I’ve noticed that Columbus Day is not as…celebrated… these days as when I was a kid, when it was pretty much an unalloyed paen to the great explorer and navigator who thought that the planet was a lot smaller than it was, bumped into a convenient continent in between Spain and Asia (had it not been there, the expedition would have been lost, or the crew mutinied and return home, long before they arrived at the real Spice Islands). Fortunately for him, the power of self delusion is great, and he seems to have gone to his deathbed thinking that he found a new route to the Orient, albeit one that bore no obvious resemblance to the one being traded with previously, other than full of heathens.
Anyway, the holiday seems to arouse much more protest today than in the sixties, at least among the politically correct and bien pensant, many of whom think that colonizing and industrializing the continent was the worst thing to happen to not only the people who had already been living here (and despite Rousseau’s toxic delusions about savage nobility, pillaging and making war amongst themselves, torturing and human sacrificing, and slaughtering the fauna who had beaten them here), but the entire planet.
I’m somewhere in the middle, but more old school than new. Certainly the place could have done with a lot less slavery and gold digging in the name of the Lord, and it would be a happier, or at least more productive place had both the north and south been Anglicized, rather than feudalized by Spain and Portugal, but overall I think that we’ve been better stewards than the first plunderers were, having gained a lot more scientific (as opposed to faux spiritual) knowledge and developed technologies to make things more to everyone’s liking, for all their cavilling. I don’t, after all, see the natives doing much of that return-to-the-earth stuff — they find casinos much more lucrative. That seems to have been left to their worshipers in communes and academia, who seem to worship them even when they are fake but accurate. And it’s tragic that so many died from simple contamination by diseases to which they had no immunity (though not deliberately for the most part, despite that particular mythology), but this is another area in which we may learn from the past, and at least try to minimize such future events.
Which gets me to my real point.
In reading some of the comments over at Pop Mechanics today, I was struck (on this day) by how many in the space advocacy (and non-advocacy) community continue to use the opening of the New World as an analogy for where we are today, or are going, in space. For instance, Jeff Greason:
I think Mars is a very obvious place for settlement to happen. It is the place we have that is closest to us and looks like the most prominent candidate for a self-sustained human presence. Why would anyone want to go there? I want to go! There are lots of people out there who want to go. Wind that question back 400 years. Why would anyone want to go this great howling wilderness in North America? When the pilgrims got here, they wrote about what inhospitable place it was, with no inns to refresh one’s spirits, nothing but howling wilderness. The first three attempts to make a permanent place in the Los Angeles area ended in death. Even now, you have to pipe in water to survive. We had to master fire to get out of Africa, and agriculture to get to a lot of places. The American West had to be subjected to massive civil engineering works before more than a small community of pioneers could live there. What you consider to be habitable is a function of your level of technology.”
This is an argument that I (and countless others) have made in the past. And then we have the inevitable Bob Park:
When we established colonies [on Earth], we did it for very specific reasons. To rape the resources and bring them home. There aren’t any resources on Mars, not that we know of. There’s nothing to go there to get. If there were diamonds a feet deep on Mars, it still wouldn’t be worth the cost of sending people there. We’re already doing a great job with unmanned explorers.
That last, of course, always begs the question of what “the job” is.
So is it a good analogy or not? Yes, in some ways, no in others. As Scott Pace notes, our future in space depends on two critical issues, and one can build a quadrant table from them:
|
Can Live Off The Land |
Can’t Live Off The Land |
| Economic Benefits |
Space Settlements |
Oil Rigs |
| No Economic Benefits |
Antarctica |
Nothing Much In Space |
In the Americas, there was a clear economic benefit. Even ignoring the spice issue which became moot when Columbus stumbled into the wrong continent, the early explorers quickly found profit from treasure that the natives had accumulated, and then later with agricultural resources (e.g., sugar and tobacco). And the life support system was in place, with little/no technology development necessary to live there. So it cleanly fell into the upper left box, and we had colonies. The Vikings, on the other hand, didn’t find much in the way of economic benefits in Vineland other than the grapes, and climate change seemed to have put an end to that eventually. And unlike the Spanish a few hundred years later, their technology was insufficiently advanced over the natives (if at all) that they were probably chased out by them, so they fell into the lower right.
And of course, the biggest difference is the natives. As far as we know, no one has beaten us into space, at least in this solar system, barring the find of a monolith. The closest thing to the natives in the space analogy is Martian microbes, should they exist, and it has been noted in the past that the last thing that aspiring Martians on earth should want to see is the discovery of life there, because it’s quite conceivable and even likely that in today’s political climate it would result in a planetary quarantine to prevent contamination, either forward or back. The Europeans from half a millennium ago were much less fastidious about such things. If they had been, who knows what the course of history might have been? More native Americans, perhaps, but also perhaps less technology, and no Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
But I think that Scott’s formulation is a little too narrow. If we look at the history of the New World, at least from the Anglosphere, there were motivations other than economic. Here’s another, more expansive version of the table:
|
Can Live Off The Land |
Can’t Live Off The Land |
| Economic/Spiritual Benefits |
Space Settlements |
Oil Rigs |
| No Economic/Spiritual Benefits |
Massachussets/Salt Lake City |
Nothing Much In Space |
I think, like Jeff Greason, that whether or not we can live off the land is largely a matter of technology, and that developing that technology is only a matter of time, so the issue for the first column is not if, but when. Initially, if there are economic benefits, it may be an oil rig scenario, but I suspect that it will eventually evolve to at least a company town, if not independent colony. The more interesting question, to me, is the benefits issue. The Pilgrims and the LDS weren’t seeking wealth (though many found it). They were seeking freedom of worship, and that was sufficient to compel them to pull up their roots in an old land in which they were doing well economically, but spiritually malnourished, and even being oppressed. While the initial impetus for colonization of the New World was God (as in converting and coincidentally enslaving the heathens), Glory and Gold, the most ultimately successful colonies were based on the former, in that they were driven by desire of at least freedom of worship (though in some cases also the freedom to impose their own religious viewpoint on others).
I think that the biggest difference between the New World and the space frontier is that in the former, while the land was initially plentiful, at some point (and we’ve pretty much reached it, at least at current technology levels) they aren’t making any more. In space, if one isn’t back down in a gravity well, all land will be manufactured, and the practical implications of this are that we won’t have to fight over real estate — anyone with the financial resources will be able to manufacture their own.
But if the biggest impetus will be spiritual and/or ideological, it raises the question of religions that want to be left alone (e.g., Jews, Jainists, Baha’i) and those that want to proselytize (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses, evangelical Christianity) and even convert forcibly (the most notable example being Islam). For the former, having space colonies are a solution, but if the latter build them as well, we will indeed take our problems with us out into the cosmos, as we brought them to the Americas from Europe. That is, of course, no reason not to go. We are humans, after all, as flawed (and magnificent) in that way today as we were in the time of Mohammed, Leif Ericson, and Christopher Columbus. If we don’t expand into space, warts and all, then humanity will not have done so. And the future won’t be anywhere near as interesting.
[Update a few minutes later]
Instapundit has a few more heterodox Columbus thoughts.
[Afternoon update]
Happy Thanksgiving, Canucks. I think that our friends from the Great White North should be thanking Columbus, eh?
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October 12th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Why does the “spiritual imperative” have to be religious? I can see a lot of libertarians and conservatives wanting to get away from the bureaucratic governments of Mother Earth to live as they would like at a space settlement.
October 12th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Why does the “spiritual imperative” have to be religious?
It doesn’t have to be, in a theological sense. I agree that one of the motivators will be seeking freedom in general, and not just religious freedom.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Yes Columbus is getting unfairly dissed – large ly by the politicallycorrect whofeel the modern western/American world is bad.
Hopefully this is a passing historical fad?
As to space colonies, or American colonies, most of the non-economical ones failed. There were hordes of Utopian and/or religious ones founded across the US as it formed. Few survived the founders grandchildren if they didn’t find a strong economic footing. So I think still as far as space is concerned you need a sold market based solution, and the idea that we’ll do it for the glory ain’t going to work.
One caveat. I’ve heard a couple groups suggest major religions like Catholics or something might choose to found monistaries for seclusion, and to give future colonies a starting point. See anything suggesting actual religious leaders might be thinking this way?
October 12th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I guess a problem is there are so many easier to settle isolated spots on Earth – why go to space?
October 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Comments on both points:
I suspect that Columbus validated the primary point of his real theory — that there was a continental landmass at approximately thirty day’s sail west of the Canaries. He theorized correctly that this was the case because he was the first person to correctly intuit the Atlantic wind system, understanding that there was a set of circular wind patterns in the North and South Atlantic, which in turn suggested a continental-scale landmass at he western boundary of his pattern. He assumed this was Asia since there was at least a theoretical combination of estimates of global circumference and length of the Eurasian landmass that permitted this answer. Given his knowledge state, Occam’s Razor dictated that answer. This theory was the key to his success — previous expeditions west had departed from the Azores, being the farthest-west known inhabited land. But Columbus realized that the circulation of winds made that a bad departure point, given that ships of his day were very bad at sailing into the wind. The Canaries, although further east, were rightly positioned to find a good wind for the West. And Columbus, who had sailed from the latitude of the Canaries to the latitude of Iceland in his career (a far wider range than usual), and was familiar with all prior literature relevant to the matter, was probably the first European to have been in a position to notice this.
Regarding the colonization question — Scott’s analytical framework makes sense. I fill the squares slightly differently. Any location, on planet or off, will probably be inhabited when the cost acquiring and living in a given habitable volume equal that of any significant population center on Earth. So long as electronic communication is possible, people can now make living. And space locations will have one economic advantage that no earthly location can enjoy – the prospect of sovereignty. The Earth is now entirely carved up, and no new sovereignty will be permitted to emerge, except by secession, which has its own problems. Even seceding states will only be recognized when it is convenient for existing states to do so. Sovereignty will be valued for many different reasons; transcendental values (religions, ideologies, etc.) will value it earlier than others. So that square will be filled earlier than pure economics suggests it will.
Locations do not have to be entirely self-sufficient to be economically viable. They merely need to be viable through a combination of trade and use of local resources. Massachusetts Bay and Salt Lake wouldn’t have been founded for purely economic reasons as early as they were, but they both had substantial assets (fish and timber, and water and irrigable land, respectively) to get to viability fairly early.
October 12th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Two points on this post:
First, the table you quote is not original with Scott (as he would readily attest) — it’s from Harry Shipman’s Humans in Space: 21st Century Frontiers, Plenum Press, New York, 351 pp., 1989. And that book is a resource to O’Neillians everywhere.
Second, There is a “spiritual,” (or more precisely) a religious element to modern space exploration. We call it “science.” Neil Tyson and I toss this idea around here:
Of Science and Cathedral Building
October 12th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
A very thoughtful and interesting post, Rand.
I agree with Mark. I think the economic arguments are overdone, and ultimately implausible. In the end, the most useful planet to Earth dwellers is Earth itself, and there is nothing we are used to wanting down here that will ever be worth the cost to ship from one gravity well to another. It will always be cheaper to find it down here, or recycle it.
But I would not underestimate the important of liberty and opportunity to people. I also think that is the more appropriate historical model. To be sure, there were people in the Old World who hoped to get rich exploiting the New, but that mostly did not happen. To the extent the New World provided wealth, it provided it for those who moved there, and it was used to sustain them. That is, the natural wealth of the New World did not make the Old World wealthy so much as it changed the fortunes from poor to comfortable of those who moved from the Old to the New World. (No, I do not make an exception for Spain; the silver shipped from the New World did not enrich Spain, it impoverished Spain, much as the unearned wealth of oil has impoverished the Middle East, Venezuela.)
But let us not underestimate the fact that most people moved here for liberty and opportunity; the freedom to get away from the highly organized, stratified communities at home, where the State reached deeply into each citizen’s life (for the good of society as a whole of course), and where each citizen’s economic position was far less amenable to change.
Those conditions seem eerily familiar, do they not? Indeed, there seems to be some weird sickness in men, in that as we become wealthy and comfortable, we start to demand conformity and adherence to dogma, and individual liberty declines. Mediocrity becomes triumphant through sheer cussedness and power of numbers, and the best and brightest begin to despair — and look for emigration opportunities. It happened to Imperial Rome, it happened to the European hegemony, and it would happen to the American hegemony, except, as of right now, there is simply no where to go.
If that changes — if there is a frontier, a place to go that, no matter how hard the living, a man can be freer than he is here, and has a better opportunity to become something, without the depressing conforming option of 25 years of education and apprenticeships, then working his way up some government/corporate anthill — then I can foresee a lot of people wanting to go.
October 12th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
At least the oil rigs model will come about later, if not sooner, IF we care about our environment ( I guess we can toss environmentalism into spiritual benefits can here as well )
The mainstream environmentalism here has never gotten on the clue train about this, but i would guess if the message eventually gets through, they should be THRILLED about the concept of moving most of terrestrial mining industry into the main belt.
And if that does not win them over, theres also the fact that current geographically uneven distribution of strategic resources can be somewhat alleviated, thus reducing the tensions.
October 12th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“It will always be cheaper to find it down here, or recycle it.”
Only in idealistic, global economy world, where everything is traded fairly. This is not the case. The fact is, that interesting resources remain concentrated in few spots on earth, and im not talking oil, but things like PGMs, rare earth metals, even lithium.
October 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
It is not necessary for there to be a direct Earth tradable economic commodity in space for it to be economically attractive. If living in space was better/cheaper than on Earth, then people would emigrate, as Earth history infers.
There is a very strong correlation between energy use per capita and standard of living. Energy use per capita has serious limits on Earth, not so in space.
For example, farming cylinders a few meters in diameter in space could be easily automated and incredibly productive with yields perhaps an order of magnitude higher than on farmland on Earth – and available farmland is far less limited. Much higher energy availability, boosted CO2 levels, naturally quarantined against diseases and pests, etc. Food should eventually be much cheaper in space, though it would probably need to be consumed there due to high transport costs.
A good climate for living in should be much cheaper in space – energy is cheap. Habitable living space should eventually be much cheaper in space. Large engineering works will be much cheaper. Cloud computing might be cheaper. Science and technology development will probably be cheaper (clean rooms, naturally quarantined genetic engineering, large particle accelerators, etc). And so forth.
Low cost energy is the primary attraction, availability of huge quantities of resources and the capacity to build very large structures in low gravity probably comes second. These are game changers as far as the human race is concerned.
October 12th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Dr. Sanity has a good write up about Columbus Day vs. Political Correctness.
Also, as far as needing PGM for fuel cells go. I just read something over on Gas 2.0 about a new ceramic that has been discovered that can replace platinum in fuel cells.
October 12th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Ok, you need to explain a couple of these
>Pete says
> It is not necessary for there to be a direct Earth tradable economic commodity in
> space for it to be economically attractive. If living in space was better/cheaper than
> on Earth, then people would emigrate, as Earth history infers.
Earth history does not infer that. You can’t afford to live in a better/cheaper area if there are no jobs there. Otherwise folks wouldn’t move to high cost of living cities, away from low cost of living rural areas, or less developed countries. So where the product your space place is going to build and sell?
> There is a very strong correlation between energy use per capita and standard of living.
True.
> Energy use per capita has serious limits on Earth, not so in space.
How? Certainly in space disposing of waste energy (heat) is a big limit – and power production systems in space have a lot of the same issues as down here.
> For example, farming cylinders a few meters in diameter in space could be easily
> automated and incredibly productive with yields perhaps an order of magnitude
> higher than on farmland on Earth -
Most intensively maintained small gardens are, and you could build such cylindars on Earth.
> and available farmland is far less limited. ==
Ah – theres no land in space.
>== Food should eventually be much cheaper in space, ==
You’re seriously suggesting price per pound for food grown in space could be lower then on farms down here? Effectively gardens in space are like intensive greenhouse or hydroponic farms. They are not generally cheaper per bushel.
>==
>A good climate for living in should be much cheaper in space – energy
> is cheap. Habitable living space should eventually be much cheaper
> in space. Large engineering works will be much cheaper.
Why? Certainly production and assembly of such big structures is likely to be more expensive. Manufactured goods built in the smaller space market (or shipped up from Earth) would be more expensive.
>Cloud computing might be cheaper.
?? How?
>Science and technology development will probably be cheaper (clean rooms,
> naturally quarantined genetic engineering, large particle accelerators, etc). And so forth.
So far there are no large particle accelerators in space – and the quarantine / clean room issues are with people and equipment coming and going.
There are huge resource sources in space – but thats not helpful if you csan’t economically convert it to products delivered to customers. And no one buys things in space.
October 12th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Economic benefits are vital to a colony’s survival. Even if your technology allows you to live off the land, that technology must be continuously augmented as the population grows and that costs money. Every new baby born on the moon or Mars requires the development 20 or 30 kilograms of carbohydrates and 60 to 100 kilograms of water. Even if the chemicals exist in the environment, you have to import the technology required to extract them and convert them to food. You also have to import your power generation, housing, air circulation, cookpots, etc. You not only have to bring in new items as the population grows but replace things that wear out or break. The colonists have to produce something which can be sent back home and sold at a profit to buy this stuff and the fact is, there’s nothing there. If launch costs to LEO were $200.00 a pound and Jim Hoagland’s aliens had left ingots of pure, refined gold just sitting on the lunar surface, you could not recover it and sell it at a profit. Thus the colonists would be unable to buy the things that would be vitally necessary to their survival, much less comfort.
This fundamental economics applied to the colonies here on Earth as well. The Pilgrims originally considered settling somewhere in North Africa but decided in favor of America because there were no exploitable resources in that part of Africa, but plenty in America. Even well into the 19th century most manufactured goods were imported in the United States
I don’t think colonization of planetary surfaces will ever be feasible.
With regard to Mark’s comment above, I think you are both wrong. It was possible to be free in the American colonies because it was literally possible to just wander out into the woods and do whatever you wanted, without bothering anybody. By contrast, in any space colony, sheer survival is going to be so dependant on technology, for mere air to say nothing of water, food and warmth, that the colonists’ lives will have to be very tightly controlled in order to assure their continued existence, much less growth.
As for Columbus, he was one of the great heroes of any age and should be justly celebrated.
October 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I think the detractors are missing an important point. First, a colony doesn’t need to provide much of value. They need to be able to pay for what they get from Earth (or elsewhere), but that doesn’t have to be the job for most people in the colony. Second, people who migrated for economic reasons usually did so because they had relatives or friends already there and there were better jobs for them where they were going. Sure, those better jobs can be providing the export products, but it can also be internal jobs that have nothing to do with exports.
