Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO220.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 32KB

Date: Sat, 19 Sep 92 05:05:24
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #220
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat, 19 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 220

Today's Topics:
                   Drop nuc waste into sun (2 msgs)
                            Ethics, again.
                       Ethics of changing Mars
                       Ethics of Terra-forming
                       GAS Flight Opportunities
                         Ion for Pluto Direct
                NASA working on Apollo rerun (2 msgs)
                   Pluto Direct Propulsion Options
                              Population
        Property rights (was Terraforming needs to begin now)
     PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE ORBIT OF THE EARTH
                           Radio ownership
        Space Platforms (political, not physical : -) (3 msgs)

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
    "Subscribe Space <your name>" to one of these addresses: listserv@uga
    (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle
    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 15:47:53 GMT
From: BRAINS <[e-mail]>
Subject: Drop nuc waste into sun
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Stevenson) writes:
>>Why not drop all the longlived nuclear waste into the sun to permanently
>>dispose of it.
>
>1. Transport costs to the sun would be c. $50,000/kg.
>2. About 5% of launches go *boom*, to quote a previous post.
>   Radioactive materials must be packaged to survive
>   this, which can and has been done but is expensive for
>   large amounts of material.
>
>
>
>--
>[e-mail]        Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
>Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian


Assuming of course the container can survive 100% of the time which i'm not
certain it can from a rocket explosion + landing on earth at terminal
velocity, you have two BIG problems.

The nuclear bit is a political hot potato and nobody wants to get their
fingers burned. It will of course take a LOT of political will to get this
going.

And the anti-nuclear protestors who never listen to reason anyway just like
the stoopid polititions would kick up such a storm over wot if and
worse case senerios about droping plutonium on their homes that it would
never happen! Even if this amazing unbreakable container where to work!


Just another point..by the way... what happens if we start dumping on the
sun and IT GOES OUT!!!  ok not very likely but I hope we know what we are
doing.  It probably get completly vapourized right?......hope so.



Achris/Gorth.

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

Date: 18 Sep 92 13:46:23 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Drop nuc waste into sun
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Stevenson) writes:
>
>Why not drop all the longlived nuclear waste into the sun to permanently
>dispose of it. The waste is a *very* expensive problem that will otherwise

Two major reasons:

1) Most of the material is "waste" only for political reasons. It is valuable
material with many uses including further energy production through breeder
cycles or RTG use. Putting it permanently out of reach of our more technically
advanced and less hysterical descendants would be a crime.

2) The state of the art in rocket science is too immature to economically
or safely deal with this type of potentially dangerous material in large
quantity. The odds of a launch failure are orders of magnitude higher than
the odds of breech of containment for many of the storage and reprocessing
options.

Minor reason:

The Sun is a difficult launch destination from Earth.

Gary

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 16:48:39 EDT
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ethics, again.

>>>they are accused of being both selfish and racist.... The world
>>>collectively must first admit that human numbers need to be controlled.
                                     ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^
>>What this really translates into is "human *beings* must be controlled."

>So what?  War, murder and rape need to be controlled.  To do so means, likely,
                                ^^^^
>that human beings must be controlled - or more well educated.   What's your
>point?

If those things NEEDED to be controlled, they would be, by the people that
cause/start them.  Since they don't control them, we conclude that they
don't NEED to be controlled.  Your belief that they need to be controlled
only exists because they aren't.  However, we can ascertain that you
think there is someone (you) who can make grand decisions on the kind of
scale you are talking about.

The point is that you are a fascist, since you have intellectually set
yourself as the pinnacle of all human life, with sole power to decide
right/wrong, good/bad, and a host of other principles that translate
into 'who get's controlled, and how'.

>You are perhaps the only person on the planet who would identify concern
>with the environment with either self-hate or racism.   Personally, I am
>concerned for the environment out of pure unabashed self-interest.

It's quite easy.  Many greens believe that humans are not as valuable
as other species.  The contradiction inherent in this beleif lead to a
host of other contradictions.  Not least of these is self-hate (guilt)
and anti-life, like (Human)race-ism.  See my previos posts for why.

