Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO261.TXT

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Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 05:00:06
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #261
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Wed, 30 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 261

Today's Topics:
         Atlas E and F questions (Actually Pershing missile)
                  Clinton and Space Funding (3 msgs)
                   Controversy over V-2 anniversary
                    Disney's Man in Space (2 msgs)
Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding) (3 msgs)
                PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO
               pollution of space around MIR station ??
                      Re: Lunar landing in 2002
               Space and Presidential Politics (2 msgs)
             Space platforms (political, not physical :-)
     Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) (2 msgs)
                            What is this ?

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Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 02:05 MST
From: Paul Dickson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Atlas E and F questions (Actually Pershing missile)

    From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>

    In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
    >That makes me wonder.  when the US started retiring all those old
    >Titan II's and Pershing missiles, were any considerations
    >made to try using them for science?

    The Titan IIs are in storage, earmarked for refurbishing as (military)
    launchers.  I believe the combination of treaty limits on methods of
    disposal and treaty deadlines made it impractical to do much with the
    Pershing 2s, which were in any case a bit small for use as launchers.

I know that the Space Data division of OSC has Pershing 2 hardware that
wasn't destroyed.  They will be using some of it in a launch at White
Sands on Oct 27.  I'm not sure what I remember exactly what was said,
but the engines (and possibly guidance?) were destroyed.

I toured the Space Data facility in Chandler, Az last Friday.  Some how,
the hardware doesn't look as impressive when its spread about a room in
functional pieces. :-)

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

Date: 28 Sep 92 19:53:24 GMT
From: Richard Treitel <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Philip Young) writes:
|> Government involvement, at least initially, is crucial because of the high
|> infrastructure costs.  No private outfit is going to ante up the billions

Private outfits often spend billions on building an office complex or
developing a new jetliner.  These efforts don't even have a guaranteed
payoff (look at Canary Wharf!) but the companies broadly understand the
(i) technological (ii) legal/regulatory conditions under which such projects
will make/lose money.  WRT most space development the technology is more
difficult to predict and laws/regulations/treaties practically impossible.

Note that comsat development was covered by a treaty long ago.

        - Richard

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 14:25:23 GMT
From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> phoenix.Princeton.EDU!carlosn (Carlos G. Niederstrasser) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman)
>writes:
>> Spanish "colonies" were fundamentally different from the Plymouth colony
>> which is why I didn't include them.

>The Spanish possesions were colonies, just like any other.  The main difference
>was that they actually prospered because of the large mineral wealth found in
>New Spain.  Plymouth on the other hand took years to fully develope because
>there was no wealth to speak of.  So in this case I would rather compare a
>Spanish colony with our future moon colonies.  We are not going to seriously
>colonize the moon with people seeking religious freedoms, the only way to do
>it, and what most of us probably would like to see, is getting all the
>resources that the moon, asteroids, etc can offer.

This is by no means clear.  Lest one draw false conclusions from the current
populations, England was a not-very-populous country in the 16th century, and
was not that much of a power until they built up their navy with piracy.

Before essentially the end of the 16th century, only Portugal, Spain, and
France had the stability (England had just emerged from a quite chaotic
period with Henry VII), the population, and the military to settle.  With
the weakening of Spain in the 16th century, England and Holland jumped into
the settlement business.  Plymouth was not that successful, but the not too
much later settlement of Boston, founded also on religion, was quite
successful, with the leadership of the Puritan church moving to this
colony, even with massive membership still in England, in the early 1630's.
So within a span of 10 years, a colony founded on religion "made it."

In 1634, Rhode Island was established by those who found the Puritan
suppression of religious freedom oppressive, and this also was successful.
Also, the Dutch colonies, founded more as commercial enterprises, were
successful.  So, except for the first English colony, founded in the
16th century, which disappeared, we have a high success rate of colonies
in the Atlantic seaboard established with the attitude of becoming homes
for people, rather than MERELY commercial exploitation.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 11:42:11 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary
>Coffman) writes:
>>
>> Well, we haven't visited Mercury or Pluto *yet*.
>
>Didn't one of the Mariner probes flyby Mercury?