As I see it, even in the absence of any commercial product from Mars, you still have interesting science that can be done on and near Mars. Not only is Mars a potential source of life, it has a considerable geological history and is perhaps the best place to study the Asteroid Belt due to its considerable meteorite record.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Historic emigrations were often treated as one way trips. It is a mistake to consider them only from the perspective of the colonizing civilization and not also from the perspective of the people who actually emigrate – that is how wars of independence get started…
It would not actually surprise me if the colonization of America was a net economic drain upon England, it was for most places it colonized, but it was still highly profitable in the long term for those who did emigrate. For the first few generations the primary net external income for space settlement will come from immigration, but only if it is perceived to have future prospects as a better place to live.
For the USA and Europe international tradables are something like 10%, inferring ~90% self sufficiency; these are large economies, though they also have low external transport costs and could be far more self sufficient if they needed to be. I suspect most people who emigrate to space will take 10% or more of their life’s investments with them. The point being, the vast majority of the market for products built in space is people living in space.
In addition, the world already spends many billions of dollars a year in space. Assuming a say tenfold multiplier on to that for an estimation of the GDP of a space “country” and we get many tens of billions of dollars a year – a lot more than many countries currently in existence. Even on just existing space markets, a space “country” could reasonably expect to support some hundreds of thousands of people, assuming living costs were not dissimilar to Earth.
Average solar intensity in HEO is something like seven times greater than on Earth. Expect farming yields to scale somewhat accordingly. Yes there are difficulties with waste heat rejection in space – that is actually a likely secondary function of farming cylinders (incident solar radiation roughly equals radiative heat dissipation from a cylinder at 300K), these would be your radiators.
Energy is potentially much cheaper in space due to the much greater average concentration of solar power and the much lower structural cost of surface area. Some energy intensive industries, like computation, chip making, etc., might eventually be significantly cheaper in space.
The primary market for space settlement (beyond existing space markets) is space settlement. I am not sure that anything more is required, not that precious metals or whatever would not be nice, but there is already fundamental market enough to get to a few hundred thousand people, by which point I suspect things would take off. But for this to happen launch costs and habitat costs have to get down to a level where a significant number of people can afford to emigrate.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
If launch costs to LEO were $200.00 a pound and Jim Hoagland’s aliens had left ingots of pure, refined gold just sitting on the lunar surface, you could not recover it and sell it at a profit. Thus the colonists would be unable to buy the things that would be vitally necessary to their survival, much less comfort.
You’re assuming that economic activity is based primarily on mining raw materials. That hasn’t been true for centuries, and it certainly isn’t true today. The mafia colonized Las Vegas without mining any raw materials, and unmanned satellites “colonized” GEO without mining or exporting anything except photons.
With regard to Mark’s comment above, I think you are both wrong. It was possible to be free in the American colonies because it was literally possible to just wander out into the woods and do whatever you wanted, without bothering anybody. By contrast, in any space colony, sheer survival is going to be so dependant on technology, for mere air to say nothing of water, food and warmth, that the colonists’ lives will have to be very tightly controlled in order to assure their continued existence, much less growth.
That’s a very old argument, which rests on the underlying assumption that centralized planners are more capable of managing technology than free men are. The evidence for that is — ?
(Of course, it is bizarre to see Mark use the word “libertarian” as something other than a term of derision and admit that something other than government bureaucracy could work beyond LEO. Has the real Mark Whittington been kidnapped by aliens?
October 12th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
By contrast, in any space colony, sheer survival is going to be so dependant on technology, for mere air to say nothing of water, food and warmth, that the colonists’ lives will have to be very tightly controlled in order to assure their continued existence, much less growth.
I think you are missing something important. In any small group anywhere, whether in space or here on Earth, the behaviour of individuals must be tightly coordinated for things to work. Consider the family, eh? Schedules must be synched, and if jobs are divvied up — you do the shopping, I pay the bills and take care of the kids after school, yadda yadda — these things have to be quite closely coordinated. You can’t just do your own thing regardless of other people, as teenagers routinely find out. Same for a small firm, if the firm is to survive.
This would, of course, be equally true in a small spacecraft, or in a small orbital habitat, or in a small Martian or Lunar colony. You’ve got to do your job, you’ve got to be on time, coordinate with others, and so forth.
The real opportunity for liberty, either here on Earth historically, and in space or on other planets ultimately, is not the ability to survive all by your lonesome without coordination with anybody at all — this is simply not possible, in general, for any human being, and never has been. No, the real opportunity is in the opportunity to change your affiliation. You can leave your present small group and join another that has rules and conditions that suit you better. You can, in a sense, get a “divorce” and “remarry” into a small group you find more congenial.
This is the kind of liberty people on the American frontier had. Life within the family, or a particular cattle drive, or small town, was just as circumscribed and coordinated with others as life on a nuclear submarine is or on a spacehab would be. But if you didn’t like this town or group, there was always another over the horizon that you could join instead.
As long as the same thing applies in space, I see no reason why your argument should hold at all. As long as you have the freedom to leave Spacehab Ugly Stupid for Spacehad Sweet Reason, then you have the only important liberty anyone’s ever had.
I should note, also, that very few of us chafe at the constraints that are clearly necessary for group survival. Teenagers don’t complain because dad makes them turn on the headlights while driving at night. Employees don’t grumble about their lack of libety because management has rules that say you may not set fires in your cubicles on cold days. In the same way, I would be surprised if anyone in a Spacehab complained about rules that say you have to close the inner door of the airlock before exiting the hab in your spacesuit, or any other rule obviously and directly about group survival.
Where people will disagree passionately is about those rules that are not directly related to immediate survival, about those cultural standards for example that are thought to lead to long-term happiness: issues of justice and economic competition and so forth. But those are exactly the kinds of rules that different habs or colonies would be very likely to implement differently, and can implement differently, because they don’t (contrary to your thesis) directly affect immediate survival. So as long as one is free to choose the group implementing the cultural rules of your taste, then you’ll feel like a free man, and you will be.
Arguably space or other planets are an ideal place for such freedom, because of the very isolation and expensive travel costs between colonies, which defeats the economies of scale that tend, over time, to lead Earth-bound societies to greater and greater centralization.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
“I just read something over on Gas 2.0 about a new ceramic that has been discovered that can replace platinum in fuel cells.”
Oh yes. Ive been reading about these somethings for about ten years or more, and im young. Something happened in a lab somewhere, related to fuel cells/hydrogen economy/fusion/algae biofuels and a number of other “always ten years into the future” miracle technologies.
Look, it does not matter if PGMs could be replaced with some magic materials in fuel cells in some distant future. There are a million other things that one could develop with cheap abundant PGMs. And not just PGMs, there are plenty other critical elements that are unevenly distributed around the globe.
Its a paradigm change that people dont think about : current engineering revolves around conserving the scarce, expensive materials and making do with less. What if these materials suddenly became abundant, what COULD one do ?
Of industrially advanced, but always resource constrained places on earth Japan and South Korea immediately come to mind. Can you imagine the transformation of the world if Japan would have access to asteroidal metal resources ?
October 12th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
> Pete says
>=
> In addition, the world already spends many billions of dollars a year in space.
> Assuming a say tenfold multiplier on to that for an estimation of the GDP of a
> space “country” and we get many tens of billions of dollars a year -==
why would you assume such a multiplier? Why even assume that nations would spend as much as they do in space, on stuff that space colony?
>==
> Average solar intensity in HEO is something like seven times greater than on
> Earth. Expect farming yields to scale somewhat accordingly. ==
Why? You can’t shine 7 times as much sunlight on them without roasting the crop? You could keep them in 24/7 sunlight — assuming plants don’t need a night cycle for something.
> Yes there are difficulties with waste heat rejection in space – that
> is actually a likely secondary function of farming cylinders (incident
> solar radiation roughly equals radiative heat dissipation from a
> cylinder at 300K), these would be your radiators.
??
How? You’ld need to pump their temp up to increase radiation — and cylindars radiats in a 360 arc — so they would reradiate on everything next to them.
> Energy is potentially much cheaper in space due to the much greater
> average concentration of solar power and the much lower structural
> cost of surface area. Some energy intensive industries, like computation,
> chip making, etc., might eventually be significantly cheaper in space.
Its not likely that the structure would be much less – or that that would reduce costs? There would be more sunlight per area – but support costs in space would likely be higher. No idea what the energy cost would be compared to solar power on Earth — but I’ld bet the power costs would be much higher then on Earth.
> The primary market for space settlement (beyond existing space markets) is space settlement. ==
Who is interested in buying space settlement? What can they pay? How will they pay for themselves in space?
October 12th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
> October 12th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I>==
> You’re assuming that economic activity is based primarily on mining
> raw materials. That hasn’t been true for centuries, and it certainly isn’t true today.==
What other economic activity would you suggest?
October 12th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
why would you assume such a multiplier? Why even assume that nations would spend as much as they do in space, on stuff that space colony?
Because that is how economics works – domestic economies tend to be far larger than export sectors. It is not worth popping over to Turkey just to get served a Turkish cup of coffee…
Why? You can’t shine 7 times as much sunlight on them without roasting the crop? You could keep them in 24/7 sunlight — assuming plants don’t need a night cycle for something.
The same size of greenhouse can support ~7 times the number of plants. Likely many plants would be rotated or periodic shading by other plants, which is is not particularly difficult. Yes some evolutionary adaption to higher radiation levels, low gravity, the more optimized climate, etc., might in time occur.
You’ld need to pump their temp up to increase radiation — and cylindars radiats in a 360 arc — so they would reradiate on everything next to them.
Yes, like space… If one does wish to pack greenhouse cylinders slightly more tightly then thin mirrors can also serve to increase heat dissipation, but I doubt this is much warranted, though it might also serve for additional micro meteorite protection.
Its not likely that the structure would be much less – or that that would reduce costs?
Yes it is, no gravitational loadings and no weather loadings.
There would be more sunlight per area – but support costs in space would likely be higher. No idea what the energy cost would be compared to solar power on Earth — but I’ld bet the power costs would be much higher then on Earth.
Due to very high launch costs solar power in space is indeed currently very expensive, but solar cells in HEO yield something like ~7 times the average power of ones on Earth and do not require the extent of physical structural support.
Who is interested in buying space settlement? What can they pay? How will they pay for themselves in space?
People with an inclination to emigration, and they will pay to the extent of their Earthly assets. Trading Earth homes, businesses, investments, etc., for space ones. Most of them will do much the same jobs as they would otherwise do on Earth. Farming, service industry, mining, manufacturing, science, technology, financial, construction, education, health care, etc.
October 12th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
>Pete Says:
>October 12th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
>> why would you assume such a multiplier? Why even assume that nations
>> would spend as much as they do in space, on stuff that space colony?
> Because that is how economics works -
You miss the point. Why do you assume it the worlds nations spend x billion on space, they will spend x billion in your colony?
>> Why? You can’t shine 7 times as much sunlight on them ==
> The same size of greenhouse can support ~7 times the number of plants.==
?
They will still take as much space up. Still take 7 times more nutrients. — and likely not like getting light 7 times as intense sunlight.
>==Yes some evolutionary adaption to higher radiation levels, low gravity, the
> more optimized climate, etc., might in time occur.
Or might not. Or over time the droping launch costs would make it more uneconomical.
>> You’ld need to pump their temp up to increase radiation — and
>>cylindars radiats in a 360 arc — so they would reradiate on everything next to them.
> Yes, like space… If one does wish to pack greenhouse cylinders slightly
> more tightly then thin mirrors can also serve to increase heat dissipation, ==
??
What?
>>Its not likely that the structure would be much less – or that that would reduce costs?
> Yes it is, no gravitational loadings and no weather loadings.
Still has to take “wind loads” torque loads, etc. But again, why would that lower costs?
>> There would be more sunlight per area – but support costs in space would
>>likely be higher. No idea what the energy cost would be compared to solar
>>power on Earth — but I’ld bet the power costs would be much higher then on Earth.
> Due to very high launch costs solar power in space is indeed currently very expensive,==
Cost would be reduced by the lift market to construct the colony.
>== but solar cells in HEO yield something like ~7 times the average power
>of ones on Earth and do not require the extent of physical structural support.
It would need about as much structure – but even with a 7 fold cost emprovement (which is unlikely) that still would make the solar power more expensive then power on Earth.
>> Who is interested in buying space settlement?
>>What can they pay? How will they pay for themselves in space?
> People with an inclination to emigration, and they will pay to the extent of
> their Earthly assets. Trading Earth homes, businesses, investments, etc., for space ones.
People get a inclination to emigrate for more opportunity – I.E. better paying jobs. Given you still haven’t specified what industry will form the economic backbone of your space colony
>Most of them will do much the same jobs as they would otherwise do
> on Earth. Farming, service industry, mining, manufacturing, science,
> technology, financial, construction, education, health care, etc.
And how do you compete with cheaper places on Earth doing that? Yeah IF the colony can pay its way that cold pay for support staffs plumbers, space ship repair tech, etc. But you talking the follow up, with no talk about the base. And again, you have to compete with the same busnesses on Earth with its lower cost of living and established infastructure for everything from cornflakes to IC chips.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:31 am
You miss the point. Why do you assume it the worlds nations spend x billion on space, they will spend x billion in your colony?
I suggested a significant proportion of their space budgets, not all of them. And the obvious reason is because they will get more for their dollar by doing so. For example, a government space agency would be far better served by purchasing propellants at the local depot than carrying their own all the way from Earth. Government agencies are not in the habit of running basic operations in house (like cleaning, catering, transport, communications, etc), that they can more easily contract out to the private sector, I have little reason to suspect space programs will be any different.
And as has been repeatedly stated, one person in an export industry might support another ten in domestic industries. $20 billion in global space export earnings (around half what the world currently spends on space) might support a space GDP of ~$200 billion – or a country roughly the size of Demark in space.
They will still take as much space up. Still take 7 times more nutrients.
For a given size of greenhouse one will get around seven times the yield. This does not cause a serious plant packing problem. Yes this will require seven times the nutrients – the food produced should not be any less nutritious. Likely growing cycles will also be faster – faster turnover.
It would need about as much structure – but even with a 7 fold cost emprovement (which is unlikely) that still would make the solar power more expensive then power on Earth.
No, solar panels do not require as much structural support in space. Terrestrial solar panel weights are primarily driven by wind loadings, not so in space. The raw materials and production of solar panels is likely to eventually be cheaper in space due to lower raw material and energy costs, on top of this they will have some seven times the average solar intensity. How is it unlikely that they will not produce electricity for around a seventh the cost?
People get a inclination to emigrate for more opportunity – I.E. better paying jobs. Given you still haven’t specified what industry will form the economic backbone of your space colony
I specified such industries multiple times. A basic understanding of the economic history of North America, starting from pre Clovis times, should tell you what you wish to know.
And how do you compete with cheaper places on Earth doing that? Yeah IF the colony can pay its way that cold pay for support staffs plumbers, space ship repair tech, etc. But you talking the follow up, with no talk about the base. And again, you have to compete with the same busnesses on Earth with its lower cost of living and established infrastructure for everything from cornflakes to IC chips.
I have talked extensively about that base, please look to your own ancestral past and you will see what I was talking about. As I have said repeatedly, space has the ultimate competitive advantage for life, due to greater energy, resources and space, though the entry barriers are high. If you wish to understand this more I suggest you look up the term “planetary chauvinism”.
You are correct to consider competitive advantage, but this requires some understanding of the underlying physics and a profound understanding of time scales. The economic history of the North America is very interesting, and can help give such perspective. The economic histories of China, Europe, modern colonization and the Polynesian migrations, are also highly educational in this regard.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Great post Rand, and great discussion. One thing I haven’t seen noted is the fact that space-based and Mars colonies would have something that might in the future be intrinsically valuable: low-g. We may find in the future that human life spans are much longer in less-than-1-g environments. People might be willing to pay for that, in either sweat or treasure.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Until LEO launch costs come way down and reliability goes way up (closely interrelated factors, I know – especially if it’s a manned flight) arguing about costs is pure speculation. What’s more interesting, to me anyway, is the motivation for going.
Part of my interest is that I just got back from a trip to Arizona, New Mexico and southern Nevada. While there, I saw vast chunks of land that were available very cheaply to anybody who wanted them – like the 70 mile stretch of US 95 going from Laughlin to Las Vegas. You could plop down there and be 20 miles from your nearest neighbor.
The reason that land is empty is because if you want to live in Clark County, Nevada, and deal with the laws and rules thereof, there are lots of nicer places to do so, places where it’s easier to make a living. So, political sovereignty is a big factor.
In fact, various fringe “Mormon” groups live in Arizona north of the Grand Canyon today largely because they are left alone by state governments. Economically, there’s little “there” there.
The other factor, and one that’s not addressed, is subsistence. IIRC, the Pilgrims were not planning to set up an export economy. Their primary goal was to produce enough to be self-sufficient. Anything else was considered gravy.
Getting funding for a subsistance colony might be tough, although having seen some of the excesses of the dot com boom, anything is possible.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:03 am
I’m always amazed how a fundamental point is missed in these types of discussions: when some of my ancestors colonized the Americas in the 17th century and another set the west in the 19th century, they were able to do so by the sweat of their brow. It wasn’t easy, but they could find a place, set up tents and establish a place to live. The history of mankind shows that this is how civilization usually spread (the North American West was, in many ways, unique in distance, but still similar in style)–just a few miles every generation.
One lesson of the Australian colonization is that you need to be self-sustaining. You need to exploit the natural resources where you live. I’m talking of basic, life sustaining resources as well as economic resources. You don’t have that in outer space–you can’t “just survive” off the land (or sea.) The parallel for space is the Antarctic and space is magnitudes more hostile.
This doesn’t mean we should explore space, but we should be careful about analogizing it to Columbian exploration or western expansion. They really aren’t that comparable.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I’m always amazed how a fundamental point is missed in these types of discussions: when some of my ancestors colonized the Americas in the 17th century and another set the west in the 19th century, they were able to do so by the sweat of their brow.
I think you’re missing the fundamental point.
You need to exploit the natural resources where you live. I’m talking of basic, life sustaining resources as well as economic resources. You don’t have that in outer space–you can’t “just survive” off the land (or sea.)
What part of “What you consider to be habitable is a function of your level of technology” did you miss? There is a technology level at which we do have that in outer space, and you can “just survive” off the land. We aren’t there currently, but it theoretically exists. Your ancestors who lived “by the sweat of their brow” couldn’t have done it with only sweat. It took technology for them, too; just a lower level of one.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Rand: it is theoretically possible to survive by the sweat of one’s brow in space, in that this doesn’t violate any laws of physics. The technology to do it is not there, is not anywhere close to there, and (barring some sort of rapture of the nerds singularity) will not be there anytime soon.
