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Date: Sat, 24 Sep 88 01:08:14 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <[e-mail]>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #374

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 374

Today's Topics:
        wealth of mature spacefaring societies
            space exploration/exploitation
         Re: Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes
          Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies
        Please keep postings relevant to space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 18:02:00 GMT
From: apollo![e-mail]  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: wealth of mature spacefaring societies


 'Da Plane, da plane, boss...'

 'It's a spaceship, Tatoo, but yes, you're right.  Today's guest here on
  Fantasy Newsgroup is Mr. Macleod who posts...

>Let me add my endorsement.  Two thousand years ago (and much more recently
>in some cultures) the Roman soldier's daily pay brought him the price of
>a quart or two of wheat.  Today I make enough daily to buy a small home
>computer.  This is what wealth is all about.  In less than 100 years
>we have gone from no automobiles to a point where virtually anybody can
>own one.

 First of all, you don't know that Roman soldier : rich American is a
 reasonable comparison.  Neither is particularly representative of the
 species at his time in history.  To make another silly comparison--
 Today only the rich can own a horse, a hundred years ago horse ownership
 was common.

 Anyway most people CANNOT own a car.  Your ethnocentrism is showing.

 More to the point, extrapolations can be tricky.  It's true that the
 average American is richer than he was a hundred years ago but he is
 *poorer* than he was in the 60's.  Nowadays, two incomes are required
 to maintain a standard of living that one could maintain at that time.
 Which way is the curve heading these days?

 If you had extrapolated from the time when dinosaurs first appeared on
 earth to when Brontosaurus existed you might have concluded that there
 would be lots of huge, powerful dinosaurs around today.

 Another BIG difference is that our material standard of living is
 not mainainable in its current form.  We cannot continue to consume
 non-renewable resources or generate pollution and other waste at
 the current rate.  Automobiles are MAJOR pollution sources both
 in their use and their manufacture/maintenance/infrastructure
 requirements.  Also, remeber that the Roman soldier's generous
 payscale was a function of non-maintainable factors, too. (i.e.,
 the Roman Empire)  Of course, this may ALSO be a silly extrapolation.

 Another factor is that the 'wealth' or standard of living of most
 Americans is illusory.  I doubt you could afford to buy a home
 computer on a day's pay if that computer and all it's parts were
 made by people enjoying an American wage scale.  A lot of our
 standard of living is based on other countries having much lower
 wages, fewer pollution standards, etc.  Roman senators were wealthy
 in the same way.

>In one of my stories there is a race that has had a basically

 Are you a writer?  Where?

>libertarian spacefaring civilization for about 800 years.  They are organized
>into clans, large extended families, and are so rich that clans typically
>own hundreds of planets.  The technological base is such that an average-
>sized spaceship - with hyperdrive capability - costs the equivalent of about
>15 minutes of labor.

 Ah yes, FTL travel.  Where would science fiction be without it?  If we're
 willing to postulate FTL travel why not alternative universes or time
 travel as a future solution to our problems?

>  It's important to realize, my friends, that there is *no limit* on
>   how good things can get!

 ...Or how bad they can get.  Sure, maybe the world of the future will be bright
 and clean with robots doing all the manufacturing and everyday is Saturday
 and the malls are open and our pockets are stuffed with money.  Or maybe it
 will be a cyberpunk's worst nightmare with rain 'sour and acid, nearly the
 color of piss' (William Gibson), respirators required for a simple walk
 down the street, and remote pain inducers implanted at birth by a high-tech
 tyranny to keep 20 billion people passive.

 These are matters of religion (faith) and science fiction, not sci.space.
 While we fritter our time away in fantasy, other countries have real
 space programs with realistic goals and programs to accomplish them.  If
 anyone on this group ever does get into space it will probably be at the
 whim of the Russians or Japanese.

                                                 --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 19:40:00 GMT
From: apollo![e-mail]  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: space exploration/exploitation


Dillon Pyron posts:

>  Yes, I know what it costs.

  Great, perhaps you could tell the rest of us.  I have no idea
  what it would cost to put up a permanent, self-sufficient
  colony in space (except that it would be plenty) - AND NOBODY
  ELSE DOES EITHER.  The engineering and design hasn't been done.
  Nobody has made a business plan.

>  I also know how much a HARM missle costs, and I'd rather spend
>  the money putting people into space.

  So would I.  On the other hand, the Russians seem to be able to
  do both.