Keep in mind, you non-self-interested person, that not only do you LIE,
since it is IMPOSSIBLE for ANY HUMAN to act self-lessly, without coercion,
but the worst of all dictators are those that do things out of 'non-
self-interest'.  At least the admitted evil ones have a concience to
stop them when their anti-life practices get particularly evil.

-Tommy Mac                     .  "                  +
.------------------------  +                      *       +
|   Tom McWilliams; scrub       ,     .                        "        +
|  astronomy undergrad, at     *       +;.     .  '             There is
| Michigan State University   '                      .    "   no Gosh!
|   [e-mail]                        '      ,   *
|       [phone]       ;  +  '                                 *
'-----------------------

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 16:37:45 EDT
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ethics of changing Mars

>If we decide to colonize Mars with earth-developed life forms or
>not is purely a matter of choice and ethics. Ethics tells me, at least,
>that we should not interfere with any life that may already be there.

Ethics does not tell you that; pathology does.  Ethics means logic applied
to values.  Pathos means gut feeling.  Since you cannot logically conclude
that terra-forming Mars is bad, it must be a gut feeling, subject to the
whims of your personal interests, digestion, and who knows what else that
we can safely ignore.

>We _know_ that should these groups desist their dangerous behavior
>that AIDS would no longer exist as a threat.

Give me a break.  Are you suggesting that all humans are evil, since
it is the act of shitting that causes dysentary?
Not to mention the blatant empirical untruth of your statement...

>We must clean up our own backyards
>in order to have other backyards to dirty.

I'm not sure what you do in your backyard, but mine is pretty clean.
Even if it wasn't, we have no ability to hurt Mars, so our 'backyard's'
condition has absolutley NO bearing on the question of terra-forming.

-Tommy Mac                     .  "                  +
.------------------------  +                      *       +
|   Tom McWilliams; scrub       ,     .                        "        +
|  astronomy undergrad, at     *       +;.     .  '             There is
| Michigan State University   '                      .    "   no Gosh!
|   [e-mail]                        '      ,   *
|       [phone]       ;  +  '                                 *
'-----------------------

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 15:29:53 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ethics of Terra-forming
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:

\So why is AIDS funding at almost the same level as cancer research
/funding that (cancer) kills 100 times as many people each year and is
\something that is only slightly related to behavior and life-style?

Have you forgotten that one of the leading causes of cancer is
linked to life-style (nicotine addiction)?

Isn't lung cancer the leading preventable cause of death in
the United States today?

>And what has this to do with space? As I said before, this whole idea
>of space exploration and space colonization requires a fairly stable
>and economically (read energy) independant civilization. _All_ problems
>that limit the economic well being of a given society threaten the
>development of space travel. We must clean up our own backyards
>in order to have other backyards to dirty.

What about people who see economic possibilities in space travel?

--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone] SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 15:59:10 GMT
From: "Kieran A. Carroll" <[e-mail]>
Subject: GAS Flight Opportunities
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
> ...Assuming you could even get a GAS flight
>opportunity; last I heard they were so horrendously backlogged that
>it was "don't call us, we'll call you"....

Henry;

Things must have changed since the last time you looked at this.
My company is planning to send up an experiment in a GAS, and
checked with NASA about flight opportunities; we were told that
they were readily available, and that if we had something ready
to fly now it could go up "right away".

--

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     uunet!attcan!utzoo!kcarroll [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 15:33:54 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ion for Pluto Direct
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:

>I honestly don't know what that test from a couple of decades ago

It was the SERT II test.

>you referred to consisted of, but it cannot have fired long and hard,
>and there are known lab problems with continuous firing ion thrusters,
>one I know of is erosion of the electrode which degrades the
>performance severely after N hours of operation.

Which mechanism are you referring to? The ionization mechanism, or
the acceleration mechanism? There has been tested here in the lab
on earth an ionization mechanism without the erosion problem of
previous designs: the electron cyclotron plasma generator...