The kind of self-sustaining colonizaton on Earth involves the colonists making everything they needed, for themselves. This includes shelter and life support equipment, transportation equipment, tools, clothing, etc. No space settlement will be able to do any of this in the foreseeable future. Extracting simple consumable substances like water will be difficult enough.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:05 am
> Pete Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 1:31 am
>
>>You miss the point. Why do you assume it the worlds nations
>>spend x billion on space, they will spend x billion in your colony?
> I suggested a significant proportion of their space budgets, not
> all of them. And the obvious reason is because they will get more
> for their dollar by doing so. For example, a government space agency
>would be far better served by purchasing propellants at the local depot
> than carrying their own all the way from Earth==
Little of what countries spend in space is related on gov efforts in space, or propellant lift costs. Nore is it likely a space colony could deliver fuel to LEO for lower cost then a launcher could from Earth. (The colony would force building low cost Earth to Leo launch craft/markets.) Most especially if the propellant costs would have to carry the cost of the propellant mine. At best it might sponcer a oil rig like base – not a colony.
We buy about 70% of our oil from Canada – more from Alaska -most in the arctic, but it hasn’t caused us to found oilcolonies on the north slope.
Given very little of what folks now do in space would even benifit from a space station. Making the jump to colonies is a real streach.
If Bigelow is successful, he might develop a couple billion a year market in space research platforms. That might support a residence and medical platform — which might (if launch cost/market develop) support a resort platform. But your maybe geting to billions to low tens of billions this way – and certainly not wasting space on farmss, schools, adn perminent residents. Your getting maybe to a cruise ship facility -not a colony.
> == one person in an export industry might support another ten in
>>They will still take as much space up. Still take 7 times more nutrients.
> For a given size of greenhouse one will get around seven times the yield.
Don’t know about that. Not important enough overall to worry about. There seems no way this would be cost competative with Earth based farms.
>> It would need about as much structure – but even with a
>>7 fold cost emprovement (which is unlikely) that still would
>>make the solar power more expensive then power on Earth.
> No, solar panels do not require as much structural support in space.
> Terrestrial solar panel weights are primarily driven by wind loadings, not so in space.==
Common mistake. If rockets manuver around – they generate a lot of wind.
But again – doesn’t mater, structures not a cost driver.
> The raw materials and production of solar panels is likely to eventually be
> cheaper in space due to lower raw material and energy costs, ==
Its not likely that the materials would be as cheep in space. You have tremendous amounts of great ore, but no market to drive a large efficent mining/milling operations.
> on top of this they will have some seven times the average solar
> intensity. How is it unlikely that they will not produce electricity for around a seventh the cost?
Higher cost to build, assemble, and service the solar panels in space then on ground. and solar is a expensive way to make electricity. So your space solar electric industries are saddled with high cost power.
Now if you were just usingh heat – hanging acres of aluminum foil to concentrate sunlight to melt stuff – you have a edge. But I only see that usefull for solarsteam freighters, or smelting some metals.
Again, your assuminghuge investments and imagration, with no credable huge economic drivers.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:10 am
> Curt Thomson Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 6:42 am
>
>== We may find in the future that human life spans are much
> longer in less-than-1-g environments. ==
Sadly its the opposite. Lower grav puts lower loads on the cardiovascular system, causing systemic declines in Cardio vadcular, lung, immune, etc systems.
For example I waas told at NASA HQ that a couch potato spending the day siting and watching TV on Earth, gets more exersize then a astronaut in zero G doing a couple hours of cardio exercise a day. Lower grav isn’t as bad as zero g, but its worse then full G. Lab experiments with Dogs adn rats in 2-3 G mad for some really healthy animal!
Just like on Earth, sedentary life styles are bad for you.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:18 am
> Joe Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 8:03 am
>==
> you need to be self-sustaining. You need to exploit the natural resources where
> you live. I’m talking of basic, life sustaining resources as well as economic
> resources. You don’t have that in outer space–you can’t “just survive” off
> the land (or sea.) The parallel for space is the Antarctic and space is magnitudes more hostile.==
Excelent point. I find some Mars settment groups litterally use little house on the prarie metaphores adn talk about farming Mars.
Living/working in space or on other worlds would be like being in a Arctic base/oil rig/or ship at sea. About everything you need to survive willneed to be engineered and shiped to you from life support, air recycling, power, to kitchen gear. Theres ore. someplaces have ice. No where has breathable air, drinkable water, farmable land, food, etc.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Actually its interesting to consider the key difference between the Vikings and Columbus. Columbus had the resources of the Spanish government behind him which enable him to return with enough men and equipment to overcome the natives and colonize the New World. The Vikings by contrast were basically family clans with very limited resources. Although they found much that was desirable in North America, and timber from America to Greenland was a potential export good, the did not have the resources needed to overcome the natives. Yes, Columbus did have the advantage of gun power, but the real advantage was a deep pocket investor and an endless supply of nobles seeking fame, fortune and the favor of the King.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:42 am
There is a covered wagon analogy that might apply to space where one sets off in a large habitat module (~50mx20m?) which is somewhat self sufficient in energy, food, workshop facilities and raw materials refining and manufacturing. Propulsion might come from a separate high ISP tug.
Once one gets to a place of interest, say an NEO or the asteroid belt, start replicating and scaling up the habitat modules using the original habitat module as a manufacturing base. Definitely there would be a lot of skilled hands on labor involved in this approach. Maybe then export ore tankers and habitat modules in return for higher tech products from Earth (or near Earth).
October 13th, 2009 at 10:42 am
“I find some Mars settment groups litterally use little house on the prarie metaphores adn talk about farming Mars.”
Your “little house on the prarie” comment reminded me of this essay:
http://turnrow.ulm.edu/view.php?i=95&setcat=prose
October 13th, 2009 at 10:55 am
“There is a technology level at which we do have that in outer space, and you can “just survive” off the land. We aren’t there currently, but it theoretically exists.”
Does this logic work both ways?
For example, Canada has roughly the same area as the US but has only 1/10th the population, the bulk of which is along the US border. Can we conclude that the technology doesn’t exist to populate Canada? Can we expect a technological breakthrough that will make Canada inhabitable to the same degree as the US? If the problem is merely a matter of technological prowess when would you expect the population of Canada to approach that of the US?
Or will the population of Canada always be about a tenth that of the US regardless of technological level?
October 13th, 2009 at 11:08 am
> Jim Davis Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 10:42 am
>
> ==
> Your “little house on the prarie” comment reminded me of this essay:
>
> http://turnrow.ulm.edu/view.php?i=95&setcat=prose
Yup, and Robert Zubrin, is the moses of those stone tablets.
The esays assumption that we’ll never really live in space, because the nature and connection with the Earth will forever hold us spiritually is kind of lame – fortunately.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am
>Jim Davis Says:
>October 13th, 2009 at 10:55 am
>
>==
> Canada has roughly the same area as the US but has only 1/10th the
> population, the bulk of which is along the US border. Can we conclude
> that the technology doesn’t exist to populate Canada? ==
We can colonize the Arctic, antarctic, great deseart. We could build floating cities and settle the mid ocean. But we don’t settle anywhere for long if we can’t pay the bills there. Waves of colonist follow opportunity – mainly economic opportunity. Hence why we keep arguing wahts the economic “killer app” that will support largescale space colonization or industrialization.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Can we conclude that the technology doesn’t exist to populate Canada?
No, we can conclude that the motivation doesn’t currently exist to do so. Canada is not outer space.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:36 am
“Canada is not outer space.”
But California, Utah, etc are outer space?
October 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Concerning the turnrow article Jim Davis references to: What a depressing dive into the acceptance of one’s own mediocrity! He is certainly welcome to his opinion, but just because he can find inner peace by reflecting on his own naval, also doesn’t mean the rest of us have to.
“This is where we shall live, die, and work out what it is to be human. Everything that the space movement seeks on the Moon or Mars, among the asteroids, around other stars—transcendence, renewal, heroism—isn’t there. Not a chance. It’s here or nowhere.”
Huh? There is enough annecdotal evidence from the astronauts to indicate that “transendence and renewal” most certainly IS there.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
The reason that land is empty is because if you want to live in Clark County, Nevada, and deal with the laws and rules thereof, there are lots of nicer places to do so, places where it’s easier to make a living. So, political sovereignty is a big factor.
Chris, you are amazingly confused here. The reason that land is empty is because it started off empty, there is a lot of it, and not that much time has passed since it was opened to settlement. The exact states you mention have among the highest population growth rates in the nation (Nevada #1, Arizona #2, Colorado #3, Utah #4, New Mexico #12). So there is no shortage of people moving there, and, indeed, anyone who has lived in the far West for a decade or two, as I have, is struck by how many people are moving into those states and how strong the growth there is.
By contrast the areas of the country with the most dense population have poor growth rates, e.g. New York (#42), Pennsylvania (#48), Massachusetts (#41).
October 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Carl Pham – first, I think we’re on the same side of the issue here, in that we think people will colonize space if they can get there.
Second, I think you’re missing the point on the Nevada example. I’m not talking about the state as a whole, but rather populations within a state.
In that case, US 95 south of Railroad Pass (where 95 becomes I 515) is not growing. There’s no reason to move south (same laws and overall economic outlook) and resources (water and power) are harder to come by.
Now, if that chunk of Nevada had different laws (a lower tax rate, for example, if not something more drastic) you’d see migration over the pass.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
But California, Utah, etc are outer space?
No.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
“But California, Utah, etc are outer space?
No.”
But above you quote Greason:
“Wind that question back 400 years. Why would anyone want to go this great howling wilderness in North America? When the pilgrims got here, they wrote about what inhospitable place it was, with no inns to refresh one’s spirits, nothing but howling wilderness. The first three attempts to make a permanent place in the Los Angeles area ended in death. Even now, you have to pipe in water to survive. We had to master fire to get out of Africa, and agriculture to get to a lot of places. The American West had to be subjected to massive civil engineering works before more than a small community of pioneers could live there. What you consider to be habitable is a function of your level of technology.”
And then go on to say:
“This is an argument that I (and countless others) have made in the past.”
So is outer space like the American west or is it not? Why couldn’t it be like subarctic Canada and Alaska, only much less hospitable? I’m not saying that it is, of course, but how can we know at this juncture? Surely it’s still an open question?
October 13th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
So is outer space like the American west or is it not?
It is in some ways, it’s not in others.
Why couldn’t it be like subarctic Canada and Alaska, only much less hospitable?
Because of the sovereignty issue.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Why couldn’t it be like subarctic Canada and Alaska, only much less hospitable?
Because of the sovereignty issue.
I think I follow you now:
Outer space is like the American west because there is the prospect for sovereignty in space but none in the American west but unlike Canada and Alaska because there is the prospect for sovereignty in space but none in Canada and Alaska.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I think I follow you now
Apparently not. You don’t seem to have a handle on the sovereignty issue, even though this is explained to you every time we have this discussion.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Ah ha, now I see your point, Chris. I agree entirely. Indeed, I think the history of the Far West is a pointed illustration of exactly what you are saying. There are headhunters in Utah who rub their hands with glee every time California makes some stupendously brain-dead collectivist head up the ass decision. A super duper progressive tax! Regulation up the wazoo! No power plants here! Zone everything so we don’t get any evil “growth”!
These people laugh and start talking to entrepreneurs and, hell, even ordinary senior workers. Had enough? Listen, just how much are you willing to put up with for those nice beaches and balmy weather, hmm? Consider St. George, Utah (one of the fastest growing cities out here). No personal income tax. Low business taxes. Sensible, modest regulation that confines itself to outlawing obvious evils, and doesn’t even attempt lifestyle regulation. Recognition of the necessity of economic activity. Low property prices. And, heck, some nice skiing, too.
And every year, people move out. Usually the best and brightest, too.
I think one should not underestimate this in terms of space colonization. If men of competence and ambition can get away from the cloying, suffocating hand of the collectivists and whiners and victim-syndrome parasites, they will go, whatever the cost.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
> You’re assuming that economic activity is based primarily on mining
> raw materials. That hasn’t been true for centuries, and it certainly isn’t true today.==
What other economic activity would you suggest?
Those that rely on intellectual capital more than physical capital. Communication and information services. Exploration. Entertainment. Scientific research. Those industries rely more on intellectual capital than physical capital, less reliant on bulk shipping, and better able to tolerate the high costs currently associated with space transportation. They can also be done relatively close to home — in Earth orbit, or even suborbit.
It’s no coincidence that the first successful space industry was satellite communications, which is based on shipping photons rather than atoms. There’s nothing wrong with the goal of building a huge mining base on the Moon or Mars or Epsilon Eridani but the idea that such a base is “the next logical step” is (pardon the expression) “Looney.” There are plenty of intermediate steps that can and *must* occur first.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Columbus had the resources of the Spanish government behind him which enable him to return with enough men and equipment to overcome the natives and colonize the New World.
That is a typical space cadet statement.
Columbus did not have the complete resources of the Spanish government behind him. Ferdinand and Isabella required him to show a cost-benefit analysis before he received a penny. They were not just politicians but the leaders of a large business empire. The Kingdom of Spain was their personal property, in a very real sense, and they expected it to be run at a profit. Columbus was on a strict budget and used the cheapest transportation available — something you find completely unacceptable today.
If you’d asked the Spanish government to give you a hundred billion dollars based on nothing more than historical analogies (as you expect the US government to do), they would have shown you the door if not the dungeon.
So, you weren’t serious when you said you were more interested in practical, bread-and-butter markets these days?
October 13th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
>Edward Wright Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
>
>What other economic activity would you suggest?
>
> Those that rely on intellectual capital more than physical capital.
> Communication and information services. Exploration. Entertainment.
Those don’t generally need anything from space except the com sats, and that market is developed
> Scientific research.
No (or little) market at these prices.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
You don’t seem to have a handle on the sovereignty issue, even though this is explained to you every time we have this discussion.
Well, you haven’t really explained the sovereignty issue so much as merely stated it and become irritated and annoyed when it isn’t accepted without question.
For my own part, I consider issues like sovereignty, property rights, spiritual benefits, etc as second or third order influences on space colonization prospects behind such heavy hitters like technology and economics.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
For my own part, I consider issues like sovereignty, property rights, spiritual benefits, etc as second or third order influences on space colonization prospects behind such heavy hitters like technology and economics.
Apparently, then, that’s why there’s little common ground for discussion. If you refuse to acknowledge the most important reason that people might want to emigrate off planet, and one of the primary drivers for the past colonization of the present-day US, then it’s pointless to argue any further. Please get off the carousel.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
If you refuse to acknowledge the most important reason that people might want to emigrate off planet, and one of the primary drivers for the past colonization of the present-day US, then it’s pointless to argue any further.
Please don’t put words in my mouth, Rand. I don’t “refuse” to acknowledge any such thing. I’m merely pointing out that “the most important reason” hasn’t as yet placed one colonist in space. That suggests that there are more important considerations.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I could easily see LEO quickly becoming the global financial center as it could be specialized and not compromised with geographical or heritage problems. An obvious independent place from which to run things with the capacity to write laws to suit.
Not subject to invasion or global warming and kind of disembodied it might also be a good match for the internet. One might also communicate with anyone on Earth directly via say cellphones or equivalents without government censorship. There is potential here for some very interesting things to happen. LEO – a country without borders.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I’m merely pointing out that “the most important reason” hasn’t as yet placed one colonist in space. That suggests that there are more important considerations.
And prior to the early seventeenth century the same statement would have applied to the New World. I continue to fail to see your point, as you do mine.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Those don’t generally need anything from space except the com sats, and that market is developed
Really? How does one explore space without being in space?
Scientific research.
No (or little) market at these prices.
I must be suffering from amnesia. What prices did I mention?
Perhaps delusions also. Am I imagining the fact that NASA spends billions on space research?
October 13th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
>Rand Simberg Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
>> For my own part, I consider issues like sovereignty, property rights,
>> spiritual benefits, etc as second or third order influences on space
>>colonization prospects behind such heavy hitters like technology and economics.
>== If you refuse to acknowledge the most important reason that people
> might want to emigrate off planet, and one of the primary drivers for the
> past colonization of the present-day US, then it’s pointless to argue any
> further. Please get off the carousel.
Think your missing the boat on this one Rand. Sounds like your dismissing economics – and though it doesn’t sound as cool, the vast bulk of folks came to the US to eiather flee a place they were scared of, or to come here for a better job adn opportunity to make something of yourself and for the kids.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
>Pete Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
>
> I could easily see LEO quickly becoming the global financial center
> as it could be specialized and not compromised with geographical
> or heritage problems. An obvious independent place from which
> to run things with the capacity to write laws to suit.
>
> Not subject to invasion or global warming and kind of disembodied
> it might also be a good match for the internet. One might also
> communicate with anyone on Earth directly via say cellphones or
> equivalents without government censorship. ===
Your at least as vulnerable to gov influence in space as on the ground. You can call anyone anywhere on earth now via cellphones – and if you want a better net. Thats a reason to launch a newIridium ansd flag it under a flag of convenece like ships.
Really doing all this in space doesn’t add anything to the financial company that they can’t get on Earth – but at vastly higher cost, and a harder problem getting folks to move there.
You want to be free of your countries financial regs – move to a friendlier country. If current fionancial centers were that eager to move, they could go to the Camen Islands, Belize, etc. No reason to move to LEO.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
>> Those don’t generally need anything from space except the
>> com sats, and that market is developed
> Really? How does one explore space without being in space?
Exploring space isn’t a economic activity. No one is likely to contract you to explore.
>>> Scientific research.
>> No (or little) market at these prices.
> I must be suffering from amnesia. What prices did I mention?
You were assuming tens of billions that are spent in space would be paid to the space colony.
> Perhaps delusions also. Am I imagining the fact that
> NASA spends billions on space research?
Actually they don’t spend it in space research – but beyond the symantics, they arn’t going to send those billion to the space colony under discusion to do it for them. Its not a economic basis for a colony.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
You want to be free of your countries financial regs – move to a friendlier country. If current fionancial centers were that eager to move, they could go to the Camen Islands, Belize, etc. No reason to move to LEO.
High finance is the least of it. Try draconian “carbon neutral” legislation that won’t let you set your thermostat where you please, or forces you to commute by smelly slow bus instead of a nice car, or possible some “discrimination” rules that won’t let you hire and fire who you please, or “hate speech” legislation that won’t let you speak your mind.
You’re absolutely right that a corporation is not likely to want to move to orbit. A corporation is just a mechanism for making money, and it takes the existing system and exploits whatever energy flows within it it can. A corporation has no permanent interests. It can readily make money producing fine artwork or polishing shit or supplying fuel for the death camp crematoria. It’s almost by definition impossible to imagine a corporation not being able to do business on Earth.