>  In both your commentaries, I have not seen one response which
>  actually addresses any of the issues presented.

  What issues??  The only issue here is that this net has a lot
  of would-be space cadets who bought tickets on the PanAm moon
  shot a few years back and expect to cash them in.  This started
  when somebody informed us that he had 'plans' to go into space
  and I asked what these 'plans' consisted of.  'Answer came there
  none.'

>  The reason we are stuck is because nay-sayers like you are
>  afraid we can't do it, so let's not.

 God, I had no idea I had such powers of persuasion.  In that
 case, send me all your money.

 Don't blame others for your inaction.  Have you actually *tried*
 to get something going?   Has anyone made a  good business
 plan?  Get to work on it!

 ...Oh, I see.  You would except for the government.  That D.O.T.
 thing is just a sham to fool innocents like Conatec, MacDonnel
 Douglas, etc.   OK, then how much have you personally done
 to push more lenient legislation through Congress?   How many
 petitions have you picked up, how much PAC money have you
 raised?

 These fearless space pioneers are afraid of nothing:  they
 laugh at radiation, money is no object, the vaccum of space holds
 no terror for them, the distance, the time, the loneliness- big
 deal......the paperwork...AAIIIEEEE!!

>  My plans involve pushing my employer into space in one form
>  or fashion, as a first step.

 Haven't we all wanted to do this at one time or another?

 Which version of the word 'plans' is this?

>  Do you have any idea what it will cost not to put nations
>  in space?

  No.  Do you?

  I hope we get a space program going here, either via NASA or
  private enterprise.  All I'm criticizing are the junior space
  cadets who won't have anything to do with any effort not
  directed at setting up a Libertarian space colony or who waste
  time in such dreams while other nations work on real space
  programs.

  You can tell where these people are coming from as Dale.Amon
  gets to the good stuff...

< Independent settlers are isolated and quite capable of defending
<themselves. The dug in nature of their shelters makes them difficult to
<find by sensors and makes them as impervious to a near miss by a nuke
<as to a solar flare. With the energy at their disposal with the CFG's
<and the robotic help, they are quite capable of defending their land.
<Even a major military ground force would break it's back after taking
<on a few thousand of them, one at a time.

  Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999, Buck Rogers, I don't know.
  But these little starship troopers really go for the shootem
  up part, don't they?  AND SPACEMAN SPIFF READIES HIS ESCAPE..

                                   --Peter (Spiff) Nelson


  ZAP!  POW!!  AAIIEEE!  bap bap bap bap  'Quick, eager young
  space cadet, engage the Koenig Drive'   BOOM zzzZZZZ  'That was
  close ... Oh no!  They've got orgasmatronic rays....YOW!'

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 17:32:08 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax![e-mail]  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Michael V. Stein) writes:
Writing about burying nuclear wastes in hard rock formations rather than
sending it into space:
>
> You are damn right it will cost less.  It will also be several billion times
> safer.
>

Do you have a reference for those figures?  The "Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes"
studies done by Battelle in the early 1980s found the cost to be twice as high
for space disposal vs underground burial, with a marginal improvement in
expected deaths due to radiation exposure (on the order of 1 death rather
than 2 deaths) over the life of the storage (>1 million years).

The space disposal alternative was made safe by encasing the waste in
an armored sphere (9 inches of stainless steel) covered with Shuttle type
tiles, so even in a worst case launch vehicle accident, the waste is
contained.

The Boeing subcontract study manager, Rich Reinart, claimed he would
be happy to have a 'waste ball' buried in his driveway to keep the snow
off (they give off about 2 kW in heat).

--
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
[phone](w) [phone](h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville,
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 04:18:46 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu![e-mail]  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies


    >Let me add my endorsement.  Two thousand years ago (and much more recently
    >in some cultures) the Roman soldier's daily pay brought him the price of
    >a quart or two of wheat. ...

     First of all, you don't know that Roman soldier : rich American is a
     reasonable comparison.  Neither is particularly representative of the
     species at his time in history.
Roman soldier : *average* American is a reasonable comparison, i.e.
middle level member of the dominant imperial power of the age.

     Today only the rich can own a horse, a hundred years ago horse ownership
     was common.

A distortion, since it is easier to own a horse now (in terms of % of
average income); most people merely don't because they don't need to.
A horse was a major investment in the days of yore; stealing one was a
capital crime.