Yes, Mariner 10 did three flybys which is as good or better than
anything we've done in the outer solar system. We haven't orbited
or landed any probes however.

Gary

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 15:57:34 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Controversy over V-2 anniversary
Newsgroups: sci.space

Remember a week or so ago, when somebody on this newsgroup reminded us
that the first flight of a V-2 (A-4, if you prefer) into "space" had
taken place fifty years ago, in October 1942?

Monday I heard a news account that ceremonies to celebrate this
event have become a matter of controversy.  A local FM station carries
the BBC World Service, and they reported that the German government
had withdrawn its support, or approval, or something, from a
commemoration sponsored by private aerospace groups.  Ceremonies were
supposed to take place at Peenemuende, the military base on the Baltic
where the A-4 was developed.

Has anybody heard more detail?  Has the story appeared in print?

Apparently the fact that the A-4 was a nasty weapon that killed lots
of people overshadows the importance of the anniversary.

In this country, the Confederate Air Force is allowed to tell us what
a great plane the B-17 was without visible interference...


Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey              | Here Lies Bill Higgins:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory  | He Never Ever Learned
Bitnet:           [e-mail]  | To Play Guitar So Well
Internet:       [e-mail]  | But He Could Read and Write
SPAN/Hepnet:           43011::HIGGINS  | Just Like Ringing A Bell

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

Date: 28 Sep 92 20:54:55 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Disney's Man in Space
Newsgroups: sci.space

Paraphrased from: Blueprint for Space: Science Fiction to Science Fact,
Edited by Frederic I. Ordway III and Randy Liebermann, Smithsonian
Institution Press, Washington and London, 1992. IBSN 1-56098-072-9,
pp. 144-146.

In the spring of 1954, Disney started to organize programming for his
"Disneyland" television to premier the following fall on the American
Broadcasting Company--a sort of '50's "info-mercial". Each show was to
feature the four themes of the park. All but "Tomorrowland" had existing
films to draw from. Ward Kimball, a key animator who worked for the
company since 1934, was given uncharacteristic free rein to produce
a television film dealing with the subject of space travel.

Kimball enlisted the efforts of Willy Ley, Heinz Haber, and Werhner
Von Braun. Sometime in the Spring of 1954, as ideas developed, it was
decided to produce three films whose final titles were: _Man in Space_,
_Man and the Moon_, and _Mars and Beyond_.

_Man in Space_ [Shown on the Disney cable channel last Sunday, September
27, 1992 at 2:00 pm MDT] begins with the history of rocketry and explores
how humans might react in space. It ends with brilliant animation of a
manned orbital mission using a derivitive of Von Brauns multi-staged
rocket. The film aired on 9 March 1955 [a Wednesday evening--my Boy Scout
troop meeting night--I caught hell from my father for not attending.]
and viewed by nearly 100 million. Among the viewers was President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was so impressed that he called
Disney and asked to borrow a copy which he showed to officals at
the Pentagon over the next couple of weeks. On 29 July 1955,
Ike announced that as part of the upcoming International Geophysical
Year (IGY, 1957-58), the US would launch an earth satellite.

--
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom)  Tumbra, Zorkovick; Sparkula zoom krackadomando.

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

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 15:48:42 GMT
From: Ed McCreary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Disney's Man in Space
Newsgroups: sci.space

...article deleted for brevity....

I went down to Johnson a few weeks ago.  In one of the exhibit
rooms, several monitors were showing the Disney film.  Surrounding
it was an exhibit of sketches and artwork done for the film.
Wonderful stuff.


--
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,|[e-mail]
     In the midst of his laughter and glee,   |Me, speak for Compaq?
He had softly and suddenly vanished away---   |Yeah, right.
     For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.   |#include <stddisclaimer.h>

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 15:07:46 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
>Fission drive has been fully tested and flight qualified. It was abandoned
>shortly thereafter. NERVA was to supplant the S III stage on the saturn V
>for Apollo twenty, upping the delivered payload to the moon to 98 tons,
>from the baseline Saturn V's 48 tons. Not bad, not bad.