Individuals are a different story. Individuals have goals and aspirations and feelings that are not limited to mere existence, or even comfort. Individuals are perfectly capable — as the Puritans in 17th century England proved capable — of leaving very comfortable surroundings for hardship and privation, as long as it comes with liberty, if only to say out loud what you think, even if the dominant religion considers it heresy.
As for the notion that no one has attempted the colonization yet for individual reasons : up until very recently, it was not possible for an individual to get to orbit at any price. Now that you can, we notice that people are willing to spend $20 million dollars of their very own money to “colonize” space for a few days only. With zero economic return. That should certainly get people thinking — that the first “bleeding edge” adopters, willing to spend staggering amounts of money, are doing it for purely personal reasons, not economic reasons at all. Marx was wrong. Not everything people do can be reduced to maximizing economic utility (which is fortunate, since otherwise the rate of childbirth would drop to zero). Furthermore, the satellite business is a fascinating wrong analogy. I don’t think people will go to space, when they go in large numbers, in order to make money at all. They’ll go to get away, even if it costs them money and effort.
October 14th, 2009 at 5:03 am
I’m merely pointing out that “the most important reason” hasn’t as yet placed one colonist in space. That suggests that there are more important considerations.
And prior to the early seventeenth century the same statement would have applied to the New World. I continue to fail to see your point, as you do mine.
Rand, I was under the impression that the New World had been colonized long before that, certainly by the neolithic era the population of the New World was in the millions.
October 14th, 2009 at 5:38 am
I was under the impression that the New World had been colonized long before that
It had. But not for that reason.
October 14th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Jim Davis – Cost to orbit and the technology to live in space are, to say the least, non-trivial issues. We’re solving those issues, much like Neolithic humans had to figure out what plants were edible in the New World.
I think the sovereignty issue is what causes the first few colonies to be founded. But unless an economic case can be made, you don’t get large-scale settlement.
It’s very difficult to predict what will become the economic engine of space – again that’s tied to launch costs. Although, getting stuff down from space is always easier then sending it up. Mineral extraction seems likely, since that’s a dirty business nobody wants in their back yard or wilderness area.
Also of note is the impact of short-term booms. For example, during the California gold rush, not only did thousands of people stampede west, but San Fransisco businesses were making money sending dirty clothes to Hawaii to be washed! Now, that bubble busted, but many of the gold miners ended up staying in California and finding something to do.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:31 am
As for the notion that no one has attempted the colonization yet for individual reasons : up until very recently, it was not possible for an individual to get to orbit at any price. Now that you can, we notice that people are willing to spend $20 million dollars of their very own money to “colonize” space for a few days only. With zero economic return. That should certainly get people thinking — that the first “bleeding edge” adopters, willing to spend staggering amounts of money, are doing it for purely personal reasons, not economic reasons at all.
Carl, Paul Allen was willing to spend half a billion dollars on a 400 foot yacht with annual upkeep in the tens of millions. Can we conclude that Allen is an “early adopter” and that the surface of the seas will soon be “colonized”?
Or do we note that on the surface of the seas, at any given moment, are hundreds of thousands of people, and that this has been the case for centuries if not millennia? Some are there to get from point A to B, some are there to make a living, some are there to relax and enjoy themselves, but very few, if any, of them make their homes there.
Do you think it possible that space might follow a similar pattern? Enormous numbers there at any given moment, for any number of reasons, but very few that actually make their homes there? Who can say? I think many different conclusions can be drawn from present conditions. Some might even turn out to be correct.
October 14th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Carl, Paul Allen was willing to spend half a billion dollars on a 400 foot yacht with annual upkeep in the tens of millions. Can we conclude that Allen is an “early adopter” and that the surface of the seas will soon be “colonized”?
Jim, that is a logic error. Just because A implies B, doesn’t mean that B implies A. Just because a rich guy spends a lot of money on an activity, doesn’t imply that they are an early adopter, even if early adopters implicitly spend a lot of money on certain activities.
Do you think it possible that space might follow a similar pattern? Enormous numbers there at any given moment, for any number of reasons, but very few that actually make their homes there? Who can say? I think many different conclusions can be drawn from present conditions. Some might even turn out to be correct.
Where are they living then? Everyone still on Earth? That’s something like claiming there will be massive ocean traffic throughout the world even if everyone lives only in the British Isles. I don’t believe it would work that way.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Jim, that is a logic error.
Indeed, but Carl Pham’s, not mine.
Just because A implies B, doesn’t mean that B implies A. Just because a rich guy spends a lot of money on an activity, doesn’t imply that they are an early adopter, even if early adopters implicitly spend a lot of money on certain activities.
More or less the point I was making to Carl.
Where are they living then? Everyone still on Earth?
Making their homes there, yes.
That’s something like claiming there will be massive ocean traffic throughout the world even if everyone lives only in the British Isles.
More like claiming that there will be massive ocean traffic throughout the world even if everyone lives only on land. Which, coincidentally enough, is the present situation.
I don’t believe it would work that way.
Maybe not. I don’t really think we can make this call from a 2009 vantage point.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I was under the impression that the New World had been colonized long before that
It had. But not for that reason.
That reason apparently arrived at the New World colonization party some tens of thousands of years late, then. Makes one wonder about its relative importance.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:57 am
That reason apparently arrived at the New World colonization party some tens of thousands of years late, then. Makes one wonder about its relative importance.
For tens (or hundreds) of thousands of years, it was of no importance whatsoever. The notion of religious liberty would never have occurred to nomadic neolithic hunters with lots of room to roam. But (DUH), societies evolve. Maszlow’s hierarchy works on a cultural as well as an individual level. It became much more important when 1) there were religious wars going on in Europe and 2) a new land to which one could go to escape them was discovered. They are likely to increase even further in importance in the future as society continues to evolve and the planet continues to get effectively smaller. But I’m confident that you’ll continue to not get it, extrapolating from years of experience.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:27 am
More or less the point I was making to Carl.
I haven’t seen Carl make that error. I have seen you make that error.
Making their homes there, yes.
Then what’s the incentive that’s going to put large numbers of people in space? Tourism?
More like claiming that there will be massive ocean traffic throughout the world even if everyone lives only on land. Which, coincidentally enough, is the present situation.
No. You’d have to have people living in quantity in places like the Moon, L4/5 points, or Mars for that analogy to hold. If they’re all living on Earth, then they’re effectively living in one small place. That’s why I chose the British Isles as my analogy. There are multiple ports, even multiple islands, but the place where people live is small while the oceans are vast. That analogy is more accurate.
Maybe not. I don’t really think we can make this call from a 2009 vantage point.
That is worth remembering the next time you enter into this sort of discussion. Having said that, we can evaluate to a degree the economics of space travel. For example, it doesn’t make sense to ship large numbers of people in and out of some remote location on a frequent basis. For example, on Earth it is easy to ship people in and out of Antarctic bases. So you can have a team stay just for the summer. A similar situation doesn’t exist for a Martian base. Moving people out after a few months is an extraordinary waste of resources. If you can move people there for a three month stay, you can muster the slightly greater resources needed to keep them there for a couple of years and get considerably greater value for the money.
A similar thing holds for space tourism. As it currently is set up, any space tourist will require some degree of training and a good sum of money. So there is a considerable initial investment of time and money, no matter how short a stay in space. So you might as well get a more extensive stay in space than a short one for a bit more money. In other words, I think the ante for getting into space will, at least in the next few decades, encourage serious stays in space.
The same happened in the historical New World. People who went to the New World typically either did so to stay for a considerable period of time. Even in the 19th Century, travel was typically for long durations. There are plenty of examples of people who’d stay half a year or more in some exotic locale.
Now, we do things like weekend visits or week long cruises. These things are the exception and not the norm. Space travel will not economically support quick or casual trips for some time to come. And when it does get to the point where you can have casual visits, then the economics will be solidly in place for space colonization.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Exploring space isn’t a economic activity. No one is likely to contract you to explore.
Really? Do you all those tour guides, cruise lines, etc. spend so much money advertising because no one ever hires them?
You were assuming tens of billions that are spent in space would be paid to the space colony.
Really? I must be assuming in my sleep. What else was I assuming?
Wernher von Braun was fond of telling people that NASA didn’t spend any money in space, it spent it in Houston and Huntsville.
If you expect tens of billions to be spent in space, where do you think people will be spending it? At vending machines?
Perhaps delusions also. Am I imagining the fact that
NASA spends billions on space research?
Actually they don’t spend it in space research –
Really? NASA’s FY2010 budget requests contains $1,405B for Earth science, $1,346B for planetary science, $1,121B for astrophysics, and $0.605B for heliophysics.
What do you think they’re really going to spend the money on? Golf courses?
but beyond the symantics, they arn’t going to send those billion to the space colony under discusion to do it for them. Its not a economic basis for a colony.
And you know that, how? (Beyond the fact that you say so.)
October 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
More or less the point I was making to Carl.
I haven’t seen Carl make that error. I have seen you make that error.
Here’s Carl:
Now that you can, we notice that people are willing to spend $20 million dollars of their very own money to “colonize” space for a few days only. With zero economic return. That should certainly get people thinking — that the first “bleeding edge” adopters, willing to spend staggering amounts of money, are doing it for purely personal reasons, not economic reasons at all.
Here’s you ascribing Carl’s error to me:
Jim, that is a logic error. Just because A implies B, doesn’t mean that B implies A. Just because a rich guy spends a lot of money on an activity, doesn’t imply that they are an early adopter, even if early adopters implicitly spend a lot of money on certain activities.
Then what’s the incentive that’s going to put large numbers of people in space? Tourism?
We can only speculate at this juncture. Tourism has already come to pass. Solar power satellite construction workers, platinum metal group minors, or whatever. Name your poison.
No. You’d have to have people living in quantity in places like the Moon, L4/5 points, or Mars for that analogy to hold. If they’re all living on Earth, then they’re effectively living in one small place.
I have some news for you, Karl. They are all living on Earth. That’s reality not, analogy. Earth might seem to be a very small place to you but you must remember that it has been home to every human that has ever lived. The population of earth better be large enough to sustain large scale space commerce or discussion is merely an academic exercise.
That’s why I chose the British Isles as my analogy. There are multiple ports, even multiple islands, but the place where people live is small while the oceans are vast. That analogy is more accurate.
I’m sorry I don’t see this, Karl. I don’t see how having all people living on terrestrial land masses precludes them from exploiting space resources any more than it precludes them from exploiting maritime resources. Indeed, most space advocates insist otherwise.
That is worth remembering the next time you enter into this sort of discussion.
Good advice for all of us, to be sure.
Having said that, we can evaluate to a degree the economics of space travel. For example, it doesn’t make sense to ship large numbers of people in and out of some remote location on a frequent basis. For example, on Earth it is easy to ship people in and out of Antarctic bases. So you can have a team stay just for the summer. A similar situation doesn’t exist for a Martian base. Moving people out after a few months is an extraordinary waste of resources. If you can move people there for a three month stay, you can muster the slightly greater resources needed to keep them there for a couple of years and get considerably greater value for the money.
I’m not sure what your point here is, Karl. Certainly, considering some of the distances and difficulties involved, years away from home will certainly often be involved. Indeed, throughout human history there have been many lines of work that required these lengths of time away from home.
A similar thing holds for space tourism. As it currently is set up, any space tourist will require some degree of training and a good sum of money. So there is a considerable initial investment of time and money, no matter how short a stay in space. So you might as well get a more extensive stay in space than a short one for a bit more money. In other words, I think the ante for getting into space will, at least in the next few decades, encourage serious stays in space.
Oh, sure. Some people spend a lot of time at sea. I’m sure some will want to spend a lot of time in space. Again, I’m not sure what your point is.
The same happened in the historical New World. People who went to the New World typically either did so to stay for a considerable period of time. Even in the 19th Century, travel was typically for long durations. There are plenty of examples of people who’d stay half a year or more in some exotic locale.
Of course. Again, I’m not sure what point you’re making.
Now, we do things like weekend visits or week long cruises.
Well, maybe you do things like weekend visits or week long cruises. When I was in the navy, I was away from home for years at a time.
These things are the exception and not the norm. Space travel will not economically support quick or casual trips for some time to come. And when it does get to the point where you can have casual visits, then the economics will be solidly in place for space colonization.
I submit that your conclusion does not follow logically from your premises, Karl. There are plenty of places on earth, where people work and/or play, that are far easier to get to than anywhere in space is ever likely to be. You mentioned Antarctica. I brought up Canada and Alaska. One could add the surface of the seas. The various deserts. Mountain peaks. The skies. Yet we don’t make our homes there. Mightn’t the far less habitable outer space get similar short shrift from humanity?
And, by the way, I have seen the opposite point argued by space advocates, that space colonization is inevitable because space travel will never be as casual as terrestrial travel.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I have some news for you, Karl. They are all living on Earth. That’s reality not, analogy.
So what? That’s today. That’s not a century from now. My view is that within a thousand years, most humans will no longer live on Earth. I’d guess I should say that I see that as a more likely scenario than humans staying solely on Earth for whatever reasons.
I’m sorry I don’t see this, Karl. I don’t see how having all people living on terrestrial land masses precludes them from exploiting space resources any more than it precludes them from exploiting maritime resources. Indeed, most space advocates insist otherwise.
You are claiming widespread human activity in space while everyone lives on Earth. I’m just pointing out yet again that your analogy on Earth didn’t fit your description in space. The important thing to remember about sea and space travel is that the most important resource is the ability to travel from point A to point B. That’s the key reason for travel in both mediums. Where’s point B in space? It’s Earth because that’s the only developed destination in your scenario.
I submit that your conclusion does not follow logically from your premises, Karl. There are plenty of places on earth, where people work and/or play, that are far easier to get to than anywhere in space is ever likely to be. You mentioned Antarctica. I brought up Canada and Alaska. One could add the surface of the seas. The various deserts. Mountain peaks. The skies. Yet we don’t make our homes there. Mightn’t the far less habitable outer space get similar short shrift from humanity?
Actually we do make our homes in those places (including “air”, that’s what skyscrapers are for). They for the most part aren’t popular for various reasons, but people do live there. Also, how can you determine that my conclusions don’t follow from my premises when you claim that you don’t understand my argument?
And, by the way, I have seen the opposite point argued by space advocates, that space colonization is inevitable because space travel will never be as casual as terrestrial travel.
Whatever. I’m not arguing with those guys. I’m arguing with you. My view is that it’s a economic threshold. Once we get low enough prices to orbit, then we’ll have the necessary environment for space colonization. My view is that the bottom end of chemical rockets, say $100 to $200 per pound is probably adequate. And if it gets cheap enough for casual visits to orbit, then that’s well below the threshold.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
But I’m confident that you’ll continue to not get it, extrapolating from years of experience.
I get it, Rand. I really, really do. Religious freedom is important. Religious freedom is important to me especially since I don’t have conventional religious views.
But there are things that are more important. Air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, shelter against the elements, etc. I submit that if the New World did not offer these things then few Europeans would have cared whether it offered the prospect of religious freedom. Maybe the Irish emigrated because they didn’t like their taxes going to the Church of England but I think the famine was more important.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
But there are things that are more important. Air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, shelter against the elements, etc. I submit that if the New World did not offer these things then few Europeans would have cared whether it offered the prospect of religious freedom.
Who is arguing with that? Our point is that once technology evolves to the point at which they are available off planet, then other reasons will prevail than simple economic ones.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
So what? That’s today. That’s not a century from now.
Well, I don’t what conditions will be like a century from now. I submit that you, or anyone else, doesn’t either. So I don’t think arguments predicated on conditions a century hence are very strong.
My view is that within a thousand years, most humans will no longer live on Earth. I’d guess I should say that I see that as a more likely scenario than humans staying solely on Earth for whatever reasons.
You’ve made your views very clear. I respect you views but as premises for arguments they are unpersuasive.
You are claiming widespread human activity in space while everyone lives on Earth.
I view this as a possibility, yes. Indeed, even if space colonization is eminently practical as you insist, I think this would be a necessary step along the way.
I’m just pointing out yet again that your analogy on Earth didn’t fit your description in space.
Not precisely, no. What analogy could? We can’t fish in space, for example.
The important thing to remember about sea and space travel is that the most important resource is the ability to travel from point A to point B. That’s the key reason for travel in both mediums. Where’s point B in space? It’s Earth because that’s the only developed destination in your scenario.
No, I disagree. I think point to point travel on earth will only be a minor driver for space development. If I had to speculate (which I did as you recall) I think resource extraction (solar power, platinum group metals, etc) would be the main driver for space development. I think these drivers could possibly be lucrative enough to support a large number of people working in space even if that number is only a small fraction of humanity. I think few space advocates would disagree with this, indeed many make the same claim.
Actually we do make our homes in those places (including “air”, that’s what skyscrapers are for). They for the most part aren’t popular for various reasons, but people do live there.
Fine, Karl, I won’t quibble over what constitutes a home. If you want to claim that the seas are colonized because a very small fraction of humanity are present there at any given moment, I see no reason to object. And if a small fraction of humanity being in space at any given moment (like 6 people on ISS) excites you, you can declare space colonized as well. Most people won’t find much satisfaction in “colonization by redefinition”, but me, I won’t quibble, as long as we understand each other.
Also, how can you determine that my conclusions don’t follow from my premises when you claim that you don’t understand my argument?
Well, first you made a big deal about the length of time people would have to spend in space. I didn’t and still don’t see the relevance of that. Then you changed over to space travel becoming casual as the enabler for colonization. I thought that was a separate argument. If it wasn’t then I confess I have no idea what your argument was.
My view is that it’s a economic threshold. Once we get low enough prices to orbit, then we’ll have the necessary environment for space colonization. My view is that the bottom end of chemical rockets, say $100 to $200 per pound is probably adequate. And if it gets cheap enough for casual visits to orbit, then that’s well below the threshold.
My view is that the cost of space access is only one barrier to space colonization. We tend to overstate its importance because its the barrier that we’re hard up against right now. I think it likely we’ll discover that access was the least of our problems.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Our point is that once technology evolves to the point at which they are available off planet, then other reasons will prevail than simple economic ones.
Then we’ve come full circle, Rand. My point is that it technology might not ever evolve to the point at which they are available off planet, just as it hasn’t in the cases of various locations here on earth.
Or it might. But who knows?
October 14th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
> Carl Pham Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
> High finance is the least of it. Try draconian “carbon neutral” legislation
> that won’t let you set your thermostat where you please, or forces you to
> commute by smelly slow bus instead of a nice car, or possible some
> “discrimination” rules that won’t let you hire and fire who you please,
> or “hate speech” legislation that won’t let you speak your mind.
