Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 05:01:10 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #252 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sun, 27 Sep 92 Volume 15 : Issue 252 Today's Topics: Clinton and Space Funding (2 msgs) govn't R&D Hypersonic test vehicle proposed (3 msgs) Lunar landing in 2002 Mars Observer Update - 09/25/92 (Launch Day) NEAR asteroid mission (but wait! There's more!) (2 msgs) overpopulation (2 msgs) Population decline PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE Robot Rovers: Big or Small? Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 20:18:55 +0000 From: Anthony Frost Subject: Clinton and Space Funding Newsgroups: sci.space >> What we REALLY need to do is convince investors that >> starting a colony on the moon in our time is as good of an >> idea as starting a colony in the new world was back in the >> 17th century. > Let's see, ole Chris landed in the New World in 1492, the > first viable colony landed in 1620. Apollo landed on the > Moon in 1969. So we should expect private enterprise to land > a commercial colony on the Moon about 2097. Let's call it > New Plymouth. In the meantime, I guess we'll have I think the Spanish would disagree with you there, they had viable settlements in place by 1505 in the areas first reached by Colombus. A more depressing time scale would be the gap between the viking settlements in Vinland and the european settlements in that area during the 17th century. Anthony ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:16:00 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: Clinton and Space Funding Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton In article <1992Sep23.184518.25122@medtron.medtronic.com> rn11195@sage (Robert Nehls) writes: >Like it or not, the two main technology drivers for the >last 5 decades have been first the military and then the space program. Whether we like it or not, it's probably not true. Most of the patents, and most of the important inventions like transistors and genetic engineering, have come outside the sphere of these programs. >Billions of dollars have been cut from the defense budget. Where has this >money gone? No one talks about that. Most of it has gone into medical care subsidies. Unfortuneately most of that is for paperwork, not advancing medical technology. There have also been big increases at HUD, EPA, and Education. These easily dwarf the savings from defense, which is only a small fraction of the budget these days. Bush and the current Congress are the most profligate spenders since World War II, and they're not doing anything as important as fighting Nazis. >[Japan's success came at end of Cold War]. Not true. Japan has been growing faster than U.S. economically since World War II, because the U.S. was taking more money out of the private sector and spending it on the Cold War. Japan spends much more of its R&D funds in the private sector than the U.S., and most of its public-sector projects have failed just like ours have here (shuttle, Clinch River breeder reactor, fusion program, synfuels, etc. all failed to produce as promised -- public R&D has an incredibly dismal record!) Since the end of the Cold War, Japan's stock market has crashed, in anticipation of a flux of talent and money into the U.S. private sector giving us a trade advantage. If we put that money into commercially useless projects like space stations and Apollo reruns, we will lose that advantage. If we put it into commercially important areas like comsats and the airline industry, as well as judicious amounts into long-term exploration and research, we are much more likely to gain competitiveness. -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:21:46 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: govn't R&D Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton In article <1992Sep24.181713.18060@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley ) writes: > >With the government, >you can bet that every part of the program will be recorded. This is a good point. The big reason NASA can make their "spinoff" argument is not because they do better R&D, but because they publish it and make sure it gets in the engineering libraries. >Unfortunately, by convincing [a corporation] of it's efficacy and removing >legal restrictions to it's creation, we give up our right to >access their information, data, and even the facilities themselves. > It all becomes this question: What are we looking for >when we go into space? How much are we willing to sacrifice for >it? And what will we do when we get there? We're looking for stuff that is (a) useful, so people will pay for it and (b) builds a market for industrial capabilities like launch vehicles that help the entire space industry. The answer to the dilemna could well be this: NASA should conduct research, build prototypes, and publish them; commercial industry should implement and operate. NASA should not presume to predict the industries of the future; it should follow the lead of commerce and do research in support of it (esp. comsats, launch vehicle technology, and the airline industry should be the biggest engineering programs under its charter). It should also engange in exploration for it's own sake; we're not so poor that we can't afford to expand our horizons. -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 92 00:49:23 GMT From: Josh 'K' Hopkins Subject: Hypersonic test vehicle proposed Newsgroups: sci.space wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: I wrote this first part: >>The Hypersonic Air Launch Option (HALO) would be a piloted vehicle that would >>be launched from an SR-71 at Mach 3 and 70,000 ft. It would use a LH2/LOX >>rocket to reach Mach 9, then test variations on a scramjet engine at speeds up >>to Mach 10-12. It would be designed to fly 50-100 