This test did fire long and hard, over a period of several months.

I've been thinking lately, though. The people running the Pluto
mission are dead set on using experimental sensors and never-before
-at-that-scale solid rockets on their probe to avoid having to use
ion rockets. So could another probe be used to test this out?

What about a probe to look at Chiron, or 1992-QB-1? Maybe we could finally
find out whether or not it's Planet X...

;-)


--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone] SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 20:31:17 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NASA working on Apollo rerun

> >Commercial purchase is certainly the only way to go. I think it
would be

> >silly for NASA to go out and start an R&D project to build a new
SV. Far

> >better is to simply say "I want N tons of my cargo delivered to
lunar

> >surface coordinates X,Y,Z by no later than time T". Then buy the
service

> >from whoever wishes to supply it...
>

> The real problem with this is going to be convincing potential
suppliers
> that you mean it and will keep your promises.  It's rarely possible
to
> buy insurance against government policy changes, so that's a big
risk...
> especially given the US government's recent history.
>


Agreed. The inherent instability of politically based systems is one
of the primary reasons I have my doubts about the whole enterprise.
But if Goldin CAN change the way things are done and put real
stability into programs, such things would become possible. IF Goldin
succeeds in his efforts the long term repercussions in Washington and
in the USA in general are .... large. :-)

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 21:11:47 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NASA working on Apollo rerun

> Pet lunar rocks we're suggested, but that may not be a very
> large market; after all we have thousands of space-rocks in the
form
> of meteors which aren't that pricy.  One near-term lunar industry

> s

It's all a matter of marketing... Start off getting lunar jewelry and
desk ornaments, rings, brooches, etc set with other less precious
stones (you know, diamonds and such). Put them in catalogs like "The
Sharper Image" for the Christmas season.

The next year, as more are available, start going for the kid market.
You know, Mickey Mouse Moon Rock watches, etc.

Then how about a stone house made from dressed moon rocks? A BARGAIN
at ONLY $50,000,000!!! So what if you only sell one or two. The
superrich have done sillier things with their housing.

There are a lot of very rich people around who managed to hit the
novelty market like this. To many of us engineering types it seems,
well, silly. And the silly ones who think of it laugh all the way to
the bank...

Pet Rocks. Gold plated cadillacs. Hula Hoops, vials of arabian sand,
the list goes on and on...

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 20:49:50 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Pluto Direct Propulsion Options

> The problem is that the Pluto mission budget is extremely tight.
Goldin
> wants another 20 kg trimmed from the spacecraft mass, and we
thought the
> Pluto spacecraft was already a real lightweight (compare with the
Clementine
> spacecraft, which has been described as a lightweight spacecraft,
and
>


I'm afraid I'll have to agree with him here, Nick. The problem is not
that this planetary probe is not using an Ion drive. The problem is
that there is no agency who has the job to produce and do enough
engineering tests to make the device "off the shelf". I've long
argued that if NASA has ANY job at all, it should be that of the old
NACA, ie doing the nitty gritty hardware testing and flight test data
of basic hardware. (NACA did cowlings, airfoils, etc).

It is really a bad idea to mix hardware tests with science research
unless the prices of the probes come down a lot, ie to the point at
which congress and the media hardly notice that a couple of the
several hundred probes launched in the last few years have failed due
to new hardware.

I applaud what they are attempting to do, and I understand the
reasoning behind it. If they get a real scientific return from PLUTO,
the farthest out planet, and they do it for what is a miniscule
budget under current megaproject standards, and they do it in a
couple years instead of a career-time, then there will be more
projects like this. If they do a lot of them and do indeed do it
smarter, we'll finally have the mass produced probes I (and others)
have suggested for many years. Get the cost under $100M or so per
probe+launch, and you will start to see some real risk taking again.
Carry that far enough and the probe projects will be at a level
fundable as large research efforts by university and private
institutes.

It's the right direction. Go for it guys!

