mars or the Earth by simply imparting a small deceleration to it and small motors that add or subtract tiny accelerations as you move it around. You are still thinking fast orbits from one planet to another. If your cargo can take years then you can use very easy orbits. As for hitting people houses again you are assuming that these cargoes will just be dropped like rocks from the sky. I haven't noticed any of our decelerating space craft hitting people houses with any regularity.

Spaceflight is cool. Space colonization is cool. Hell, it's awesome. But so are ten gazillion other pie-in-the-sky concepts. And the amount of available ore of any kind in the Earth's crust will be cheaper by orders of magnitude for many, many years.

So we just continue to rape the planet's surface when we could be getting refined metals from space with out the the pollution and destruction that mining and refining the ever more rarefied deposits of metal on the Earth leave behind?

If we run out of tin, what to do? Did all the tin ever mined, magically disappear? No, they're lying in landfills. Landfill mining will, also, be much more profitable than any space-based mining you can imagine.

At some point mining, even mining landfills, will destroy the environment. Such mining and re-refining of the metals contained there in will be just as bad as the original processes were.

Also, as to the cliché about the Wright Brothers inventing flying: Imagine if the purpose of every flying machine ever built was merely to get the pilot to Antarctica. Would it be such a good idea? Airplanes are cool, because they get you from one perfectly hospitable place to another.

This argument doesn't hold water, the first airplane flights were just for fun, they had no reason nor did they need to have a reason. People came up with things for airplanes to do. the airplane wasn't built with wow we need to fly to Europe next year. They were built to see if it could be done. Purpose for the airplane came later.

I want humans to go to the planets, the stars, and eventually the entire galaxy. But I need a damn good reason. And I haven't heard a single one. Not a peep.

So, convince me.

I think I've given you several, resources, colonies, knowledge, and simple exploration. What else could there be?

Work to do, food to eat, a place to sleep, what else is there?

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Maddog

Using the concept of a Mass-Driver (material from the rock itself) is move the orbit of said rock to in proximity of Earth (not on it). No need to worry about dodging falling rocks.

Mass Drivers work beautifully in principle, and would work very fine if you wanted to move an asteroid. But it will only work well if you're presented with a homogeneous aggregate of uniform-sized particles. Because what you're doing, in essence, is to use the asteroid for rocket fuel. Bits of it will be launched in the opposite direction of where you're planning on traveling. So imagine your asteroid is composed of one solid piece of iron/nickel. First, you have to cuts bits off which would be launched to supply you with the necessary thrust. I don't know about mining in space, but mining on Earth (essentially cutting pieces of rock out of the Earth) requires immense supporting industries to supply such mundane items as cutting tools, which have a notoriously short lifespan, given what you intend to do with them.

Originally Posted by Maddog

This is what NASA does pie-in-the-sky concepts day-in and day-out to justify their existence. Are you saying we should STOP all development ???

That is clearly not what I've said, if you've read my posts.

NASA does some wonderful work, and the best they've done so far included robotic exploration. Consider the Voyagers, the Pioneers, the sequence of Mars Rovers. Apollo could be included in this list as well, if the prime mover for that particular venture wasn't political, which, sorrily, it was. They wanted to prove to the Russians that they've got superior rocketry, and they did. It was very hard for them to justify sending humans to the moon for any other reason, and once they achieved it, it fizzled out.

With "pie-in-the-sky" I mean grandiose ideas that has no justification apart from the fact that it's cool, and has very little practical application.

Originally Posted by Maddog

Recycling is a required solution for the near term if not afterwards. However, its efficiency is not 100% (at best we are 19-22% in capturing across the board, less in some items). So there is No way that Recycling alone will be the answer.

I find it ironic that you're willing to flatly dismiss any future advances in recycling technology, stating that there's "no way" for recycling to be the answer, yet you're putting your faith in grand futuristic schemes dependent on fickle public support?

Let's say recycling technology achieves a 50-60% recycling rate in the next ten to twenty years. How much of your asteroid are you going to cut off to serve as reaction mass? 50%? 60%? While there's a 50-100km thick layer of perfectly mineable resources right under your feet?

Originally Posted by Maddog

The rate of production of Chromium in about 1972
would have the expected of all know world reserves depleted by about the year 2000
because of one item -- the Automobile Chrome plated bumper. In the 80's what did we
do -- almost overnight (w/i 1 yr); stop making Chrome plated bumpers and moved to using plastic resin bumpers on all models.

I'm not too sure how big an impact chrome bumpers might have had on the chromium industry, but I will take your word for it. However, I suspect the poisonous nature of chromium hexaflouride had a bigger impact on Stateside production than the mere availability of the ore. As a case in point, in my town, Hernic Ferrochrome (Pty)Ltd is one of the biggest employers, and one of the biggest suppliers of chromium in the world. They have enough chrome to last for many, many years - with vast untapped seams lying in wait for higher commodity prices. Yet, they use hexaflouride in extracting chromium from the ore - which is the very same they would have to use for any chrome-bearing ore coming from space. Unless you want to ship tons of the stuff to Jupiter so that pure chrome can be shipped back to Earth - which seems highly unlikely in the face of high shipping costs. Either way, hexaflouride will be used, on Earth, to process the ore - regardless of where the ore came from.