That could drive folks out of the US or EU, but none of that is getting any traction around the world. So again that doesn’t give a reason to move off world.
>== we notice that people are willing to spend $20 million dollars of their
> very own money to “colonize” space for a few days only. ==
Going to visit for a couple days doesn’t say anything about colonization (the rich spend hundreds of millions to by Yachts they sail once in a while. Doesn’t meen they will live on the ocean) — and given after only a couple tourist flights they are re-flying old customers, maybe the markets smaller then folks think.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
> October 14th, 2009 at 10:43 am
>
>> Exploring space isn’t a economic activity. No one is likely to contract you to explore.
>
> Really? Do you all those tour guides, cruise lines, etc. ===
Tourism isn’t exactly exploring space, and doesn’t need a colony.
>=
> Wernher von Braun was fond of telling people that NASA didn’t spend any money
> in space, it spent it in Houston and Huntsville.==
Further reason why assuming groups who spend x billion on space, does not equal then spending x in space in your colony. The colony is just extra overhead to them.
>>> NASA spends billions on space research?
>> Actually they don’t spend it in space research -
> Really? NASA’s FY2010 budget requests contains
> $1,405B for Earth science, $1,346B for planetary
> science, $1,121B for astrophysics, and $0.605B for heliophysics.
I been in NASA – damn little of that money goes to research.
> What do you think they’re really going to spend the money on? Golf courses?
More of that then research.
General pork, ships, etc. Drop a few billion on flying a sat to jupiter – never spend a dime on looking at the data.
>> but beyond the symantics, they arn’t going to send those billion to
>> the space colony under discusion to do it for them. Its not a economic basis for a colony.
> And you know that, how? (Beyond the fact that you say so.)
Your colony doesn’t have anything to offer. Worse, even if it could compete with all the infastructure and companies on Earth; they all have senators and congressmen who vote for the money. Your colony doesn’t.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
No, I disagree. I think point to point travel on earth will only be a minor driver for space development. If I had to speculate (which I did as you recall) I think resource extraction (solar power, platinum group metals, etc) would be the main driver for space development. I think these drivers could possibly be lucrative enough to support a large number of people working in space even if that number is only a small fraction of humanity. I think few space advocates would disagree with this, indeed many make the same claim.
Wait. What in the world are you thinking? There’s the people living in space. There’s the future colonies. Why are you arguing with me?
Well, first you made a big deal about the length of time people would have to spend in space. I didn’t and still don’t see the relevance of that. Then you changed over to space travel becoming casual as the enabler for colonization. I thought that was a separate argument. If it wasn’t then I confess I have no idea what your argument was.
I don’t know why you don’t know. It reads pretty clearly to me. I was pointing out that near future space travel isn’t going to be casual like today. People traveling in the near future will be much more likely to stay for long periods of time. The problem with comparing near future space travel to current human settlements is the effects of casual travel. People sailing on the oceans these days are less likely to be living there because they can come out for a casual visit. Same with living in remote areas. One can fly out for a casual visit. In those cases, there’s little incentive to stay for a long time. The same goes for oil rigs and other industrial infrastructure. You don’t need to live out there in order for it to work. A lot of it just requires someone to come out every week or two and take a look. In other words, a lot of activity can be done in remote locations without requiring a continuous human presence. As a result, people don’t live there because they don’t need to.
However, in space, if you need a human presence for any ongoing reason, then they might as well live either on site or very close nearby. It’ll be cheaper than flying them in every couple of weeks.
My view is that the cost of space access is only one barrier to space colonization. We tend to overstate its importance because its the barrier that we’re hard up against right now. I think it likely we’ll discover that access was the least of our problems.
Of course it is only one barrier. Another very significant one is the biological problems of living in space and on low gravity bodies. You have low or zero gravity health consequences, radiation, hazardous materials (lunar dust) and possible prevalent toxins (chromium on the Martian surface). Things that on top of the general difficulty (vacuum, temperature extremes, etc) will make living in space even more difficult.
What makes cost of access to space the Great Wall of barriers is that it is the residue of the fundamental barrier, access to space (namely, that you can’t do anything in space because you can’t get to space) and the only barrier common to every conceivable activity in space, manned or unmanned.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Then we’ve come full circle, Rand. My point is that it technology might not ever evolve to the point at which they are available off planet, just as it hasn’t in the cases of various locations here on earth.
The problem of making the technology for finding of resources for supporting humans is a problem we only need to solve once for a location before it becomes a solved problem. And for a number of interesting locations, we have a good idea of how to do it. Finally, Jim, none of your Earth examples are examples where we couldn’t develop the technology to live there. Even if we aren’t currently able to live there (say a home in the “air” as opposed to a fixed ground structure), we’ve developed many technologies that are getting us closer to doing so.
So you can talk about the “technology never evolving”, but you don’t have evidence where that actually has occurred. That is, you don’t have an example where the technology of living somewhere has simply failed to evolve further. Even if we choose not to live somewhere, we still are developing technologies that would help us, when we change our minds.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Edward,
[[[Columbus did not have the complete resources of the Spanish government behind him. Ferdinand and Isabella required him to show a cost-benefit analysis before he received a penny. They were not just politicians but the leaders of a large business empire. The Kingdom of Spain was their personal property, in a very real sense, and they expected it to be run at a profit. Columbus was on a strict budget and used the cheapest transportation available — something you find completely unacceptable today.]]]
Once again you fail to see the forest for the trees.
Columbus was limited to 3 small ships on his first voyage. On his second voyage he had 17 ships. And the number of ships keep increasing as Spain saw wealth emerge from the New World. The resources of the Spanish Crown, applied to the discovery of Columbus, ground the native Americans down.
Leif Ericson had 1 boat on his first trip. He got some inlaws and friends on the later trips but they were not enough to offset the strength of the natives. He didn’t have any kings supporting him and so was forced to give up due to lack of resources. That he why history almost forgot him but for the Norse Sagas and recent (1960’s) discoveries in Canada. The key was the depth of resources available. Columbus had the resources of Spain behind him. The Vikings only had their family and friends. That is why European settlement of the New World dates to Columbus and not Leif Ericson.
The good thing about space, or as least the Solar System, is you have no hostile natives to deal with, just space itself.
October 14th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Tourism isn’t exactly exploring space, and doesn’t need a colony.
I see. You’ve swallowed Griffin’s hogwash — exploration is “tourism” unless it’s done by the government?
Drop a few billion on flying a sat to jupiter – never spend a dime on looking at the data.
“A few billion”? But you just said NASA doesn’t spend billions of dollars on space science!
October 14th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Columbus was limited to 3 small ships on his first voyage. On his second voyage he had 17 ships. And the number of ships keep increasing as Spain saw wealth emerge from the New World.
Now, contrast that to your approach, Tom.
Instead of starting small, as Columbus did, you want the government to give you hundreds of billions of dollars up front, before your first voyage even begins.
Instead of using existing vehicles, whose development has already been paid for, you would postpone the first voyage for a decade or more so NASA can build an expensive new vehicle. A vehicle so big that the loss of a single ship would mean the failure of an entire expedition.
Most importantly, Columbus and his crew spent years honed his skills in coastal voyages in the Mediterranean and Atlantic — the equivalent of those boring suborbital and LEO markets that aren’t “hard” enough to hold your interest.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
>October 14th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
>> Tourism isn’t exactly exploring space, and doesn’t need a colony.
> I see. You’ve swallowed Griffin’s hogwash — exploration is “tourism” unless it’s done by the government?
No just the fundamental that tourism isn’t exploration -certainly not the same as the exploration nations are paying for, or that being paid for by universities etc.
>> Drop a few billion on flying a sat to jupiter – never spend a dime on looking at the data.
> “A few billion”? But you just said NASA doesn’t spend billions of dollars on space science!
Is send a probe out and not looking at the data science.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:14 am
If they send the probe out and don’t look at the data, they have spent the money on science without actually doing it.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:45 am
However, in space, if you need a human presence for any ongoing reason, then they might as well live either on site or very close nearby. It’ll be cheaper than flying them in every couple of weeks.
Really? You know this for a fact? And where do you get “every couple of weeks” from? Why not every couple of years?
October 15th, 2009 at 5:18 am
The problem of making the technology for finding of resources for supporting humans is a problem we only need to solve once for a location before it becomes a solved problem.
The problem is more of finding technologies at low enough cost for supporting humans.
And for a number of interesting locations, we have a good idea of how to do it.
We have a pretty good idea of how to do it if cost is no object.
Finally, Jim, none of your Earth examples are examples where we couldn’t develop the technology to live there.
I suggest the collective experience of humanity in extreme environments over recorded history demonstrate that the problems are less tractable than you imagine.
Even if we aren’t currently able to live there (say a home in the “air” as opposed to a fixed ground structure), we’ve developed many technologies that are getting us closer to doing so.
So when can we expect Canada’s population to approach that of similar sized nations?
So you can talk about the “technology never evolving”, but you don’t have evidence where that actually has occurred. That is, you don’t have an example where the technology of living somewhere has simply failed to evolve further. Even if we choose not to live somewhere, we still are developing technologies that would help us, when we change our minds.
You put words in my mouth. I don’t claim technology never evolves. That would be stupid. I claim that technology is not a magic lamp that grants us all we arbitrarily desire if we just rub it hard enough. What would be your reaction to a claim that technology will evolve to the point where a 400 foot yacht will be within the budget of the average man? Or a 150 room mansion? Or a private Mach 3 jet? Mine (and I think most) would be that while I would not absolutely rule out such possibilities (singularity? omega point?) I would be very skeptical. I feel much the same toward colonies in space. But space colonies have a far greater emotional appeal than 400 foot yachts or 150 room mansions or Mach 3 private jets.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:09 am
> john hare Says:
>October 15th, 2009 at 1:14 am
>
> If they send the probe out and don’t look at the data, they have
> spent the money on science without actually doing it.
Rule one in politics: images is everything, results or substance are nothing.
They can brag about colecting huge amounts of data and getting probes there first. So they get all the headlines and pork, and minimize wasteful spending on researchers.
Old story. Skylab had spectacular solar and Earth observatories, but most of the data tapes were never looked at afterwords. Finally they weer lost when the basement store room in Maryland flooded, and was so out of the way – no one even noticed for days.
Folks wonder about the insanity of building the ISS for over a $100B then throwing it away 5 years later? Well, they didn’t build it to do anything with it – just to build it with the Russians. They striped the research and on orbit operations support functions to save money. All the show with none of the go.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:16 am
> Jim Davis Says:
> October 15th, 2009 at 4:45 am
>
>> However, in space, if you need a human presence for any ongoing reason,
>>then they might as well live either on site or very close nearby. It’ll be
>>cheaper than flying them in every couple of weeks.
> Really? You know this for a fact? And where do you get “every couple of
> weeks” from? Why not every couple of years?
Agree – but not with the couple of Years part. A couple weeks likely is to short, but years would burn folks out. The oil rigs and sub forces figure 3 months on, 3 off was about optimum.
Really adding a ful comunity there for perminent res – is almost a ten folld jump in expence. Your not going to do that until your local ops are getting very large scale.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am
>..But space colonies have a far greater emotional appeal than
> 400 foot yachts or 150 room mansions or Mach 3 private jets.
I don’t know about that. The yacht adn jet sounds really appealing to me.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
No just the fundamental that tourism isn’t exploration
Even the Saganites disagree with you on that. Louis Friedman says “Exploration without science is tourism.”
-certainly not the same as the exploration nations are paying for, or that being paid for by universities etc.
So, the market does exist but you consider it Politically Incorrect because the wrong people are paying for it?
But, aren’t the people who pay for “tourism” usually taxpayers? Doesn’t that mean they’re the same ones paying for those nations and universities?
> “A few billion”? But you just said NASA doesn’t spend billions of dollars on space science!
Is send a probe out and not looking at the data science.
You’ve got me, but you didn’t say that such spending was Politically Incorrect — you said it didn’t exist.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:33 am
What would be your reaction to a claim that technology will evolve to the point where a 400 foot yacht will be within the budget of the average man? I would be very skeptical.
No doubt. It wasn’t that long ago that a 14-foot boat was outside the budget of the common man. (Something that John Stossel pointed out in a recent special.) The concept of economic and technological progress seems to be completely beyond you. The most foolish of your “unconventional religious beliefs” is the conviction that nothing that hasn’t happened in the past can ever happen in the future.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Rand. My point is that it technology might not ever evolve to the point at which they are available off planet, just as it hasn’t in the cases of various locations here on earth.
Or it might. But who knows?
People who analyze the technological requirements and the underlying science.
Understanding such things is not impossible, no matter what you believe.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Really? You know this for a fact? And where do you get “every couple of weeks” from? Why not every couple of years?
Read my post. I was discussion Earth infrastructure that needs to be inspected that frequently. So if we have space based infrastructure that needs to be inspected that frequently, either you have people live nearby or you bring them in every couple of weeks. It’s a mode of maintenance that can’t really be sustained in space due to near future barriers to casual space travel.
The problem is more of finding technologies at low enough cost for supporting humans.
Yes. And that is a problem we only need to solve once. We probably go well past that basic threshold, evolving technology as we go, but it’s only a one time barrier.
We have a pretty good idea of how to do it if cost is no object.
In my view, we have a pretty good idea how to do it even in the real world once we get cost of access to space down enough.
I suggest the collective experience of humanity in extreme environments over recorded history demonstrate that the problems are less tractable than you imagine.
Your evidence contradicts your suggestion. For example, you keep attempting to use Canada as an example. It’s populated and the population increaseses by 0.8% a year, there are people living everywhere. It doesn’t support your suggestion.
You put words in my mouth. I don’t claim technology never evolves.
You said it “might never evolve”. I was addressing that condition in which it never evolves. After all, if technology continues to evolve then you don’t have an argument. It isn’t worth the effort to consider the situation where your argument is wrong by initial conditions. So what are examples of technology not evolving, especially with respect to extending human habitat? I obviously can’t think of an example.
What would be your reaction to a claim that technology will evolve to the point where a 400 foot yacht will be within the budget of the average man? Or a 150 room mansion? Or a private Mach 3 jet? Mine (and I think most) would be that while I would not absolutely rule out such possibilities (singularity? omega point?) I would be very skeptical. I feel much the same toward colonies in space. But space colonies have a far greater emotional appeal than 400 foot yachts or 150 room mansions or Mach 3 private jets.
That would just be error on your part. It’s clear that the average man in a developed country now can afford things that his distant predecessors couldn’t. For example, a house or a car, the usual electrical appliances. That sort of thing. Simply raising the life expectancy of a person by a factor of ten would do the job, in my view.
Moving on, there is a big difference between a 400 foot yacht (and the other current trappings of great personal wealth) and a colony in space. Namely, that the former is intended to be expensive while the latter is expensive due to current economics. I see no indications that the economics of space colonization will remain infeasible.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:22 am
> Edward Wright Says:
> October 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
>
>> No just the fundamental that tourism isn’t exploration
>>-certainly not the same as the exploration nations are paying
>> for, or that being paid for by universities etc.
> So, the market does exist but you consider it Politically Incorrect
> because the wrong people are paying for it?
Are you trying to be dense?
The current folks paying for exploration and science in space (national govs and some universities) don’t count what tourist groups are proposing (or anything like other tourist ops I can think of) as exploration efforts.
> But, aren’t the people who pay for “tourism” usually taxpayers?
> Doesn’t that mean they’re the same ones paying for those nations and universities?
Ah, NO!
>>> “A few billion”? But you just said NASA doesn’t spend billions of dollars on space science!
>> Is sending a probe out and not looking at the data science.
> You’ve got me, but you didn’t say that such spending was Politically Incorrect — you said it didn’t exist.
I said it wasn’t spent on space science.
Back from your assides. The thread started with the idea that the world spent X billion a year (I think $20B) a year on space, so if that much a year was spent in the space colony – that would (with economic multipliers) lead to $200B a year economy. Except, virtually none of what those Nations spend in space now would be something the colonies could compete for.
The Mil and commercials dominate the money, and they launch sats to Earth orbits. Your not going to be cost competative with sat makers on earth due to your remote location with high costs to ship supplies to you from builders etc. For the mil, security and political interest demand in the nation constructions.
For national programs like NASA there are political constraints, and again – how coul;d you compete with earth builders lower costs?
Anyway this doesn’t leed to your space colony getting any sizable fraction – if any – of the current worlds expenditures in space.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I don’t think a convincing case has been made that space colonization won’t happen on a large scale. We’re talking about a future event so obviously, nothing is certain. But my view is that there hasn’t been any real evidence put forth against the feasibility of colonization. The only reason this is even in discussion in my view is because we didn’t solve enough of the space colonization’s problems in the past few generations. That is, because our current efforts aren’t quickly leading to colonies, people are starting to entertain the idea that maybe it will never happen due to hypothetical technological reasons. But that’s a bizarre assertion to make given both the history of massive colonization on Earth (we’re good at it and have done it on the scales needed for space colonization), and the fact that we’re still developing a lot of new technologies for space and access to space. It’s like a kid playing around with a Rubik’s Cube and declaring it unsolvable because they haven’t been able to figure it out in thirty minutes.
To put it simply, we haven’t worked enough on the problem to determine that it is as hard as is claimed.
Moving on, there are a number of technology “game changers” that could happen as well. Longevity increase is one such. Even ignoring other technological advances, I see a factor of ten increase in life span as sufficient in itself to enable space colonization. In my estimation, a factor of hundred increase in lifespan would be sufficient to enable interstellar colonization. For example, if I knew that I had a good chance (say 50% or better) of living 10,000 years, I would personally plan a one way trip to the Wolf 424 binary stars (which pass well within a half light year of Earth in roughly 8000 years). My lifespan is the only obstacle.
There’s also intelligence improvement (the trigger for the “Singularity” hypothesis is smarter than human intelligences iteratively building even smarter beings), great reductions in the cost of energy, and automated manufacture cost reduction to the limits solely of energy and the cheaper materials. Even if no dramatic breakthrough in technology occurs, there’s the steady improvement in the economy over decades.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I don’t think a convincing case has been made that space colonization won’t happen on a large scale. We’re talking about a future event so obviously, nothing is certain. But my view is that there hasn’t been any real evidence put forth against the feasibility of colonization.
I think you’re confused about where the burden of proof lies.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I think you’re confused about where the burden of proof lies.