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 15:40:07 GMT
From: "Edward V. Wright" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Population
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:

>So what?  War, murder and rape need to be controlled.  To do so means,
>likely, that human beings must be controlled....  What's your point?

Oh?  Well, the best recent examples of societies that controlled
people tightly were the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.  Both societies
that totally eliminated war, murder, and rape, right?


>You are perhaps the only person on the planet who would identify concern
>with the environment with either self-hate or racism.   Personally, I am
>concerned for the environment out of pure unabashed self-interest.

No, I equate racism and self-hate with racism and self-hate.  I also
resent the smug attitude of people like you who imply that anyone
who doesn't buy into their chicken-little doomsday scenarios is
"not concerned about the environment."  You take your own political
agenda, wrap in the cloak of science, then try to shut off legitimate
scientific debate by saying that anyone who doesn't agree with you
wants to destroy the Earth.  Like NASA, Al Gore, and the ozone holes
that were supposed to open up over the United States this summer.
Based on a single day's data, a bunch of NASA scientists overreacted
and called a press conference to announce their "findings," coincidentally
giving the head of the Senate subcommittee responsible for approving
NASA's budget an additional chance to demogogue on national TV.  In
between plugs for his book (which doesn't prove that the Earth is in
any danger, only that US Senators can't add, subtract, multiple, or
divide three-digit numbers), Sen. Gore told Ted Koppel and the American
people that there was "no longer any doubt whatsoever" about what would
happen and attacked the character of legitimate, careful scientists
who said that he and NASA were full of hooey.  Slime magazine picked up
the environmentalist trumpet with a cover story the next week.  Even
though new data showed this to be yet-another false alarm, Senator Gore
never admitted that he was wrong (although NASA did) or publicly
apologized to the American people who he had unnecessarily alarmed
or the scientists whose reputations he had slandered.  Being an
environmentalist means never having to say your sorry.

Some of us believe that there are better ways to help the Earth
than by succumbing to a mixture of pseudoscience, ignorance, and
superstition.

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 21:30:19 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Property rights (was Terraforming needs to begin now)

I'll respond to this, but lets either bring it back to space or send mail to me offline
to argue it out.

>     No, it does not even apply if you are a white christian in the U.S.
> In the 1860's thousands of white (and some black) christians (and
> non-christians) were deprived of their "property" by an executive order without
> any compensation.  This order is commonly refered to as the Emacimation
> Proclaimation.  After the fighting was over the states that had withdrawn from
> the U.S. were "helped" for several years (read pillaged/looted) with most of
> the "natives" not allowed to vote in elections.
>


You make a very gross assumption that a human being can be property. I would refer to
Tommy Mac's arguments on the source of value. They are also applicable in this case.


There are also alternative views to the causes of the American Civil War. The southern
block was willing to negotiate an end to slavery in return for peaceful separation.
However, the Northern business interests needed the southern markets. Lincoln, instead
of responding to peace feelers set up a "Tonkin Gulf" incident: Fort Sumter. The shot
heard round the world was a setup if I've heard of one.

The end result is as you state. And the reaction to the pillage of the carpet baggers
was the formation of organizations for self defense against the interlopers,
organizations which became more blatently violent and racist than even what had passed
before. The origins of the Klu Klux Klan are in this post-Civil War era, as were the
"Jim Crow Laws" which prevented the newly emancipated blacks from competing
economically with their former masters.

>     Was the U.S. goverment wrong to step on the "property" rights of the
> slave oweners?  If not, how do you reconcile that with your property rights
> argument?
>


There are three points involved.

One is that one human being cannot own another human being.

Another is, that under the Constitution, the southern states had a legal right to
peacefully leave the union. In that sense the Civil War was not a lawful action.


Thirdly, it was not fought to emancipate slaves. It was fought for economic reasons and
emancipation was tossed onto the heap as a sop to make it all seem a just and moral
cause.