Originally Posted by Maddog

This would not have made as much sense in 1903, yet would make perfect sense in 1957 (IGY). This is the major problem I see with you logic.

Bingo. In my example about all airplanes flying to Antarctica, that would indeed make perfect sense in 1957. Because that would be purely for science. And we've achieved the perfect model for that - with the Mars Rovers. Robotized exploration is the ticket. It's cheap, expendable, scalable, and has vast application on the domestic economy of Earth. But imagine if the purpose of all flight was just to land in Antarctica? There's no market, any resources to be found there can be found much cheaper anywhere else on the planet (there's vast storehouses of coal in Antarctica, yet there's not a single coal mine to be found - international treaties notwithstanding). I think the logic should be pretty clear.

Originally Posted by Maddog

The needs may be different by the time we are to start moving commerce out to our solar system (w/i 100 years).

You can't reason based on the assumption that this will happen within 100 years. Please read my previous posts where I explain the difficulty of getting viable trade up and running between planets. It will take centuries of committed effort just to get population levels up to the levels required for a self-sustaining economy worthwhile trading with. Remember, trade is a two-way street. A bar of gold costing $1,000 might have made one-way trade worthwhile in the 1600's, when a ship costing $50,000 could carry $1,000,000 worth of the stuff. But what the ship cost $100,000,000,000 and that same bar of gold still cost $1,000? Won't it be more economical to simply get it from Earth? There are plenty, and I mean plenty, of gold-bearing seams that have been shut down because of low prices. Once the prices make it worthwhile, goldmines will spring up around known deposits like fleas on a dog, for many, many years still to come.

Originally Posted by Maddog

I am very skeptical whether a proper convincing argument is even possible when you are so closed off to the possibility. Your mind has already been made up.

My mind is not closed to the idea, far from it. Yet, all I hear is dreamy speculation of "what if" and the inevitability of it. I am yet to hear a single "proper convincing argument" in support of colonising other planets. I would really love to, however. So bring it on.

Originally Posted by enorbet2

Perhaps I was too vague. I am less interested in what can be found and brought back from Space Exploration than what we must learn and develop to muster the capability. From my point of view, and as I mentioned supported by the history of exploration, the exploration is the primary (the cake?) and the spoils (frosting?), secondary.

With that, I agree fully. I see the technological progress towards something like interplanetary or even interstellar human spaceflight as being the offshoots of research done for quite different purposes. For instance, a concept like "hibernation" to make centuries (or even millenia) long spaceflight possible, might very well be the result of medical research in how to make hibernation possible for humans who have to wait for organs to become available, for instance. Research can then be very well justified due to the immediate application it will have on Earth, and it will pay for itself.
Where exploration is the cake and the spoils the frosting, I see it very much in the light of robotic exploration being the cake (we get to explore the solar system for a pittance, relatively speaking), and human interplanetary flight might be the frosting when rocketry and propulsion have developed to the point (in support of expediting robotic exploration) that it might become appliccable to establishing a human presence beyond low Earth orbit.

Originally Posted by enorbet2

I am more of the mind of Carl Sagan concluding that the very struggle to survive such technologies required for inter-stellar travel implies a peaceful society.

With that, I agree fully, too. And that should serve as an indication of where our priorities should lie for the next few centuries. (my bold)

Originally Posted by enorbet2

That alone is a worthwhile and noble goal sufficient to justify the expenditure. Add the rapidly growing problem of over population and it's a given for me, considering the alternative "solutions".

There might be many reasons and justifications for colonizing the solar system, but overpopulation on Earth is not one of them. Some 300,000 more babies are born than people die, each and every day. Yes, Earth's population grows by a million by the morning of every fourth day. So we'll have to launch 300,000 people every day, and that will only maintain the population at the same level. Overpopulation on Earth is a local problem (planetary speaking), which will have to be solved locally.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Moving things around the solar system is easy as long as you take long slow orbits and it is not energy intensive. Refined metals from any asteroid can be easily moved to Mars or the Earth by simply imparting a small deceleration to it and small motors that add or subtract tiny accelerations as you move it around. You are still thinking fast orbits from one planet to another. If your cargo can take years then you can use very easy orbits.

