Ben Domenech interviewed me a couple weeks ago. The podcast is up now.
3 thoughts on “The Future Of Space Exploration”
Rand, if you could be so kind.. fill in the blank: “The Soviet ___” .. what I’m looking for is what you mean when you say “The Soviets”.
Good interview btw.
In pod cast you said they could two goals: diverting asteroids which are a threat and eggs in basket argument.
It seems to me that eggs in basket is long term type goal- one would need colonies in space which could survive without earth as a trading partner. One would need children able to be born in space, one would human genetic variety, one needs biological variety, and intellectual variety/diversity- otherwise you aren’t saving much. And generally underground bunkers on earth, probably cheaper and better solution.
Nor does diverting asteroids really require humans to be in space.
I think a better goal is to have markets in space. And first and primary market should be rocket fuel. Having a market for rocket fuel in space should lead to exploiting space for resource required to make rocket fuel in space.
So creating other market in space in addition to the existing satellite market should be a goal. And such a goal does need to be costly to achieve. And creating a market for rocket fuel delivered from earth, isn’t even really a cost- it should have immediate cost savings. Or rather than framing it in cost, it doesn’t require much in terms of investment of dollars.
So creating a market for rocket fuel is something which can be done in very near term. And getting resources in space to meet demand for markets, can lead to very significant result after several decades, we could get to the point of making stuff like solar panel in space and making lots of other things in space. And eventually leading to point where energy in space is significantly cheaper than it is at the present [say only 10 times as much as energy costs on earth] and thereby reaching a tipping point in which much of earth industry begins done in space.
In terms of energy production, Space has significant advantages in comparison to Earth. Nuclear power poses no or little threat. Solar power has much higher energy density as compared to anywhere on earth. Solar energy [in various forms] and nuclear power are the main
ways on earth of generating power. [one also has geothermal and tidal energy, but minor players].
One also has additional energy source in space, which might also be tapped and the amount energy available could similar to the magnitude of solar and nuclear- which is orbital or gravitation energy of objects in space.
So, whether or not Earthling will have a shortage of CHEAP energy in coming centuries, it seems that space provides the surest way of ensuring earthlings have a very long term and very abundant supply of cheap energy.
We do not have a power problem on earth. We have a regulatory problem. If not for that, the cost of power to be too low to measure.
I completely agree regarding creating a market for fuel in space. What does that? A ship.
It may seem premature because we’re still dealing with the issue of just getting people to orbit. But it will take time to put a ship in orbit as well, so we should start on it now. I suspect they have.
Tourist flights around the moon would easily pay for such a ship while promoting the fuel market.
Rand, if you could be so kind.. fill in the blank: “The Soviet ___” .. what I’m looking for is what you mean when you say “The Soviets”.
Good interview btw.
In pod cast you said they could two goals: diverting asteroids which are a threat and eggs in basket argument.
It seems to me that eggs in basket is long term type goal- one would need colonies in space which could survive without earth as a trading partner. One would need children able to be born in space, one would human genetic variety, one needs biological variety, and intellectual variety/diversity- otherwise you aren’t saving much. And generally underground bunkers on earth, probably cheaper and better solution.
Nor does diverting asteroids really require humans to be in space.
I think a better goal is to have markets in space. And first and primary market should be rocket fuel. Having a market for rocket fuel in space should lead to exploiting space for resource required to make rocket fuel in space.
So creating other market in space in addition to the existing satellite market should be a goal. And such a goal does need to be costly to achieve. And creating a market for rocket fuel delivered from earth, isn’t even really a cost- it should have immediate cost savings. Or rather than framing it in cost, it doesn’t require much in terms of investment of dollars.
So creating a market for rocket fuel is something which can be done in very near term. And getting resources in space to meet demand for markets, can lead to very significant result after several decades, we could get to the point of making stuff like solar panel in space and making lots of other things in space. And eventually leading to point where energy in space is significantly cheaper than it is at the present [say only 10 times as much as energy costs on earth] and thereby reaching a tipping point in which much of earth industry begins done in space.
In terms of energy production, Space has significant advantages in comparison to Earth. Nuclear power poses no or little threat. Solar power has much higher energy density as compared to anywhere on earth. Solar energy [in various forms] and nuclear power are the main
ways on earth of generating power. [one also has geothermal and tidal energy, but minor players].
One also has additional energy source in space, which might also be tapped and the amount energy available could similar to the magnitude of solar and nuclear- which is orbital or gravitation energy of objects in space.
So, whether or not Earthling will have a shortage of CHEAP energy in coming centuries, it seems that space provides the surest way of ensuring earthlings have a very long term and very abundant supply of cheap energy.
We do not have a power problem on earth. We have a regulatory problem. If not for that, the cost of power to be too low to measure.
I completely agree regarding creating a market for fuel in space. What does that? A ship.
It may seem premature because we’re still dealing with the issue of just getting people to orbit. But it will take time to put a ship in orbit as well, so we should start on it now. I suspect they have.
Tourist flights around the moon would easily pay for such a ship while promoting the fuel market.