Please direct further discussion on this issue directly to me unless you want to talk
about future Civil Wars in space settlements.  :-)

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 20:05:09 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE ORBIT OF THE EARTH

> Chaotic orbits don't necessarily imply a situation where a small
change
> could send planets flying off in all directions.  It is quite
possible
> for an orbit to be chaotic, in the sense that you cannot predict
*exactly*
>


I'm afraid I'll have to differ strongly with you here. Moving Venus
from the current Venus orbit to a orbit near that of Earth is not a
minor change by anyone's definition.

Additionally, the authors found the study surprising because most
studies done on chaotic orbits with asteroids and such had an end
result of bodies being tossed out of the solar system. And yet their

results showed a chaotic but STABLE solar system. The stability was
the surprise, not the lack of it in the other case.

And wait, there's more: Small changes in the conditions in a chaotic
system can push it from one chaotic state into an entirely new one.
If the fellow was talking about changing Venu's orbit slightly, ie 5%
or so, chances are large that it would not change the state of the
system (although there is a small change that it would). Moving it to
near Earth is going to cause all kinds of resonance changes, and
fairly large ones at that. You are correct in one sense: we don't
have the knowledge to say that things would change or not change with
any degree of confidence.

It might be an interesting experiment for the authors of the paper to
try: put a planet in a different orbit and run a -500M year
integration to see what happens. I really have no idea, but I've got
a bad feeling about it...

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 16:32:04 EDT
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Radio ownership

>??? My understanding on the radio was that if you wanted to pay the
>money to outpower someone on a frequency they either had to ante up
>or buy you out. So why couldn't the cubans turn on their counter to
>Radio Matri (sp?)  - which under current rules the US has indicated
>they'd bomb if turned on...

My understanding is that since radio waves exist in a medium, the questions
is who owns the medium.

Say I don't want your radiations over my property?  Turn it off, or get a
pollution suit, perhaps a tresspass violation.

Maybe I broadcast only strongly enough to cover my town, whose inhabitants
have paid me for my programming.  When your radio intereferes with *Their*
proerty, information encoded into the medium which they own, you
are guilty of trespass, open for prosecution.

Obviously, people with a desire to broadcast will work out a peaceful
compromise, rather than muscle each other, intensity-wise, and end
up not brodacsting, with a host of civil suits, since the peaceful way
is the prosperous one.

So who needs the FCC?

-Tommy Mac                     .  "                  +
.------------------------  +                      *       +
|   Tom McWilliams; scrub       ,     .                        "        +
|  astronomy undergrad, at     *       +;.     .  '             There is
| Michigan State University   '                      .    "   no Gosh!
|   [e-mail]                        '      ,   *
|       [phone]       ;  +  '                                 *
'-----------------------

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 21:52:40 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)

I feel competent to answer this. I actually wrote one small plank in
the party platform when I was a Pennsylvania state delegate in 1987.
:-)

> ??? My understanding on the radio was that if you wanted to pay the
> money to outpower someone on a frequency they either had to ante up
> or buy you out. So why couldn't the cubans turn on their counter to
> Radio Matri (sp?)  - which under current rules the US has indicated
> they'd bomb if turned on...
>

Absolutely not. The most basic tenant of libertarianism is
non-initiation of force. If KDKA Pittsburgh owns 1020 KHz for use
within the current radius (ie it is a 50KW station), then it is has a
property right for that which is no different in law from the
property right it holds to the land under its studios in Gateway
Center or to its broadcast antenna on Mt. Washington. Broadcasting
over top of their signal, within their current broadcast region in
the way you suggest would be tantamount to sending armed agents into
the station to demand protection money.

This, to put it mildly, is not a libertarian doing things. It's
really much closer to the way things CURRENTLY work. Someone goes to
the FCC with an idea for using a frequency. The FCC puts out an NPRM.
The current user then has to put up enough money and resources in
lobbying to counter the efforts of the group wishing to take over
their frequency. If the original users fail there, they then have to
try the same expensive influence peddling game at the next WARC
meeting.