It doesn’t lie with me. There’s no confusion here.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Jim, let me put this way. You have made some variation of the argument that space colonization won’t happen. As evidence, you claim that some areas on Earth are sufficiently underdeveloped and unpopulated to prove your point. Setting aside that I disagree with that interpretation of evidence, you are making a claim that requires evidence. Because it is effective a proof of impossibility, the claim cannot be falsified in a reasonable time frame (unless we kill ourselves off first).
In comparison, I have as evidence:
history of past human colonizations, some of similar extent to a large scale colonization of space.
Evidence that technologies necessary for space colonization continue to be developed at a steady pace. We also have a good grasp of what tools to use and problems to overcome.
Evidence that the cost of access to space, the single greatest obstacle is decreasing and can decrease considerably more than it has.
In other words, I have evidence that we are indeed progressing towards space colonization. I can’t prove that we can colonize space. We’d have to do so first. But I can prove reasonable progress to that goal which will have to suffice for today.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I was discussion Earth infrastructure that needs to be inspected that frequently. So if we have space based infrastructure that needs to be inspected that frequently, either you have people live nearby or you bring them in every couple of weeks. It’s a mode of maintenance that can’t really be sustained in space due to near future barriers to casual space travel.
We talk right past each other, Karl. You don’t need people living nearby, as in make their homes nearby. You need people who work nearby and are away from their homes for long periods of time. Like sailors, oil rig workers, Antarctic researchers, construction workers, etc. This might sound incredible to you, Karl, but there is no shortage of people who are quite willing to work for long periods of time away from home as long as they are well compensated. Indeed, many prefer that kind of work.
Yes. And that is a problem we only need to solve once. We probably go well past that basic threshold, evolving technology as we go, but it’s only a one time barrier.
I don’t recall ever suggesting that each and every colonist will have to start from scratch and learn everything all over again. I think I suggested that difficulties that have proven intractable here on earth might prove equally so in the much more severe environments of space.
In my view, we have a pretty good idea how to do it even in the real world once we get cost of access to space down enough.
We all have views.
Your evidence contradicts your suggestion. For example, you keep attempting to use Canada as an example. It’s populated and the population increaseses by 0.8% a year, there are people living everywhere. It doesn’t support your suggestion.
Note I spoke of particular regions of Canada; specifically the subarctic. So when does Canada’s population approach that of the US? When does the Yukon achieve provincial status?
You said it “might never evolve”. I was addressing that condition in which it never evolves. After all, if technology continues to evolve then you don’t have an argument.
I said: “My point is that it technology might not ever evolve to the point at which they are available off planet, just as it hasn’t in the cases of various locations here on earth.”
I didn’t say technology never evolves; I said it might not produce a particular, desirable effect, just as it hasn’t in other cases. Technology is not a genii; we don’t have flying cars, electricity from nuclear power still must be metered.
It isn’t worth the effort to consider the situation where your argument is wrong by initial conditions. So what are examples of technology not evolving, especially with respect to extending human habitat? I obviously can’t think of an example.
Technology has evolved tremendously since the neolithic era. Human habitats remain virtually unchanged in that period of time. Technology has enabled much greater numbers but not more places.
That would just be error on your part. It’s clear that the average man in a developed country now can afford things that his distant predecessors couldn’t. For example, a house or a car, the usual electrical appliances. That sort of thing. Simply raising the life expectancy of a person by a factor of ten would do the job, in my view.
Fine, you’re on record for the average man being able to afford a 150 room mansion someday. And yes, it is clear that we have capabilities that seemed magical 50 years ago and that we’ll have capabilities in 50 years that would seem magical now. “A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” and all that. But it does not follow that a sufficiently advanced technology can produce any effect we might consider magical.
Moving on, there is a big difference between a 400 foot yacht (and the other current trappings of great personal wealth) and a colony in space.
Obviously.
Namely, that the former is intended to be expensive while the latter is expensive due to current economics.
I think 400 foot yachts are just as subject to economics as any other product or service.
I see no indications that the economics of space colonization will remain infeasible.
And you see no indication that the economics of subarctic Alaskan and Canadian colonization currently are infeasible. But they are.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
The current folks paying for exploration and science in space (national govs and some universities) don’t count what tourist groups are proposing (or anything like other tourist ops I can think of) as exploration efforts.
The Planetary Society disagrees. Again, they said “exploration without science is tourism.”
Leaving that aside, why should I care what someone thinks “counts”? We were discussing whether space colonization is possible, not whether it “counts” as politically correct.
> But, aren’t the people who pay for “tourism” usually taxpayers?
> Doesn’t that mean they’re the same ones paying for those nations and universities?
Ah, NO!
Really — you don’t think governments get their money from taxpayers? Where do you think it comes from???
Universities get some of their money from private donors, but if you look further, you’ll find out most of them are taxpayers, also.
The thread started with the idea that the world spent X billion a year (I think $20B) a year on space, so if that much a year was spent in the space colony
You must be reading some other thread. The original post didn’t say that at all.
The Mil and commercials dominate the money, and they launch sats to Earth orbits. Your not going to be cost competative with sat makers on earth due to your remote location with high costs to ship supplies to you from builders etc.
Many locations in space are less “remote” from geosynchronous orbit than the Earth is. There’s no reason to assume it will cost more to ship a satellite from a space colony than from Earth.
For the mil, security and political interest demand in the nation constructions.
That’s nonsense. The US military has constructed bases in Germany, Japan, England, Iraq, Afghanistan — none of which are in the United States. And if you think military bases never lead to permanent settlements, try telling that to the residents of Fort Wayne, Fort Worth, etc.
For national programs like NASA there are political constraints, and again – how coul;d you compete with earth builders lower costs?
There’s no reason to assume that everything built on Earth will have lower cost. That’s as unrealistic as the Moonies assuming that Apollo on Steroids will immediately build a complete industrial infrastructure on the Moon. The truth is somewhere in between. There are a great many things we can do cheaper in space *once we have the ability to get to space cheaply and reliably*. The fact that the Von Braunians regard that as heresy is irrelevant.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Jim, let me put this way. You have made some variation of the argument that space colonization won’t happen. As evidence, you claim that some areas on Earth are sufficiently underdeveloped and unpopulated to prove your point. Setting aside that I disagree with that interpretation of evidence, you are making a claim that requires evidence. Because it is effective a proof of impossibility, the claim cannot be falsified in a reasonable time frame (unless we kill ourselves off first).
I do not claim that space colonization won’t happen. I do not think it will happen in the next 100 years, say. Beyond that, who can say?
What I claim is that enthusiasts haven’t made a compelling case that space colonization is feasible or practical in the near term.
In comparison, I have as evidence:
history of past human colonizations, some of similar extent to a large scale colonization of space.
What you have is evidence that human are very well adapted to conditions that are found in places on the planet earth; places that have been inhabited by humans since the stone age. The experience of humans in places on earth that they are not well adapted to does support the notion that space colonization is feasible.
Evidence that technologies necessary for space colonization continue to be developed at a steady pace. We also have a good grasp of what tools to use and problems to overcome.
Experience to date shows that the technology to support even a few humans in space is hideously expensive and that for every human in space you need tens of thousands on earth to support him. There is no evidence that anyone in space can produce value in space commensurate with the costs of keeping him in space. There is little evidence that this will change soon. And all this before even considering the matter of colonization; that is making one’s home in space.
Evidence that the cost of access to space, the single greatest obstacle is decreasing and can decrease considerably more than it has.
Whether it is the single greatest obstacle to space is not a fact only a belief. There are places on earth where access is trivial that can’t be colonized. And whether the costs of space access can ever be low enough to enable space colonization even if there were no other considerations is still very much an open question.
In other words, I have evidence that we are indeed progressing towards space colonization.
I find your evidence unconvincing.
I can’t prove that we can colonize space. We’d have to do so first. But I can prove reasonable progress to that goal which will have to suffice for today.
I think your emotional attachment to the subject clouds your judgment. Only my opinion, of course.
You can have the last word, Karl. When Rand brings the subject up again maybe we’ll have fresh arguments.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
> Karl Hallowell Says:
> October 15th, 2009 at 11:38 am
>
> I don’t think a convincing case has been made that space colonization won’t
> happen on a large scale.== because our current efforts aren’t quickly leading
> to colonies, people are starting to entertain the idea that maybe it will never ==
> happen due to hypothetical technological reasons. But that’s a bizarre assertion to
> make given both the history of massive colonization on Earth ==
Agreed. Our tech is adaquate to build a space colony – but it would take a huge capital investment to develop adn field the trasnports, system and construct everything — and we’ve identified no existing economic way to justify it, adn make it self supporting.
However, as future technology (like fusion) lower transport and recover costs, perhaps would allow economic recovery of ore, and smelt and mill metal, oil, etc for export(?) to Earth markets. One that much infastructure is avalible in space, that might make the colonies a going cocern, and allow for heavy industry moving to space as welletc.
But right now – to soon, no killer ap.
==
> Moving on, there are a number of technology “game changers” that
> could happen as well. Longevity increase is one such. Even ignoring
> other technological advances, I see a factor of ten increase in life
> span as sufficient in itself to enable space colonization. ==
I don’t follow this. Just because you are going to live for centuries, doesn’t mean your going to be willing to twiddle your thumbs for a century while losing time and money. For example if it would take 300 years to get to another star – even if you could live that long it would make no sence to go there, since other faster ships launched in a century or two you would get there before the slow boat you could take now.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I do not claim that space colonization won’t happen. I do not think it will happen in the next 100 years, say. Beyond that, who can say?
This is far better than the indefinite statements you made earlier. By putting an explicit expiration date on your prediction, you make it something that can come true. I would add that I think this actually had a rather large probability of coming true.
What I claim is that enthusiasts haven’t made a compelling case that space colonization is feasible or practical in the near term.
That’s acceptable and a good point. You might be puzzled by my about face, but my point all along was that even if it’s not feasible now, I feel we’ve demonstrate through the ways I describe above that we can eventually, even if it takes a few centuries, colonize space. It may take a few lifetimes to get all the economic and technological bricks in place, but it will happen. I don’t see however a strong case for colonization occurring this century. A lot will depend on what happens in the next couple of decades, but my guess is that it’ll be slow and somewhat inconclusive, a pessimism I’ve had off and on since the late 90’s when I started to seriously consider this stuff.
As far as colonizing subarctic Canada, I still don’t see the point. Not only is it feasible, we did it. It doesn’t have the population density of other places, but there is a nontrivial, growing population and that is what colonization is about. It’s not uniformly distributing people over the entire world, both land and ocean.
I think 400 foot yachts are just as subject to economics as any other product or service.
The point of a 400 foot yacht is as an expensive status symbol. What will happen is that they’ll find other ways to add cost to the vehicle than merely making it longer. Maybe the entire boat will be engraved by skilled artists or they’ll add tidbits like a large aquarium stocked with rare fish. I’ll be able to afford the 400 foot yacht without the options, but I won’t be able to afford the handpainted one fourth scale, mahogany model of the roof of the Sistine Chapel in my boat or the replica of the Eiffel Tower, handmade by intelligent panda bears.
Cost of space travel and technologies will go down due to economies of scale. That’s just a consequence of high fixed costs and much lower variable costs. But luxury goods that stay luxury goods will find ways to add cost, because cost is an important part of owning the luxury good. Also it’s worth noting that yachts (aside from the monsters like the 400 foot yacht) and other luxury goods typically have much greater production rates than space vehicles and other doodads. And they have a strong lineage. Even if a yacht maker hasn’t made a 400 foot yacht before, they usually have considerable experience in making large yachts and centuries of engineering knowledge and designs to work off of.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
> October 15th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
>
>> The current folks paying for exploration and science in space (national
>> govs and some universities) don’t count what tourist groups are
>> proposing (or anything like other tourist ops I can think of) as exploration efforts.
> why should I care what someone thinks “counts”?
Because you were talking about money going to something and confusing it with something completely unrelated.
>>> But, aren’t the people who pay for “tourism” usually taxpayers?
>>> Doesn’t that mean they’re the same ones paying for those nations and universities?
>> Ah, NO!
> Really — you don’t think governments get their money from taxpayers?
They don’t pay tourists vacation bills with it.
===
>> The thread started with the idea that the world spent X billion a
>>year (I think $20B) a year on space, so if that much a year was spent in the space colony
==
>> The Mil and commercials dominate the money, and they launch
>> sats to Earth orbits. Your not going to be cost competative with
>> sat makers on earth due to your remote location with high
>> costs to ship supplies to you from builders etc.
> Many locations in space are less “remote” from geosynchronous
> orbit than the Earth is. There’s no reason to assume it will cost
> more to ship a satellite from a space colony than from Earth.
I didn’t say cost to ship it from the colony. I said the colony would not be cost competative. To bemore explict the delivered cost of the sat to the orbit from Earth would almost certainly becheaper then one built on the colony due to the colonies remote location.
Even if the colony was in the same area in space (say also in geosync) it likely would be uncompetitive.
>> For the mil, security and political interest demand in the nation constructions.
> That’s nonsense. The US military has constructed bases
> in Germany, Japan, England, Iraq, Afghanistan ===
They don’t contract for sats, fighters, etc from them.
>> For national programs like NASA there are political
>> constraints, and again – how coul;d you compete with
>> earth builders lower costs?
> There’s no reason to assume that everything built on
> Earth will have lower cost. ===
I waas assuming orbital satelights. Comsats, recon sats, Hubble 3, whatever.
How would they not be cheaper? Costs of labor, support infrastructure, supplies (manufactured goods), etc would be lower; and their are etablished supliers for the sats etc on Earth with experence. That all puts you at a huge competative disadvantage.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
But right now – to soon, no killer ap.
I absolutely agree, Kelly.
I don’t follow this. Just because you are going to live for centuries, doesn’t mean your going to be willing to twiddle your thumbs for a century while losing time and money. For example if it would take 300 years to get to another star – even if you could live that long it would make no sence to go there, since other faster ships launched in a century or two you would get there before the slow boat you could take now.
At some point the technology is going to settle down. If faster ships could get you there sooner, then wait for the faster ships. But eventually you’ll reach a point where the faster ship just isn’t worth the effort. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing for someone to get there before you do. An interstellar system is a big place.
And for interstellar travel, I’d consider it if my expected lifespan was on the order of 10,000 years. A trip to Wolf 424 at its closest point, even traveling at the relatively slow speed of 0.01 c is on the order of 50 years (or maybe a century, if closest approach is 1 ly as Wikipedia claims). According to Wikipedia, that closest approach happens in 7700 years. It may not be the greatest of ideas, those two stars are, as far as I know, metal poor. But it is feasible for someone with that kind of time at their disposal who steadily invests a modest income over a few millennia into steady investments and enabling technologies.
I meant this to be an example of what longevity on its own can do.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
> Karl Hallowell Says:
> October 15th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
==
>> For example if it would take 300 years to get to another star – even
>> if you could live that long it would make no sence to go there, since
>> other faster ships launched in a century or two you would get there
>> before the slow boat you could take now.
> At some point the technology is going to settle down. ==
Folks have been saying that for a few centuries..
.. I would not hold your breath.
>== eventually you’ll reach a point where the faster ship just isn’t worth
> the effort. ==
Really it is. If you take longer – you need a HUGE heavy ship, with more complicated tech adn nearly 10 fold larger crew.. It gets easier to just go faster.
Check out a old website I did for a group on the topic.
http://metalab.unc.edu/lunar/school/InterStellar/SSD_index.html
>== And it’s not necessarily a bad thing for someone to get there before you do. An interstellar system is a big place.
> And for interstellar travel, I’d consider it if my expected lifespan
> was on the order of 10,000 years. A trip to Wolf 424 at its closest
> point, even traveling at the relatively slow speed of 0.01 c is on
> the order of 50 years (or maybe a century, if closest approach is
> 1 ly as Wikipedia claims). According to Wikipedia, that closest approach
> happens in 7700 years.===
First I think we could do 0.4 of light with tech likely in the mid to late century..
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/InterStellar/Fuel_Sail_Class/default.html
..Late this century, with physicists thinking the nexty wav will be advances in spacial enginering (altering innertia or kinetic energy, maybe zero point energy for all we know) you’re best bet now would be for at least most of the speed of light in a century. The only way we could do faster then light (and far far freakier things) in 7700 years is we went extinct, and no way do I think thats likely!
October 15th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
> why should I care what someone thinks “counts”?
Because you were talking about money going to something and confusing it with something completely unrelated.
So? You started off by saying the markets didn’t exist. Now, you admit that markets exist they don’t “count” because you say they’re “unrelated” and don’t fit your definitions of “science,” “exploration,” etc.
Why should we discount markets that don’t fit your definitions?
> Really — you don’t think governments get their money from taxpayers?
They don’t pay tourists vacation bills with it.
They don’t? Who do you think pays the bills for all the astronauts NASA sends to ISS? (No, don’t bother to quibble and tell me “tourist” is a derogatory term reserved for astronauts who don’t work for the government. The fact is the government pays for them, whether you choose to call them astronauts, tourists, GS-13s, or ducks.)
To bemore explict the delivered cost of the sat to the orbit from Earth would almost certainly becheaper then one built on the colony due to the colonies remote location.
The fact that you’re certain of something does not prove that you’re prove correct. I could suggest some reading. Try Gerard O’Neill’s “High Frontier” and G. Harry Stine’s “Space Enterprise,” for starters.
> That’s nonsense. The US military has constructed bases
> in Germany, Japan, England, Iraq, Afghanistan ===
They don’t contract for sats, fighters, etc from them.
I thought they contracted with England for the Harrier jet. I also thought those satellites were launched using Russian rocket engines. Do you know otherwise?
What exactly do jet fighters have to do with space colonies? I thought we were talking about building bases in space, not jet fighters.
I waas assuming orbital satelights. Comsats, recon sats, Hubble 3, whatever.
You’re talking about military space as it exists today, which is equivalent to aviation in the early days of World War I. Those satellites are the equivalent of the crude observation planes. We expect our enemies to be sportsmanlike and follow “rules of the road,” and we’re shocked that China would develop the means to throw a brick at one of our sputniks.
That won’t last forever. Space will be militarized no matter what pacifists wish.
How would they not be cheaper? Costs of labor, support infrastructure, supplies (manufactured goods), etc would be lower; and their are etablished supliers for the sats etc on Earth with experence.
Compare the cost of building a space battle station from lunar or asteroid materials vs. materials launched from Earth. The cost of labor, etc. has very little do with it. You can’t hire minimum wage workers to throw mass into orbit.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
> October 15th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
>
>>> why should I care what someone thinks “counts”?
>> Because you were talking about money going to something
>> and confusing it with something completely unrelated.
> So? You started off by saying the markets didn’t exist. ==
The ones you claimed yes.