     Anyway most people CANNOT own a car.  Your ethnocentrism is showing.

This is because their political leaders find it expedient to keep them
in poverty, and has nothing to do with the argument, which is about
possible curves of technological development.  It was always a given
that political idiocy could prevent a species from developing star
travel.

     More to the point, extrapolations can be tricky.  It's true that the
     average American is richer than he was a hundred years ago but he is
     *poorer* than he was in the 60's.

 Same comment.

     Another BIG difference is that our material standard of living is
     not mainainable in its current form.  We cannot continue to consume
     non-renewable resources or generate pollution and other waste at
     the current rate.  Automobiles are MAJOR pollution sources both
     in their use and their manufacture/maintenance/infrastructure
     requirements.  Also, remeber that the Roman soldier's generous
     payscale was a function of non-maintainable factors, too. (i.e.,
     the Roman Empire)  Of course, this may ALSO be a silly extrapolation.

It certainly is.  After all, we are on the very brink of running out
of whale oil (a *renewable* resource) and the streets of New York are
knee deep in horseshit.  If we do run out of resources, it will simply
be because the technophobes have managed to prevent the natural cycle
of substitution by advancing technologies.

     Another factor is that the 'wealth' or standard of living of most
     Americans is illusory.  I doubt you could afford to buy a home
     computer on a day's pay if that computer and all it's parts were
     made by people enjoying an American wage scale. ...

Wrong.  When you subtract the 43% the government steals from the
American, the Japanese makes more.  And his products work reliably.
However, this is only another example of the political idiocy we saw
before.

America may well be headed for a big decline.  Right now the
exponential growth curve of technology is just about balanced by the
exponential decline of sociosclerosis.  Technophobia is only one
symptom of this.  Mr. Nelson's horror of pollution has nothing to do
with the potentiality of technological advance.  If we have hospital
wastes on our beaches, remember that both the hospitals and the
beaches are the luxuries of the middle class.

The advancing technology argument for star travel does not require
that we must necessarily overcome our collective stupidity and avail
ourselves of the nearly limitless opportunities and riches just before
our noses.  It only requires that it not be necessary that we fail.

Then, somewhere in a big big universe, some race of more worthy
creatures will succeed, and ride the power curve to the stars.  If
that leaves some backward-looking technophobes sitting in their own
excrement because it's natural that way, then maybe there is some
justice after all.

    >  It's important to realize, my friends, that there is *no limit* on
    >   how good things can get!

     ...Or how bad they can get.  Sure, maybe the world of the future will be bright
     and clean with robots doing all the manufacturing and everyday is Saturday
     and the malls are open and our pockets are stuffed with money.  Or maybe it
     will be a cyberpunk's worst nightmare with rain 'sour and acid, nearly the
     color of piss' (William Gibson), respirators required for a simple walk
     down the street, and remote pain inducers implanted at birth by a high-tech
     tyranny to keep 20 billion people passive.

"States have needed people as workers because human labor has been the
necessary foundation of power.  What is more, genocide has been
expensive and troublesome to organize and execute.  Yet, in this
century totalitarian states have slaughtered their citizens by the
millions.  Advanced technology will make workers unnecessary and
genocide easy.  History suggests that totalitarian states may then
eliminate people wholesale.  There is some consolation in this.  It
seems likely that a state willing and able to enslave us biologically
would instead simply kill us." (Eric Drexler)  Gibson is a romantic.

     These are matters of religion (faith) and science fiction, not sci.space.
     While we fritter our time away in fantasy, other countries have real
     space programs with realistic goals and programs to accomplish them.  If
     anyone on this group ever does get into space it will probably be at the
     whim of the Russians or Japanese.

Don't be so sure.  World politics can change completely and rapidly;
space travel if not done by a bureaucracy is reasonably cheap with
current technology, easily within the capability of most sovereign
nations and any Fortune 500 company; you may live longer than you
think.

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 8 Sep 88 10:13:01 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <[e-mail]>
Subject: Please keep postings relevant to space

Come on guys!  Let's move nuclear waste discussions to sci.physics,
exploitation and economic discussions to the politics newsgroups,
and keep the cross posting to a minimum. I am beginning to think
we should break this newsgroup into other separate groups (except
for those who reads this as a digest on the Internet side).
I would almost lay a $10 bet that the net could not keep silent
for 1 week (almost).

--eugene miya
Thu Sep  8 10:12:26 PDT 1988

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #374
*******************