> as to the satellite slots, if the treaty is abrogated and no slot
> assignments are allocated, why not just muscle out your favourite
> slot?
>


Because it would be no different at all from moving your own
production equipment into someone else's factory. The term for this
is theft.

This means that radioastronomy could consider it's frequencies safe
in perpetuity, or until such time as the consortium vested with
ownership felt that sale of Earth based slots to commercial ventures
could fund radio work on the moon that is of more value than the
research on Earth which would then have to be foregone.

And if any company, researcher or government were to trespass, you
would have the same legal rights as you currently have on land
trespass.

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

Date: Fri, 18 Sep 92 22:09:05 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)

> You're avoiding the big question by talking about conversion from
> *now*.  How do you address the question of frequency ownership
(from a
> purely private view) absent an initial government intervention?
>


This is very close to the question of property rights on any "virgin"
territory, ie the moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. If there is no original
owner from which to buy rights, then laws must be written which
define such property rights. There are suggestions of doing this for
pollution certificates, as an example.

If a resource is currently in use, you simply define the current
users as having property rights over the resources they are using.

If the resources has been government owned, you can follow one of the
Eastern European models.

If it is virgin, you need a legal framework. This probably will be,
but need not be, governmental. Land titles were handled by private
organizations in the american west in areas that had not yet become
part of the US.

Basically you allow homesteading. If a resource is not owned, you can
claim a piece of it by putting it to use. You cannot just claim it
all. That this is a difficult issue, I will readily admit. I will
also admit that this is one area in which lawyers are very much
needed. And in fact there are a number of lawyers writing on these
issues. (Art Dula among others) One must define in law what is meant
by "use" and every one of the other terms. Even libertarian anarchist
philosophy requires legal frameworks. There is just a different,
non-monopolistic way of implimenting it.

As I said, these issues are identical to those of lunar homesteading.
Can a mining interest go out and claim 100x100km at random? Or should
the Bennet/Drexler approach of randomly assigning hexagons to a set
of land consortiums with stock ownership vested in every human then
living be used?


There are many approaches to virgin property other than that of state
ownership and regulation as a commons.

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

Date: 18 Sep 92 16:56:00 GMT
From: Mark Wilson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles L Isbell) writes:

>Let us posit that Star Trek had the right idea and subspace
>frequencies exist.  When Widget company invents a sub space
>communicator, do they immediately own all of the subspace frequencies?
>Isn't this, by definition, a monopoly?  Must a governmental body first
>divide up the frequencies and assign them before a free market
>mechanism can be employed?

Merely possessing a device that is capable of transmitting in subspace does
not give you ownership of the spectrum.  You must also actually set up
transmitters that transmitt in the spectrum.  To own the entire spectrum you
would have to blanket the entire spectrum with your transmitters.  You
must also make the transmitters powerfull enough to reach everywhere.
(Ex. Different people can own the same frequency in Hong Kong and Los
Angelos.  Since the two transmitters do not interfere with each other
(due to the seperation) there is no problem.)

OK, now we have the Widget company which owns and operates a huge number
of transmitters, an effective monopoly.  Now another company wants to buy
a frequency.  Problem the frequencies are worthless because their are no
recievers.  Why haven't the consumers bought receivers, because their is
nothing for them to listen to so why should they.  Now the Widget
company has to go to the trouble and expense of developing programming
so that they can sell receivers so that the frequencies that the
posess will have value.  They also have to come up with varied
programs to attract a wide audience.

I'm losing track of where this analogy is going so I will bail out
now.\

But basically while the Widget company may have a monopoly, the
monoply is of no value until they start selling some of the
frequencies.  But once they sell some of the frequencies, they
no longer have a monopoly.  (The way to make the big money is to
be the biggest player in the field, not the only player in the
field.)

BTW, radios were around an awfull long time before the FCC was invented.
My reading of the early days is that the problems of interference were
already being worked out in private *before* the government stepped
in.

--
--Mark
My opinions are mine, all mine.  Unless someone else claims them first.

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 220
------------------------------