> Now, you admit that markets exist they don’t “count” because you
> say they’re “unrelated” and don’t fit your definitions of “science,” “exploration,” etc.
False.
==
>>> Really — you don’t think governments get their money from taxpayers?
>> They don’t pay tourists vacation bills with it.
> They don’t? Who do you think pays the bills for all the astronauts
> NASA sends to ISS?==
They are not tourists they are the staff to build ad operate the ISS.
>> To be more explict the delivered cost of the sat to the orbit
>> from Earth would almost certainly becheaper then one built
>> on the colony due to the colonies remote location.
> The fact that you’re certain of something does not prove that
> you’re prove correct.==
Its basic busness. Your colony, and space establismment you can consider for generations, is farther out from supplies, labor, high cost. Transport to it is more expensive then to current providers on Earth. Labor costs and support costs (i.e. the cost you have to pay in salary and other fees to support the communities around it.) obviously cheaper then building adn supporting a space colony.
>== Try Gerard O’Neill’s “High Frontier” and G. Harry Stine’s “Space Enterprise,” for starters.
>>> That’s nonsense. The US military has constructed bases
>>> in Germany, Japan, England, Iraq, Afghanistan ===
>>They don’t contract for sats, fighters, etc from them.
> I thought they contracted with England for the Harrier jet. ==
Nope, McDonnel Douglas developed a new higher performance version. Embarasing
>== I also thought those satellites were launched using
> Russian rocket engines. Do you know otherwise?
The RD-180s? P&W can make them – or they can buy and sell Russian ones. Not sure if any mill birds are launched on Atlas’ with Russian RD-180s.
> What exactly do jet fighters have to do with space colonies? I
> thought we were talking about building bases in space, not jet fighters.
No, we were talking about what part of the current market for space activities a Colony could successfully compete for. Given that, you could get some idea on what kind of funds you could project the economic basis for the colony could be.
>> I was assuming orbital satelights. Comsats, recon sats, Hubble 3, whatever.
> You’re talking about military space as it exists today, ==
Yes, we were talking about the current space market, or any near term market, that could form a economic bassis for a space colony.
> That won’t last forever. Space will be militarized no matter what pacifists wish.
True – once theres enough there to be worth fighting for.
>> How would they not be cheaper? Costs of labor, support
>>infrastructure, supplies (manufactured goods), etc would be
>> lower; and their are etablished supliers for the sats etc on Earth with experence.
> Compare the cost of building a space battle station from lunar or
> asteroid materials vs. materials launched from Earth.
Higher from lunar or Asteroid material. Check out the DOE report in the ’70’s comparing SSPS built exclusivly from Earth launched prefabracated parts vrs the Lunar>L-5 senerio. Far higher capital costs to develop and field thelunarmines, launch facilities, in space caters, smelting/milling/manufacturing facilities. And of course the cities and towns to hold the staffs to operate all the above.
O’Neill’s basic error was not looking into economies of scale where launch services are involved. He assumed advanced shuttles with a fixed operating cost per ton, and asume that the cost was driven by the gravity well. Then they figured that that was driving 90% of the SSPS program, so lunar material would save so much in lift costs, that it would bankroll the L-5 colony concept.
However Launch energy from Earth or Luna have virtually no impact on launch costs. Virtually all of current Earth to Leo costs are the capital costs and overhead costs for the launchers. The direct cost per flight – even with current gen launchers – is comparativly tiny. Its why you find if you go over the program costs that cost to GEO for a SSPS from Earth is Lower then from Luna. Worse for a Lunar mine or L-% colony. The level of launch from Earth forces you to build a CRATS grade craft, adn provides it with a market big enough to drive its costs to orbit far bellow that O’Neill assumed. Then if you redo the budget assuming the new CRATS RLV is launching ALL the mas to LEO, needed to move everything needed to GEO. You find lunar launched material keeps coming out more expensive.
>The cost of labor, etc. has very little do with it. You can’t hire minimum
> wage workers to throw mass into orbit.
No, min wage folks don’t operate high end machinery – not even on a significant construction site on Earth.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:16 am
On some selected comments, Kelly:
Really it is. If you take longer – you need a HUGE heavy ship, with more complicated tech adn nearly 10 fold larger crew.. It gets easier to just go faster.
OTOH, ever scrap of that larger ship and every member of that crew will be valuable when you get where you’re going. But my view is that the task is far enough ahead that we’ll have an adequate selection of far better technologies to choose from. If there are exotic propulsion technologies available, then it’ll make sense to use those. I chose the 0.01 c target simply because it’s an achievable speed with near future technologies. I’m not dependent on great advances in propulsion technology, but I won’t turn my nose, when they show up.
Extreme longevity in itself is a sufficient enabling technology. Even if in the unlikely event that space technology doesn’t advance much in the next 7,700 years, if you can live that long, you can plan an expedition to another star system. Living to a few centuries should be sufficient for planning and carrying space colonization in the Solar System.
You find lunar launched material keeps coming out more expensive.
That doesn’t follow in the long term. The Moon has lower delta v to everything in the Solar System and no atmosphere. That means it’s easier to build launch systems that launch for the cost of (Lunar) energy. For example, we could deploy a tether system (using today’s materials) to L1/2 or launch by magnetic rail. I also suspect you’ll get better times to market (for everything except LEO) than launching from Earth.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:19 am
> They don’t? Who do you think pays the bills for all the astronauts
> NASA sends to ISS?==
They are not tourists they are the staff to build ad operate the ISS.
You’re arguing around in circles: “Exploration” isn’t “a market.” “Tourism” isn’t “exploration.” “Staff” aren’t “tourists.” Etc. Etc.
It’s pretty obvious that human spaceflight is a substantial market, no matter how often you change words to try to keep your argument afloat.
Its basic busness. Your colony, and space establismment you can consider for generations, is farther out from supplies, labor, high cost. Transport to it is more expensive then to current providers on Earth.
According to your “basic business,” human beings could never move out of central Africa.
You’re assuming everything would be transported from Earth, which is as foolish as assuming that humans would always depend on supplies from the Rift valley of Africa.
> What exactly do jet fighters have to do with space colonies? I
> thought we were talking about building bases in space, not jet fighters.
No, we were talking about what part of the current market for space activities a Colony could successfully compete for.
No, the idea that current markets are the only markets that will ever exist is your hangup.
I suggested that military bases could evolve into space colonies. You went off about how that couldn’t happen because national security requires all military construction to take place in the US. Faced with the obvious counterexample of US bases all over the world, you changed the subject to jet fighters.
Which might be relevant, if I had suggested space colonies might evolve from jet fighters, rather than military bases. Of course, I didn’t, so why yammer about jet fighters?
> You’re talking about military space as it exists today, ==
Yes, we were talking about the current space market, or any near term market, that could form a economic bassis for a space colony.
There’s a big difference between “near term” and “what exists today.” No one can predict everything that will happen in the future. but assuming that it will be exactly like the present ensures that you will always be wrong.
> That won’t last forever. Space will be militarized no matter what pacifists wish.
True – once theres enough there to be worth fighting for.
Some people think America is worth fighting for. “Whoever controls space controls the Earth.” Why do you think China is developing a military spaceplane? It’s not because they think there’s nothing worth fighting for.
Higher from lunar or Asteroid material. Check out the DOE report in the ’70’s comparing SSPS built exclusivly from Earth launched prefabracated parts vrs the Lunar>L-5 senerio.
Kids today say the darndest things.
The DOE never even looked at extraterrestrial resources. Most of the study didn’t even concern engineering. That was only one volume out of a dozen or so. Most of it was devoted to socio/politico/cultural/environmental/disarmament types “researching” all the reasons why cheap energy from space was a terrible idea.
I suggest you get hold of a copy and read it.
Far higher capital costs to develop and field thelunarmines, launch facilities, in space caters, smelting/milling/manufacturing facilities.
Yes, and the capital costs of moving out of the Rift vallyet were far higher than staying there and remaining hunter-gatherers. That didn’t stop people from doing it. People *do* occassionally invest capital, you know.
October 16th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
> Karl Hallowell Says:
> October 16th, 2009 at 10:16 am
>>On some selected comments, Kelly:
>> Really it is. If you take longer – you need a HUGE heavy ship,
>> with more complicated tech and nearly 10 fold larger crew.. It gets easier to just go faster.
> OTOH, ever scrap of that larger ship and every member of that
> crew will be valuable when you get where you’re going.
Its better to increase your odds of getting there alive.
> But my
> view is that the task is far enough ahead that we’ll have an adequate
> selection of far better technologies to choose from. ==
really, With 0.4C achievable nowish – you really can’t consider a future century or two were weernot doing better then that. If we haven’t advanced – were in trouble and were not going to be worrying about interstellar if we have serious problems.
==
> Extreme longevity in itself is a sufficient enabling technology.
> Even if in the unlikely event that space technology doesn’t
> advance much in the next 7,700 years, if you can live that long,
> you can plan an expedition to another star system. ==
Just because you can live that long – a multi-century flight -doesn’t mean your ship can. Its easier to go fast then last long.
>> You find lunar launched material keeps coming out more expensive.
> That doesn’t follow in the long term. The Moon has lower delta v to
> everything in the Solar System and no atmosphere. That means it’s
> easier to build launch systems that launch for the cost of (Lunar) energy. ==
Delta-V isn’t a cost driver even now in Earth launch. Earth launch to LEO costs pennies per pound of energy to LEO. So cutting that by a factor of 20 doesn’t help you. (A nit that a lot of space advocates overlook.) Longer term it means les since power will be cvheaper and we’ll use better drives.
Now its possible some other economic factor could make lunar ore more desirable. Better ore, legal flexibility, cheaper ships or something. But all that’s kind of far future industrial trade offs.
> For example, we could deploy a tether system (using today’s materials)
> to L1/2 or launch by magnetic rail. I also suspect you’ll get better times
> to market (for everything except LEO) than launching from Earth.
You might want to run some numbers on that.
October 16th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
> Edward Wright Says:
October 16th, 2009 at 10:19 am
>>> They don’t? Who do you think pays the bills for all the astronauts
>>> NASA sends to ISS?==
>> They are not tourists they are the staff to build ad operate the ISS.
> You’re arguing around in circles: “Exploration” isn’t “a market.”
>“Tourism” isn’t “exploration.” “Staff” aren’t “tourists.” Etc. Etc.
No you just keep changing the def of terms when the numbers don’t add up. You can’t define what would be a base market to start or build a colony on.
> It’s pretty obvious that human spaceflight is a substantial market, ==
really, based on what? At what price point?
>> Its basic busness. Your colony, and space establismment you can
>> == is farther out from supplies, labor, high cost. Transport to it
>> is more expensive then to current providers on Earth.
> According to your “basic business,” human beings could never move out of central Africa.
No one moved out of Africa having to have the folks backhome baying the bils. Think more resent colonies.
> You’re assuming everything would be transported from Earth, ==
They’ll use the cheapest source, and do your own cutting edge tech invoves huge capital and personal expences. NATIONScan’t pull that off now, so I a small colony – especially starting up – couldn’t do it at even higher costs.
>>> What exactly do jet fighters have to do with space colonies? I
>>> thought we were talking about building bases in space, not jet fighters.
>> No, we were talking about what part of the current market for space activities a Colony could successfully compete for.
> No, the idea that current markets are the only markets that will ever exist is your hangup.
We weren’t talking about ever – we were talking about waht market could start up a colony.
> I suggested that military bases could evolve into space colonies.==
Actually you didn’t say that, you said the military fraction of current expenditures in space. – but skiping over that, it misses the point since you wouldn’t need a space mil base until AFTER there weer economically self supporting colony. So saying a colony could be founded on the economics of supporting a mil base is kind of backwards.
> == why yammer about jet fighters?
You brought it up – seemed pretty off topic to me.
>>> You’re talking about military space as it exists today, ==
>> Yes, we were talking about the current space market, or any
>> near term market, that could form a economic bassis for a space colony.
> There’s a big difference between “near term” and “what exists today.” =
You started talking about current expenditures in space, and how that money poured into a space colony….
You have another funding source, happy to talk about it.
>>> That won’t last forever. Space will be militarized no matter what pacifists wish.
>> True – once theres enough there to be worth fighting for.
> Some people think America is worth fighting for. “Whoever controls
> space controls the Earth.”
That argument came up in the 60’s that we should build a missile base on the moon to stop the red menace. There are easier ways to defend Earth then with a space colony. Actually I can’t think how you could use a space colony of any types to defend the US etc from any enemy.
>== Why do you think China is developing a military spaceplane? ==
Never heard them eve claiming they were. They are sticking with Soyuz knockoffs for the next 20 years or so – and they “MIGHT” get people to the moon in the 2020’s
>> Higher from lunar or Asteroid material. Check out the DOE
>> report in the ’70’s comparing SSPS built exclusivly from
>> Earth launched prefabracated parts vrs the Lunar>L-5 senerio.
> The DOE never even looked at extraterrestrial resources. Most of
> the study didn’t even concern engineering. ==
Didn’t need to – the base economicof Exter terestrial resources was based on high launch costs being 90+% of the cost of a Earth launch concept. But unlike O’Neil they actually contacted the big aerospace firms to propose launch systems and project costs in a SSPS project, adn it came out over a order of magnitude cheaper then the O’neil proposal – which invalidated their basic cost structure completly — as well as dramatically simplifying the program.
>> Far higher capital costs to develop and field thelunarmines,
>> launch facilities, in space caters, smelting/milling/manufacturing facilities.
You want to build a colony in space – like on Earth they have to pay their way. Handwaving about things in the distent future might be different – only say you abandoned any hope of near term space colonization.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Delta-V isn’t a cost driver even now in Earth launch. Earth launch to LEO costs pennies per pound of energy to LEO. So cutting that by a factor of 20 doesn’t help you. (A nit that a lot of space advocates overlook.) Longer term it means les since power will be cvheaper and we’ll use better drives.
I haven’t personally done the math, but I understand that the energy cost of common propellants for Earth to Orbit is on the order of five thousand pennies ($50) per pound. That’s a hard floor on chemical propulsion to orbit. Something like the space elevator would have energy costs on the order of $5 per pound perhaps plus a bit to lift propellant for station keeping on the far end.
Current airlines indicate that fuel costs are about a third of overall costs. So it’s reasonable to assume that even a space launch infrastructure on the scale of the commercial airlines is going to have a floor of around $150 per pound.
Now its possible some other economic factor could make lunar ore more desirable. Better ore, legal flexibility, cheaper ships or something. But all that’s kind of far future industrial trade offs.
I think it’ll be simply comparative advantage. Sure Earth could provide all the materials, but the Moon would be there, with plenty of solar energy, a lower gravity well, vacuum, and a need to trade. Meanwhile, the payload that Earth saves on crude materials would then be used for more valuable payloads like people, electronics, manufactured goods, etc.
A key problem is the cost of energy on the Moon. There would be a very loose coupling in that if energy cost on the Moon is too high, then it becomes cheaper to import it (for example, as nuclear reactor fuel) from Earth. That would work the other way as well (exporting either beamed power or some other product like nuclear fuel or Helium 3).
My view is that the constraint for Lunar power will be the amount of lunar labor required to produce solar cells. I figure it’ll start at least an order of magnitude more than a skilled Earth-side teleoperator. This means a strong incentive for automation beyond anything we’ve seen on Earth. If near complete automation of solar cell production and deployment can be done, then that enables lunar launch infrastructure.
For example, you could then have magnetic rail to escape velocity (or beyond) plus some crude propulsion system dependent solely on Lunar materials (say a LOX/aluminum hybrid motor) to provide the remaining delta v needed to reach a desired destination.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am
> Karl Hallowell Says:
> October 17th, 2009 at 8:15 am
> I haven’t personally done the math, but I understand that the
> energy cost of common propellants for Earth to Orbit is on
> the order of five thousand pennies ($50) per pound.
> That’s a hard floor on chemical propulsion to orbit. Something
> like the space elevator would have energy costs on the order
> of $5 per pound perhaps plus a bit to lift propellant for station keeping on the far end.===
The fuel costs (not energy) vari with craft design, but for a full rocket SSTO (biggest fuel hog config) with LOx/Kerosene rockets, its $8 per pound of cargo to LEO. With normal overhead for craft (most vehicles in a mature market cost about 3 times uel costs) your at $24 a hour. Course if you use air-breathing propulsion systems you can cut that in half. For comparison Air frieght over similar energy distances would be about $4/pound.
Space elevators actually are very expensive. Advocates overlook the extremely high capital costs the cables for a Earth to orbit space elevator would easily be $200 billion, for a cable capable of carrying 2000 tons a year. So it comes to about $500 a pound assuming a couple decade service life before the cables degrade from exposure.
>> Now its possible some other economic factor could make lunar
>> ore more desirable. Better ore, legal flexibility, cheaper ships or
>> something. But all that’s kind of far future industrial trade offs.
> I think it’ll be simply comparative advantage. Sure Earth could provide
> all the materials, but the Moon would be there, with plenty of solar
> energy, a lower gravity well, vacuum, and a need to trade. ==
Again – its the economic factors. Everyone wants to trade, and will try to undercut each others prices. Earth has a hell of a lot of folks eager to sell you not just ore – but refined manufactured parts. Since their capital costs were likely already absorbed before you placed your order – you get your product at margin costs + profit. From the moon you have not only high capital costs. You have higher operating costs since your on the moon – which is not likely going to be a cheep place to operate in the forseeable future.
>== Meanwhile, the payload that Earth saves on crude materials would
> then be used for more valuable payloads like people, electronics, manufactured goods, etc.
You have it backwards. the more payload you lift, the lower the cost per pound for all.
> A key problem is the cost of energy on the Moon. There would be a very
> loose coupling in that if energy cost on the Moon is too high, then it
> becomes cheaper to import it (for example, as nuclear reactor fuel)
> from Earth. That would work the other way as well (exporting either
> beamed power or some other product like nuclear fuel or Helium 3).
Helium 3 is kind of a space advocate myth. No reactors are being designed to use HE3 adn their are Earth based sources. The same low radiation fuel effect can be gained using Boron-11, which costs about $0.05/pound. Solar power tends to be very pricy – which again hurts your bottom line.
> My view is that the constraint for Lunar power will be the amount
> of lunar labor required to produce solar cells. I figure it’ll start at
> least an order of magnitude more than a skilled Earth-side teleoperator.
> This means a strong incentive for automation beyond anything
> we’ve seen on Earth. ==
Problem is its almost totaly automated on Earth already.
