On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 22:05:10 GMT, Dillon Pyron
wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 16:32:15 -0400,
wrote:

Well, yabut, not everyone wants to go into space. Sure it's grand
what he's doing and he's being wonderfully unique about his approach,
but it's freakishly expensive to do and horrifyingly dangerous.

That's what people told my ancestors when they shipped out to
Jamestown.

True, but when your ancestors arrived, they had atmosphere they could
breathe, water they could drink, wind that would power any ships they cared
to build from the wood that surrounded them, and fertile ground that would,
with luck, provide limited ready-to-eat food and allow them to grow the
foodstuffs they'd need to survive.

The solar system isn't suitable for colonization. Nowhere but on Earth can
humans survive without a HUGE infrastructure first being established. That
costs money; money not likely to be available without some sort of chance
of the investors receiving a return on the investment. Even if it's
government funded, most taxpayers will never benefit from it.

The keystone of that required infrastructure is reliable, low-cost,
*high-capacity* space transportation. Emphasis on 'high capacity.' I can
go out and buy a launch vehicle for $8 million, but all that gets me is
about 500 pounds into a 1000 mile circular orbit. Apollo made it to the
Moon, but with only enough infrastructure to support two humans for a few
days (plus a return trip, of course...not needed if the occupants are
colonists).

I'd be willing to bet that the rest of the infrastructure necessary to
support space colony life exists. We can probably develop movable
factories to manufacture air from lunar or martian soil, we can probably
come up with the hydroponic farms to grow food, and nuclear power can
provide the juice.

It's just the problem of *getting* it there. How much mass would have to
be soft-landed on the Moon to be able to send over a "colony kit," complete
with air-generators, power plants, water-distillers, air locks, structural
beams, and hydroponics farms sufficient to set up a vacuum-based colony
that'll support, say, 100 people. A half-ton per person, maybe?

Plus you have the assembly crew, who'll need air, power, water, and rations
until the colony is set up. Not to mention the lander itself, and the
mining equipment needed to dig up and process the hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen-bearing ore that will have to be there to have any hope of the
colony being viable. We're probably talking a million pounds.

I agree with Rich that population is the world's biggest problem. But
terraforming the Sahara or the seabed is almost within the grasp of current
technology, while soft-landing a million pounds on the moon is not. The
Apollo LM weighed about 32,000 pounds and probably had about 25,000 pounds
of payload capacity (one-way trip). So you'd need ~40 Saturn Vs to set up
one 100-person colony.

To quote Larry Niven: "The entire universe is waiting for us to invent
anti-gravity." :-)

Ron Wanttaja