flights over a period of >>several years. >> [stuff deleted] >> Followers of "Black" programs should also note that the relative ease with >>which this could be done says a few things about what may have already been >>done. >It has been done Josh. It was called the X-15. Just go pull one out of a >museum and add scramjet. The wing attachments are identical to the ones >that are used for Pegasus or near enough I hear. The X-15 didn't make Mach 12. I think it was closer to Mach 7. It also used a plain ol' rocket engine, not a scram jet. If the point was to drop fireworks off a B-52 and make them go fast, both X-15 and Pegasus would qualify. However, the point is to learn about how various scramjet configurations perform. With the possible exception of black programs, this hasn't been done with real pilots or vehicles. (At least, not that I know of). Note: I don't want to sound like I'm slamming Pegasus or X-15. I like both. -- Josh Hopkins Of course I'm a solipsist - Isn't everybody? jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 92 02:01:05 GMT From: Mary Shafer Subject: Hypersonic test vehicle proposed Newsgroups: sci.space I just thought I'd mention that the engineer mentioned in the HALO article, Ken Iliff, is my husband. And to tie this to another thread, I've just been made HL-20 Chief Engineer at Dryden. Langley Research Center is the Lead Center for HL-20, of course. -- Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA "There's no kill like a guns kill." LCDR "Hoser" Satrapa, gunnery instructor "A kill is a kill." Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 92 03:00:58 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Hypersonic test vehicle proposed Newsgroups: sci.space In article <26SEP199213004056@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: >>Apparently Ames has proposed a Mach 10 class manned research aircraft as a >>more conservative approach to building NASP... > >It has been done Josh. It was called the X-15. Just go pull one out of a >museum and add scramjet. The wing attachments are identical to the ones >that are used for Pegasus or near enough I hear. The B-52 pylon used for launching Pegasus *is* the X-15 pylon. However, the X-15 was not good for Mach 10, and "just add scramjet" is much more easily said than done. One of the X-15s flew once with a dummy scramjet, at Mach 6.7... suffering enough damage that it never flew again. The similarity is not accidental. HALO is the X-15 *successor* that should have been started twenty years ago. But it will be a new vehicle, and necessarily so. Leave the X-15s in the museums, where they belong. -- There is nothing wrong with making | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 92 23:51:29 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: Lunar landing in 2002 Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Sep26.151124.25081@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >...US private industry won't fund >a return to the Moon because the results won't show up in their bottom >lines in the less than six months timeframe that institutional investors >will allow them for venture investments. This is silly socialist rhetoric. Chevron, among others, is planning their oil operations in Siberia out beyond 2030 -- forty years. The government rebudgets every year, with priority on pork that will get the congresscritter reelected in two years. Which sector has the longer term thinkers? -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 23:34:38 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: Mars Observer Update - 09/25/92 (Launch Day) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary In article <1992Sep26.012532.5320@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov writes: >...neither plane reported receiving any signal from TOS. >....At +39:51, the TOS was to ignite its solid >rocket boosters to send Mars Observer from an Earth parking orbit onto a >trajectory to Mars. The time came and went, and still no signal from TOS. >We don't know if the burn occured or not, or if the spacecraft was still in >Earth orbit. At +51:03, DSS-46 (26 meter antenna at Canberra) was in position >to acquire the TOS signal. Still more silence from TOS... >...At +53:31, >the Mars Observer spacecraft was scheduled to separate from the TOS, but we >could not confirm this without any feedback from TOS. The TOS was then >scheduled to perform a small delta burn at +57:31 to move itself away from >the spacecraft. Still no signal acquisition from TOS... >...We've acquired the signal from the spacecraft! >...Mars Observer was OK and on its way to Mars. Talk about flying blind! Kudos to everybody involved, except perhaps the TOS comm people. Bon voyage and godspeed to Mars Observer! -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:42:12 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: NEAR asteroid mission (but wait! There's more!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Sep24.081212.1@fnala.fnal.gov> higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: > >Let's talk about the New, Improved NASA, with Secret Ingredient FCB! >Prime target is a 1998 launch to 4660 Nereus, an asteroid with an >orbit similar to Earth's, requiring a delta-V of 1.165 km/sec. Nice delta-v. Significantly less than landing on the moon. Does anybody have the original designation of this asteroid (it was renamed after _Asteroids II_ came out)? Has it been given a type (C,S,M, etc.)