Solar cells costs can run to most of a $1000 a pound, and given any significant space colony effort would drive launch costs down a lot lower then that (well under $100 a pound if you seriously going to build a biuld a colony), so the production costs dominate. So pricer production costs on your “remote facility” could lock you out of the market.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
The fuel costs (not energy) vari with craft design, but for a full rocket SSTO (biggest fuel hog config) with LOx/Kerosene rockets, its $8 per pound of cargo to LEO. With normal overhead for craft (most vehicles in a mature market cost about 3 times uel costs) your at $24 a hour. Course if you use air-breathing propulsion systems you can cut that in half. For comparison Air frieght over similar energy distances would be about $4/pound.
Very interesting, this is much cheaper than the LOX/LH2 propellant. Let’s suppose your vehicle is made of perfect, massless unobtainium so that the only mass in the system is the propellant and the payload. Glancing around, it appears that the best possible ISP for LOX/kerosene is 300-353 seconds (that corresponds to an exhaust velocity of 2940-3,460 m/s) depending on atmospheric pressure. Further let’s suppose that you need only to reach 9,500 m/s in order to achieve LEO. That means that you have a mass fraction of roughly 4.0-6.4%, all purely payload. Another google indicates that the oxidizer to fuel ratio (in mass, if I understand correctly) is ideal somewhere around 2.5. I gather not very pure LOX is cheaper than dirt, cents per pound. And I get a price something like $0.40 per pound for kerosene. That yields a propellant price of somewhere around $0.20 per pound. Toss in a multiplier of 16-25, and you get a fuel price of $3 to $5 per pound of payload. I don’t know what the mass of Kelly’s SSTO adds, sounds like it’s consumes around half the available payload.
You have it backwards. the more payload you lift, the lower the cost per pound for all.
I didn’t say anything about lifting less payload to space. I’m talking about substituting more valuable payload (eg, electronics) for less valuable payload (concrete mix, structural members, bulk LOX).
October 17th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
> Karl Hallowell Says:
> October 17th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
>> The fuel costs (not energy) vari with craft design, but for a
>> full rocket SSTO (biggest fuel hog config) with LOx/Kerosene
>> rockets, its $8 per pound of cargo to LEO. With normal overhead
>> for craft (most vehicles in a mature market cost about 3 times
>> fuel costs) your at $24 a pound. Course if you use air-breathing
>> propulsion systems you can cut that in half. For comparison Air
>> frieght over similar energy distances would be about $4/pound.
> Very interesting, this is much cheaper than the LOX/LH2 propellant. ==
Very. LH is much lighter (though it makes a much heaver ship) so you could more then halve the weight of fuel – but the fuel costs over 3 times as much per pound.
>== Let’s suppose your vehicle is made of perfect, massless
> unobtainium so that the only mass in the system is the
> propellant and the payload. Glancing around, it appears that
> the best possible ISP for LOX/kerosene is 300-353 seconds –
You can get up to 365 isp in vacum , sea level tends down toward 300. Another reason to augment with airbreathers(like a ramjet shroud) to really increase ISp lower.
You might want to check actual isp for rockets on the ,market – or used to be.
http://www.astronautix.com/props/loxosene.htm
>== (that corresponds to an exhaust velocity of 2940-3,460
> m/s) depending on atmospheric pressure.
> Further let’s suppose that you need only to reach 9,500 m/s
> in order to achieve LEO. ==
Youre delta-V is a bit high at 9500. Also LOx/Kero boosters consume a higher fraction of their mas low, adn are more streamlined, so the delta-v to orbit is lower still. Figure 7600-8000 delta-V.
>= That means that you have a mass fraction of roughly 4.0-6.4%,
> all purely payload.
Total none fuel mass for a LOx/Kero SSTO is about 8.3% Course in a real ship your cargo will be about 2%.
>== Another google indicates that the oxidizer to fuel ratio
> (in mass, if I understand correctly) is ideal somewhere around 2.5.
Depends on the engine. RD-180s are one of the best currently on the market http://www.astronautix.com/engines/rd180.htm#RD-180 its ration is 2.72.
> I gather not very pure LOX is cheaper than dirt, cents per pound.
I large quantity about $0.05 a pound.
>= And I get a price something like $0.40 per pound for kerosene. ==
About.
>> You have it backwards. the more payload you lift, the lower the cost per pound for all.
> I didn’t say anything about lifting less payload to space.
Oh sorry.
>I’m talking about substituting more valuable payload (eg, electronics)
> for less valuable payload (concrete mix, structural members, bulk LOX).
Why? Fly more often. Another launcher in the fleets a lot cheaper then a lunar mine. Unless you have a huge long term sustained demand for your lunar ore (probably millions or tens of million, of tons a year) I don’t think you save money.
You need to cave $’s not Lb’s.
October 18th, 2009 at 12:02 am
No you just keep changing the def of terms when the numbers don’t add up. You can’t define what would be a base market to start or build a colony on.
Rubbish. I listed several markets. You just ignore them and play nonsense word games, like claiming NASA doesn’t spend any money on science because you have your own private definition of “science.”
> It’s pretty obvious that human spaceflight is a substantial market, ==
really, based on what? At what price point?
Based on the fact that NASA and RSA spend billions of dollars on it every year, at current price points. No, don’t bother giving me some Kelly Stark definition that says what they do “isn’t spaceflight.” I’ve had enough word games.
> You’re assuming everything would be transported from Earth, ==
They’ll use the cheapest source, and do your own cutting edge tech invoves huge capital and personal expences. NATIONScan’t pull that off now, so I a small colony – especially starting up – couldn’t do it at even higher costs.
We don’t need “cutting edge tech.” We could have “pulled it off” decades ago. We decided not to, for a variety of reasons.
> No, the idea that current markets are the only markets that will ever exist is your hangup.
We weren’t talking about ever – we were talking about waht market could start up a colony.
Yes, and that apparently upset you. So, you went off on rants about how science isn’t science and the military won’t be allowed to construct colonies in space because national security doesn’t allow jet fighters to be built outside the US.
I’m still waiting for you to explain why you thing space colonies are jet fighters.
Actually you didn’t say that, you said the military fraction of current expenditures in space. – but skiping over that, it misses the point since you wouldn’t need a space mil base until AFTER there weer economically self supporting colony.
False. If you had read books like “Confrontation in Space,” you would know that. We need bases in space to protect economic assets right here on Earth. If we don’t build them, someone else will.
Actually I can’t think how you could use a space colony of any types to defend the US etc from any enemy.
Yes, that is obvious. I’ve recommended books that can help you understand. If you refuse to read them, there’s nothing I can do about that.
>== Why do you think China is developing a military spaceplane? ==
Never heard them eve claiming they were. They are sticking with Soyuz knockoffs for the next 20 years or so – and they “MIGHT” get people to the moon in the 2020’s
No, that is just the public show for the peanut gallery. Go look at the pictures of Divine Dragon.
Didn’t need to – the base economicof Exter terestrial resources was based on high launch costs being 90+% of the cost of a Earth launch concept. But unlike O’Neil they actually contacted the big aerospace firms to propose launch systems and project costs in a SSPS project, adn it came out over a order of magnitude cheaper then the O’neil proposal
No, they didn’t. I have copies of those studies right on my shelves. You obviously don’t. They never did any studies of extraterrestrial resources or claimed any of the things you say they did.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:22 am
> Kelly Starks Says:
>> No you just keep changing the def of terms when the numbers
>> don’t add up. You can’t define what would be a base market to start or build a colony on.
>== like claiming NASA doesn’t spend any money on science because
> you have your own private definition of “science.”
Or because its not spent on science – in any event tyhey certainly wouldn’t spend it at your colony.
>>> It’s pretty obvious that human spaceflight is a substantial market, ==
>> really, based on what? At what price point?
> Based on the fact that NASA and RSA spend billions of dollars
> on it every year, at current price points. ==
They don’t spend billions on launch or flight. Hell, little of the shuttle budget goes to the shuttle. most goes to care and feed kSC/JSC/etc
> No, don’t bother giving me some Kelly Stark definition that says
> what they do “isn’t spaceflight.” I’ve had enough word games.
And you’re assuming you can take over ever dime listed to a space program even though little if any could possibly be done in a space colony. Much less that they would spend it at your colony.
>>> You’re assuming everything would be transported from Earth, ==
>> They’ll use the cheapest source, and do your own cutting edge tech
>> invoves huge capital and personal expences. NATIONScan’t pull that
>> off now, so I a small colony – especially starting up – couldn’t do it at even higher costs.
> We don’t need “cutting edge tech.” We could have “pulled it off” decades ago. We decided not to, for a variety of reasons.
>>> No, the idea that current markets are the only markets that will ever exist is your hangup.
>> We weren’t talking about ever – we were talking about waht market could start up a colony.
> Yes, and that apparently upset you. ==
No, though your going off on military bases in space definatly takes it out of the near term start of category. So I not unreasonably was wondering what you consider can be a start up economic basis for a colony.
==
>== If you had read books like “Confrontation in Space,” you would
> know that. We need bases in space to protect economic assets right
> here on Earth. If we don’t build them, someone else will.
Oh please! Thats like saying we need a mil base in Manhatten to defed it. That logic got thrown out decades ago.
==
>>>== Why do you think China is developing a military spaceplane? ==
>> Never heard them eve claiming they were. They are sticking with
>>Soyuz knockoffs for the next 20 years or so – and they “MIGHT”
>> get people to the moon in the 2020’s
> No, that is just the public show for the peanut gallery. Go look at the pictures of Divine Dragon.
Go look at pictures of NASP, skylon, USAF missle bases on the moon, etc. Slideshows are not plans.
>> Didn’t need to – the base economicof Exter terestrial resources was
>> based on high launch costs being 90+% of the cost of a Earth launch
>> concept. But unlike O’Neil they actually contacted the big aerospace
>> firms to propose launch systems and project costs in a SSPS project,
>> adn it came out over a order of magnitude cheaper then the O’neil proposal
> No, they didn’t. I have copies of those studies right on my shelves.
>You obviously don’t.
No mines on my hard drive.
> They never did any studies of extraterrestrial resources or claimed
> any of the things you say they did.
I was referring to O’Neil’s studies of ET material. The basic economics were based on the assumed extremely high Earth launch costs – and the assumed extremely low lunar launch costs. Thoses assumptions were invalid, and they were the complete basis of the L-5 colony economic basis.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Ok Ed,
Tryingtoget this back from a bunch of debates over what each said when. A point list of actual points weer talking about.
What could be the economic basis for a colony.
You know as well as I do that just because NASA has a budget lineitem saying $6 billion a year for the shuttle program – that doesn’t mean they spend $6 billion a year launching shuttles. If they budget $100 billion for a launcher dev program – at least 3/4th are unnessisary funds federal programs must spend havingnothing to do with getting the ships built. Basic federal contracting.
Also, if they spend $x billion on launch services – none of that can be taken over by a space colony – since by def its alread IN space, so it can’t carry something TO space.
As for building or doing something in space. There are a lot of political reasons why gov would rather not use someones colony (its more important the money get spent in the right political districts, then that they get the best product or cheaest price. Etc), and economic and practical reasons why its cheaper or more effective to build and launch stuff from Earth in any near term project, then harvesting space resources and building them.
These are all pretty much straight forward and obvious issues. So how do you get around them and find a market of billions of dollars a year (at least) – that could support and justify a space colony?
Tourism? You could fit a decent Disneyland in one of these – but could you expect millions of visitors a year to support it? Whatlaunch systems would need to be developed adn how – to lower costs enough?
Manufacturing? What would make economic sence at curentprice points?
Minning? How do you economically deliver it – or product made with it, to Earths Markets? (No, building things in space for space doesn’t help.
Who would/could put up that kind of capital to start it? The old O’Neil L-5 colony, SSPS industry concept never raised the money – and likely never made economic sence given the mistakes related to launch costs.
So where does this leave us if we want to build these?
October 19th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Youre delta-V is a bit high at 9500. Also LOx/Kero boosters consume a higher fraction of their mas low, adn are more streamlined, so the delta-v to orbit is lower still. Figure 7600-8000 delta-V.
You ignore gravity losses. And you can’t accelerate too fast in atmosphere. I intended 9500 m/s as a somewhat low estimate of the delta v required.
Why? Fly more often. Another launcher in the fleets a lot cheaper then a lunar mine. Unless you have a huge long term sustained demand for your lunar ore (probably millions or tens of million, of tons a year) I don’t think you save money.
That seems rather high. But sure, by that point the Moon has something to offer.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:06 am
>> Karl Hallowell Says:
>> October 19th, 2009 at 10:16 am
>> Youre delta-V is a bit high at 9500. Also LOx/Kero boosters
>> consume a higher fraction of their mas low, adn are more streamlined,
>> so the delta-v to orbit is lower still. Figure 7600-8000 delta-V.
> You ignore gravity losses. ==
No thats including grav loses – thats why I mentioned LOx/Kero consumes a bigger fraction of its mass low. If you burn it up low, you don’t need to lift it against gravity as long or far.
>==And you can’t accelerate too fast in atmosphere. ==
Wasn’t suggesting it – though some ships are designed to to save LOx. Mach 6 and 150,000 feet say.
>> Why? Fly more often. Another launcher in the fleets a lot cheaper
>> then a lunar mine. Unless you have a huge long term sustained
>>demand for your lunar ore (probably millions or tens of million, of
>> tons a year) I don’t think you save money.
> That seems rather high. But sure, by that point the Moon has something to offer.
Its like starting a factory in a foreghn country. If you only sell – say a few hundred, or a few thousand cars in the region, that doesn’t justify the new factory in a new hard to support place. Sell millions and you have a reason.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. I see 7,400 m/s instantaneous delta v required to get to LEO (7,800 m/s bare minimum minus 400 m/s from Earth’s rotation at 28.5 latitude). From here (which is citing this book, there are a range of delta v for selected US rockets from the 70’s and 80’s. To summarize, gravity losses range between 1,200 and 1,600 m/s of delta v and atmospheric losses start at 50 m/s (for the slowest starter and go up to around 150 m/s for the Titan IV which has an aggressive acceleration rate. Collectively the best have delta v around 1300 m/s (Delta 7925, a Delta II variant and Shuttle). You might need some extra to circularize the orbit.
While 8,600+ m/s is a lot less than I was thinking. I still don’t see how you’re getting 7,600 to 8,000 m/s. I think the trade off between gravity losses and the effects of air resistance (both losses to friction and the resulting loading on the vehicle) will keep you from getting much more than that. That at least seems to be the conventional wisdom in the stuff I read.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
>.. I still don’t see how you’re getting 7,600 to 8,000 m/s…
Those weer numbers from Micheal Burnside-Clapp paper on it.
Though given the shuttle lists about 9000 to get to the ISS, and I think 8000 ish to a normal LEO orbit, the number didn’t surprize me much.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Ok, I’ve found the original paper. It was posted in the sci.space.policy USENET group. I have to say that it is incomplete and doesn’t address my concerns. He doesn’t take into account air resistance or loading on the vehicle.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Well air resistence would obviously be a lot less given the denser fuel would allow a ship with only a fraction of the frountal area, but for a verticle assent ship boosting out of the air pretty quick I would think raising less mass to altitude would be a bigger help?
October 21st, 2009 at 5:39 am
Well air resistence would obviously be a lot less given the denser fuel would allow a ship with only a fraction of the frountal area, but for a verticle assent ship boosting out of the air pretty quick I would think raising less mass to altitude would be a bigger help?
Not if you’re moving much faster through atmosphere when you’re in it. I just find it hard to believe that the US and USSR didn’t figure out this advantage of denser propellant. Maybe when they tried, they lost rockets due to the additional strain of atmospheric loading (say ripping fins off or causing structural failure somewhere between nose cone and engine).
October 21st, 2009 at 11:33 am
> Not if you’re moving much faster through atmosphere when you’re in it. =
Your not necessarily. You’ld still be as heavy right after launch, and likely accelerate about as fast given the same thrust to weight ratio. By the time your disproportionately lighter, the air would be very thin. At 75,000 feet for example air density is 1/100th that on the surface. But thats only 15 miles up. Under a tenth your orbital height. Now later your booster could accelerate you faster as the power to weight ratio gets much better then a LOx/LH booster – but by then there isn’t any real atmosphere to give you drag..
>== I just find it hard to believe that the US and USSR didn’t
> figure out this advantage of denser propellant. ==
Oddly a lot of things weren’t realized, or have been forgotten.
When McDonnel Douglas did studies for the DC-X SSTO, they also ran the numbers for a Kerosene LOx version and reportedly weer surprized to find it was much easier to build a SSTO shuttle with Kerosene fuel then LH. The LH version allowed a high % of the vehicle at take off to be the vehicle – but the LH vehicle had to be disproportinastly heavy with a huge hydrogen take.
A weirder recent example is NASA folks and the Augustine panel disregarding the possibility of reusable space ships adn assembling huge craft in orbit launched in multiple parts. Yet the Shuttles been reusable for 30 years, assembled the huge ISS in multiple launches, adn cost a small fraction of the cost of Ares/Orion to develop or operate. Its like FedEx or UPS execs insisting overnigh delivery of packages is impossible.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:49 am
I’m still not satisfied on the air resistance problem, but this paper has been out for more than ten years. So let’s suppose you are right. Is there an even denser fuel choice that would work better than LOX/Kerosene? Let’s ignore for the moment really exotic choices (like something involving fluorine).
For an extreme example, white fuming nitric acid (WFNA) and furfuryl alcohol (a propellant combination that apparently has been used before), are both rather dense. WFNA has according to Wikipedia, a density of a bit over 1.5 g per cubic cm and furfuryl alcohol a density of somewhere around 1.128 g per cubic cm. I’m not sure where that puts the fuel mix, but it’s probably well over 1.2. In comparison, LOX/Kerosene is slightly more dense than water (1.031 g per cubic cm) and LOX/LH2 has a collective density of around 0.358 g per cubic cm.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:28 pm
>==
>Is there an even denser fuel choice that would work better than
>LOX/Kerosene? Let’s ignore for the moment really exotic choices
>(like something involving fluorine). ==[ white fuming nitric acid (WFNA) and furfuryl alcohol ]
There are, but they are pricy, and tend to disolve things – like the ships, fueling techs, etc.
Also theres not a big dif. I think Kero is about 8-9 times as dense as LH (so you roughly triple the density – according to your numbers), and easy to store and handel with normal materials. As apposed to 20% more then that with WFNA, but you might need to go to heavier stainless steel tanks adn plumbing or such.
> ==
> For an extreme example, white fuming nitric acid (WFNA)
> and furfuryl alcohol === it’s probably well over 1.2. In comparison,
> LOX/Kerosene is slightly more dense than water (1.031 g per cubic cm)
> and LOX/LH2 has a collective density of around 0.358 g per cubic cm.