Granted. Fast straight-to-Earth orbits will take enormous amounts of fuel, slow orbits will take much less. But with easy, slow orbits, you're talking years of your resource payload slowly spiraling towards the sun, to be intercepted by Earth. Not to sound too much like a grouch, but commodity supply and demand doesn't quite support that scenario. People want stuff now. A company would rather invest in a mining operation somewhere in Africa that could show a return in a year or two than invest billions in the project you're proposing, which will only deliver a few decades from now.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

As for hitting people houses again you are assuming that these cargoes will just be dropped like rocks from the sky. I haven't noticed any of our decelerating space craft hitting people houses with any regularity.

As far as I can recall, you said that atmospheric braking is to be employed. And the reason that decelerating space craft don't hit people's houses with any regularity, is that their reentry is usually controlled by thousands of humans working in concert around the globe to plan, track, command, steer and manage the whole operation. And that is just for a single item coming down from orbit like, say, the Space Shuttle. But what you're proposing is more like Columbia's fatal re-entry, continuously, all around the globe, for chunks of rock big enough so as to not completely ablate during entry. And then there is to be a complete mining industry devoted to picking up the pieces as they scatter and fall all over the world. Two-thirds of your ore will be practically inacessable, seeing as they would fall into the ocean. They would merely serve to pollute the atmosphere, and be gone. I simply cannot see any sense behind it.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

So we just continue to rape the planet's surface when we could be getting refined metals from space with out the the pollution and destruction that mining and refining the ever more rarefied deposits of metal on the Earth leave behind?

The first caveman to pick up a piece of flint and chipped it into a knife, was the first miner, or the first to "rape the planet's surface". Mining is nothing new, nor strange. The pollution and destruction that you allude to regarding mining, is an artefact of technology. As technology improves, so too does the pollution and destruction go down. Compare, for instance, an 18th century coal mine in England to a modern day colliery.
Besides, what, pray tell, might be the difference between "raping" the surface of the Earth, and "raping" an asteroid? If I understand your proposal correctly, there might be somebody living on that asteroid, after all?

Originally Posted by Moontanman

At some point mining, even mining landfills, will destroy the environment. Such mining and re-refining of the metals contained there in will be just as bad as the original processes were.

Can you please elaborate on this assumption?

Originally Posted by Moontanman

This argument doesn't hold water, the first airplane flights were just for fun, they had no reason nor did they need to have a reason.

They were cheap, and paid for by the Wrights themselves. The analogy is not applicable, because what you're proposing in colonising the solar system is dependent on public money. Vast streams of public money, continuously, for centuries. And all of that when we suddenly have to bail out gigantic corporations because something fundamental is broken in our understanding of economics. And that economy will be the underpinning of any succesfull interplanetary venture. If the technology reaches the level where crazy billionaires like Richard Branson can build a colony on Europa using off-the-shelf items, when it becomes private and out of the public domain, when private individuals can fund it (like the Dutch East India Company in the 1600's) then I'd be all for it. And then invoking the Wrights as an argument in favour, might hold water. But using public money, the Wrights simply don't feature.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

People came up with things for airplanes to do. the airplane wasn't built with wow we need to fly to Europe next year. They were built to see if it could be done. Purpose for the airplane came later.

Rocketry was brougth to perfection by Werner von Braun, who built the V2 for Hitler to bomb London with. Von Braun later helped NASA land on the moon, using in a big way his V2 experience. I think Armstrong & co. should have at least planted a Britsh flag alongside the US flag, for the poor Brits who died serving as a testing range for moon rocket technology. But that's besides the point.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I think I've given you several, resources, colonies, knowledge, and simple exploration. What else could there be?

And I think I've debunked them all. But for brevity, I will sum up:

1) Resources:
Nada. Every conceivable resource you can find on any asteroid, can be found on Earth, much cheaper, much safer, without the danger of destroying domestic markets as a 1,000 ton lump of pure gold falling out of the sky might do.

2) Colonies:
Colonies would imply that there is something for people to do out there. They can either gather resources, which even if economically viable, can be better, safer, and cheaper, be done by machines. Or, they can gather knowledge, which:

3) Knowledge:
Space-based telescopes, Mars Rovers, the Huygens probe, Voyagers 1&2, the Pioneers, the Venera landers, all of these have returned reams and reams of perfectly usable data without a single human on board. If we land a buggy on Mars and we later whish that the thing had a certain capability we haven't though of, that capability can be included in the next rover. The technology improves. If there's a big budget cut, we can safely shut down the system without any loss of life. Science is pure. Science is the interpretation of data; the gathering can be done by anybody or anything.

Once again, I'm sorry for appearing overly negative. But I haven't heard a single compelling argument in favour of human space flight and/or colonisation beyond low earth orbit. Don't get me wrong, however. I think it will be awesomely and amazingly cool. I think to be a citizen of some far-off planet will be rockingly awesome. But there must be a very valid and solid reason for blowing tons of public money, when we're battling with such issues as falling educational standards etc., for which there might be much better application of said tax monies than to chase resources that is uneconomical, unrealistic, and found right under your feet on Earth, in any case.