? Anything else known about its composition? >The Announcement of Opportunity is due about a year from now, but the >strawman payload includes visible imager, gamma-ray spectrometer, >imaging spectrograph (I presume seeing deep into the infrared), >magnetometer, and laser altimeter. Very nice. Now, where is the upper stage going? Any chance we can ping the asteroid with the upper stage and get imaging and spectroscopy on the resulting dust cloud and crater? >The fixed 1.5 m X-band dish allows (at 1 AU from Earth) 20.8 kbits/sec >using DSN's 34-meter ground stations, 83.8 kb/sec with the 70-m >dishes. Solid-state data recorder would hold 5E5 bits. (Now that I >look at my notes, that seems a bit small! Maybe I transcribed it >incorrectly. Think that 5 coulda been an 8?) Indeed, they'd be pulling a Magellan. :-) Unlike Magellan, they might not have the clout to get tons of DSN time, and would lose the data instead. 'Tis not a good thing to skimp on storage, especially in an era of many small missions, all competing for DSN time. >Dry mass would be 400 kg, experiments taking up 60 kg of that, and >there would be 300 kg of propellants. A bipropellant propulsion >system has a big 450-N (100-pound) thruster and twelve 22-N thrusters. Hmmm. If this was a bigger payload and an electric rocket were available, I'd want to use that. Even for this small a delta-v. (It's still a bigger delta-v than comsats, which can also benefit from electric for the GTO to GEO run). I'd want to look at how much thrust is needed for maneuvering around the asteroid, though. After the Neried rendesvous, it would greatly increase the flexibility of the rest of the mission. Not that Farquar is doing so bad himself! >Now for the fun part. You say you want to visit more than one >asteroid? There's one on the way, 2019 Van Albada, and for an extra 16 >m/sec of delta-V NEAR can see it. 1.7 AU perihelion, 2.61 AU >aphelion, inclined 4.0 degrees, 17 km diameter. This one seems to be unclassified, as well. There's a small possibility of ice in that kind of orbit, though it would be well-hidden beneath the regolith. My guess of the best search space for more accessible ice is perihelion 1-2 AU, aphelion 3-4 AU, classification type C,P,D, or comet. >...2003 sailing past Comet Encke! The comet closest to the Sun: perihelion 0.33 AU (!), aphelion 4.09 AU. >Or! Do three swingbys of Earth, an Encke flyby, then return for two >Earth swingbys, and you can go on to the asteroid Eros on 18 August >2005. Naah, Eros is a boring silicate-dominated, like Gaspra. >Instead of Eros, you could go to comet Tempel-1 or another I wrote >down as S.W.3. That would be P/Schwassman-Wachman 3, in the top ten of known accessible Jupiter-family comets. Quite nice! P/Tempel-1 is almost as good. >...major asteroid Vesta with three Earth swingbys! Scientifically interesting, since it may match a unique set of meteoric material. Not a good prospecting prospect; it's basaltic and too far out in the belt. >This would >give you a "small-body grand tour" for a total delta-V cost of 158 >meters per second beyond the Nereus-orbit budget. Farquar is incredible. Does he have some software we could borrow? -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:49:03 GMT From: Paul Dietz Subject: NEAR asteroid mission (but wait! There's more!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Sep27.004212.23425@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1992Sep24.081212.1@fnala.fnal.gov> higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: >> >>Let's talk about the New, Improved NASA, with Secret Ingredient FCB! >>Prime target is a 1998 launch to 4660 Nereus, an asteroid with an >>orbit similar to Earth's, requiring a delta-V of 1.165 km/sec. > >Nice delta-v. Significantly less than landing on the moon. Does >anybody have the original designation of this asteroid (it was >renamed after _Asteroids II_ came out)? Has it been given a >type (C,S,M, etc.)? Anything else known about its composition? 4660 Nereus is none other than our old friend 1982 DB. The name, while mythologically meaningful, was chosen because its orbits makes the asteroid one of the ones that (velocity-wise) is "near us" (I am not making this up). Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 92 23:36:30 GMT From: Bruce Scott Subject: overpopulation Newsgroups: sci.space Dani Eder writes: "If housing construction costs drop dramatically, then what cost children." Ahem, it's not the cost of construction (well, maybe in blessed areas like Texas :-). Here in Germany the cost of the land (read: Lebensraum) dominates. If the population density became greater, personal space would become Japanese-like. Germans wouldn't accept that any better than Americans. By the way, remember that the almost visceral desire of German immigrants to the US was land of their own, knowing they had no chance to get it here (mostly land-poor peasants came). Gruss, Dr Bruce Scott The deadliest bullshit is Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik odorless and transparent bds at spl6n1.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de -- W Gibson -- The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service. internet: bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:51:30 GMT From: Paul Dietz Subject: overpopulation Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Sep26.232657.11626@samba.oit.unc.edu> Bruce.Scott@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Bruce Scott) writes: >nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes: >>Best guesses I've seen have been 8-10bn, actually. No serious >>demographers are talking about 16bn any more. Read some demography (I >>did, after the last time this went around here. I was a doomsayer >>before). >But this is just because the great die-off has started. Actually, you are both wrong. The UN agency that makes population projections recently upped their mid-range estimate to as much as 14B by the end of 2100. However, most of this increase was because life expectancies in lesser developed countries are increasing much faster than they expected, because elderly people are living longer. "Great die off" is bullshit, of course. The world population has never been healthier, wealthier or longer lived, on average, and the trends are positive in most of the world. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:34:13 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: Population decline Newsgroups: sci.space >>[loss of cultural and genetic diversity from population decline] In article <1992Sep23.203913.11880@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> ddaye@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David C Daye) writes: >At what point does this kick in? Wasn't world population 99% below present, >some time after the Ice Age, and haven't we come along fairly nicely out of >that small population? Large, highly educated populations are required for modern societies. Any given culture needs to be far larger than a hunter-gatherer tribe in order to retain its traditions. For example, cultural retention is greatly strengthened in those cultures that have their own native-language TV channels; only the largest cultures can afford this. Economies of scale are also far more important in today's societies than in hunter-gatherer societies. It kicks in as soon as the population starts to decline. Populations do not drop evenly. Even now, with the average world growth rate still above 1%/year, there are several cultures dropping rapidly. For example, the Ashkenazi Jew population has dropped over 50% since the 1930's, due in almost equal proportion to death camps and voluntarily birth control. This population produced many of the leading Nobel Prize scientists of this century (including Einstein); its capacity to create such talent has dropped with its population. As anybody who's used birth control knows, there's no such thing as perfect birth control with the current art. It's inconvenient at best and has nasty side effects at worst; no methods are 100% effective. The conditions that "permitted" your family to have many children is quite an exception, demographically; half of all children are still "unplanned" or "accidents" with the birth rate below replacement levels. (In fact everybody comes from a demographically above-normal family; nobody's parents are childless. :-) >> [arguments why space colony would have more children than >> developed countries] >>I ask why does not this apply to developed >>countries, where couples have less than 2.0 children per lifetime, >>and the resources are much greater than in Africa, with 7 children >>per lifetime? > >A) Developed countries have pensions and social security; couples don't >need to make enough babies to ensure that 3-4 are around to care for >them in old age; This theory has been greatly overstated; birth control availability is more causative and correlated than such economic factors. Even granting this theory, why wouldn't a space colony have pensions and social security? Given the chance people save for retirement, whether or not social security is present, and given the chance they vote in favor of social security. The existence/absence of such benefits would be a major (dis-) incentive to migrate to the space colony in the first place. >B) Developed populations are mostly non-agricultural, >and don't need the extra hands to harvest next year's meals. This is also true of space colonies, which will have to be technologically more sophisticated than developed countries, not less. The children will require a longer investment in education, and that correlates highly with low fertility -- college-educated women in America average 1.4 children per lifetime, as opposed to the society average of 2.0 children per lifetime. (Presumably the numbers are similar for college-educated men, who tend to marry their peers, but it's easier to keep track of the women). >[how to solve problem] >Direct your creativity towards >making childrearing less demanding and/or *lots* of fun in your space >colony, and your concerns will be answered. _May_ be answered. This has so far not worked in countries that are actively working to raise their birthrate, like Japan and Germany. On the other hand, it could be argued that the pressures for quality over quantity at all costs in these cultures overwhelms the feeble government efforts. It's an interesting idea, worth persuing, but not garunteed. >> Fertility, not physical resources, is >>the main barrier to human expansion through the cosmos. > >I think this is pessimistic. If you give me the same deal at a space >colony that my old-country ancestors got in America (a cheap ride over, >and greatly expanded opportunies upon arrival), I'll seriously consider >going over and making you as many babies as I need and can support >under the circumstances there. But you can do that right here, right now, in the U.S.A. There's nothing stopping you that wouldn't stop you in a space colony. Mike Freidman has noted that a man could easily raise and support 20 children at above-world-average standards in the U.S., but our own cultural expectations and motivations, not our resources, prevent us from doing so. I also seriously question whether your ancestors, or anybody else before The Pill, had birth control effective enough to make such a big difference as it does today. The unpredicted baby boom to baby dearth trend in the 1960's corresponds almost exactly to the introduction of the birth control pill; it has fundamentally changed the demographic landscape. -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 20:56:45 +0000 From: Anthony Frost Subject: PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE Newsgroups: sci.space > In a previous message you said that mars' gravity was too > light to hang on the lighter gasses, thus the atmosphere is > thin. Titan, a moon of Saturn is slightly smaller than mars > and has an atmospheric density twice earths at the surface. > How do you explain that? :) Titan benefits from the gas torus effect I believe. It loses its atmosphere at a respectable rate, but the escaping gas is unable to escape Saturn and remains in orbit. A lot of the trapped gas gets reaquired by Titan, so the net loss is very small. Anything escaping from the Martian atmosphere is lost permanently. Anthony ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:12:46 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: Robot Rovers: Big or Small? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.controls,comp.robotics In article <20670@plains.NoDak.edu> altenbur@plains.NoDak.edu (Karl Altenburg) writes: >I would like to know peoples ideas on which types of robots should be >used in possible, future Lunar and Mars missions. > >Some support the traditional large rover. An example would be Carnegie >Mellon's Ambler, which has 6 legs legs (non-traditional), complex vision >system, stands around 14 feet tall, and weighs a ton (I think?). >It would be launched and work as a solitary rover. > > I hate to say it, but I can't imagine this thing having any sort of usefulness in space. It would cost $hundreds of millions just to launch it to the moon, and then its leg-balancing software wouldn't work in 1/6 gravity (and couldn't be tested beforehand). A subsumption architecture that could adapt to the new gravity conditions would have much to say for it, as would a much smaller more affordable walker. That said, I think the whole emphasis on robots and rovers is a bit overdone. For most bodies, including the moon, a hopper is competitive or superior for sampling a wide variety of locations. Sampling itself is only one out of many tasks we profit from automating. A much larger if longer-term task is automatic processing of native materials, such as propellant production from the Martian atmosphere or native ices. These can radically reduce the cost of operating in space; the technology has a future value in the $100's of billions. These don't require robotics so much as they require very reliable and robust control systems, self-cleaning, and deployment. Claims that we absolutely can or can't do these things are bogus; nobody's spent any significant effort to try them. Albeit, oil companies have successfully automated similar tasks on a large scale, but with quicker feedback and more room for trial-and-error. These kinds of space automation will be a very productive field for automation researchers. -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:40:00 GMT From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton In article <1992Sep26.231446.20605@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes... >In article <1992Sep25.135849.20626@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >> [stuff deleted] >The reason commerce isn't colonizing the moon is quite simple really; >there isn't anything there to make one wealthy. It's an obstacle, like >Death Valley was an obstacle to the 49ers -- the borax came later and >didn't convince very many people to live in Death Valley. > >Meanwhile, it is useful to put comsats in GEO, and commerce has spent $10's >of billions on that; it is useful to keep watchtowers in space and >the military has spent $10's of billions on that. Farther out beyond >Death Valley, the relatively unexplored parts of the solar system, like >asteroids and comets, could well provide the next big boost for commerce, >and both the funding and technology for truly self-sufficient space >colonies. > Nick, Nick, Nick, don't you ever read the reports about recently discovered near Earth Asteroids? There is one of the found in 1987 (I forgot the designator) that is confirmed by albedo and spectral studies to be nickel iron, as are about 10% of all meteorites found on earth. The size of this asteroid is about 1.7 miles by .8 miles. It was estimated in the article that I read, that based upon similar fractions found in metorites on the earth of that type, that there was approximately 90 billion dollars worth of gold and 1 trillion dollars worth of Platinum, give or take a few million. What does that say about wealth in space? Currently a new oil field cost 10 billion to develop (Alaska North Slope for example). This is no more than a mission to develop the asteriod would cost, with a far greater pay off. Even if the cost were tripled it would be worth it. What is lacking is vision, a sense of purpose and a feel for what is possible, today, now. Not only does this maliase effect the general population due to the gloom and doomers in the media, it has effected the space development community as well. I keep seeing on here that maybe in fifty years we will have colonies and space development but till then we just have to muddle along. Do you not realize that unless we begin the work today and lay the necessary foundations, that this will not happen in fifty or even a hundred years. From the day of the first contract to the moving out to Pad 39, it was only five years for the first Apollo. We can do it IF we have the will. Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville (No Space=No Future for the Human Race) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:03:41 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug21.125501.14146@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: > >If and when we ever get it, come back and ask us again. For myself, >I will juge it to be here when you allow a surgeon to do a heart bypass >on you by teleoperation with a 1/10 second delay. If you live, we can >talk about it. How about brain surgery? Robots, for example the Puma 260 robot arm, have been doing stereotactic drilling, probe placement, and medicine injection in the cranium since the mid-80's. They are quite a bit more precise than the neurosurgeon's hand. The surgeon's reaction time to halt the procedure is more than 1/10 sec. Ref: _Robots In Service_, Joseph Engleberger, MIT Press 1989. -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 252 ------------------------------