I'm sure you've talked to the nuke guys.  It would take a *lot* to
re-create  a Nineties NERVA, especially with more stringent
requirements for safety and environment-- assuming Admiral Watkins
were willing to take on this set of headaches and assuming political
opposition didn't make it plain impossible.

The nuclear-rocket people are plowing forward undaunted, God love
'em.  And they are far from hitting their first show-stopper.  But it
will be a steep uphill fight.

>There were
>movies of the test of the Nerva at the World Space Congress.  It was a
>completely successful full power 265 minute or hour I forget which test. Do
>you remember Bill?

No, Dennis, did you sit through the whole thing? (-:

I saw some brief tapes at the Lewis booth and these may be what you
refer to.

For my money, the best video was at the Sandia booth, where
they showed tests of reactor containment walls.  They put a fully
fueled F-4 on a rocket sled and sent it into a concrete test wall.
First there's a Phantom, then there's a Phantom with no nose, then
there's a Phantom with no cockpit... all in a growing ball of flame.
It's like watching the salami get shorter in the butcher shop's
slicer.  Appeals to the destructive small boy in all of us. I haven't
had this kind of fun since Gomez Addams blew up the model trains...

I suppose I have done worse damage myself, pound for pound, colliding
900 GeV protons and antiprotons together.  But the collisions are too
small to see,  I don't have any videotapes, and there is no
satisfying ball of flame.

"Read my lips, Hal:         Bill Higgins
Open the Pod Bay doors!"    Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
                            Bitnet:     [e-mail]
                            SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS
                            Internet:  [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 12:59:37 GMT
From: "Paul M. Koloc" <prometheus!pmk>
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes...
>>In article <[e-mail]> 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.

>4. Fusion.  Still the best long term solution to both terrestrial energy
>needs and intra-solar system propulsion systems.  No failures in the technology
>just failure of will in Congress to fund this needed technology.

The government has spent many times the amount that is required to
develop fusion energy.  The problem is NOT the amount of money spent.
It is that the work takes place in National Labs, is run by DoE Headquarters,
and it is not funded to the private sector on a cost sharing basis.

The tokamak (inverts pressure leverage) for example, was invented in
the 1963 and isn't promised by most before 2040 .. and that's not for
a "working commercial plant".  Imagine the tremendous boost a machine
like that would give the space program.  (The SPACE is needed for buildings
to house the support equipment to bring a tokamak into operation).

+---------------------------------------------------------+**********+
| Paul M. Koloc, President, Prometheus II, Ltd.           +Commercial*
|                   Bx 222, College Park, MD 20740-0222   ***FUSION***
| mimsy!promethe!pmk        [e-mail]  ***in the***
| [phone]            promethe=prometheus           **Nineties**
+---------------------------------------------------------************

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

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 18:00:30 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)

> Fission drive has been fully tested and flight qualified. It was
abandoned
> shortly thereafter. NERVA was to supplant the S III stage on the
saturn V

> for Apollo twenty, upping the delivered payload to the moon to 98
tons,
> from the baseline Saturn V's 48 tons. Not bad, not bad. There were

> movies of the test of the Nerva at the World Space Congress.  It
was a

> completely successful full power 265 minute or hour I forget which
test. Do
> you remember Bill?

>


I can't speak for Bill, but I had a BROTHER-INLAW named Bill who
worked on the project for Westinghouse Astronuclear in Large,
Pennsylvania (just outside Pittsburgh). He travelled out to Jackass
Flats for the tests. I saw *LOTS* of pictures and info on those
tests. I wish I had some of that stuff myself...

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

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 10:36:36 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO

From "New Scientist", 26 September 1992:
ICY OBJECT FOUND ORBITING BEYOND PLUTO
  A long search for objects on the outer fringes of the Solar System
has finally yielded results. American astronomers have found an object
about 200 kilometres across beyond the most distant part of Pluto's
orbit. It is the best evidence yet that many small, icy bodies may
orbit in the farthest bounds of the Solar System. The discovery may
help astronomers understand the evolution and origins of the planetary
system, says Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory.
  Astronomers have long thought that comets come from the outer reaches
of the Solar System. Recent models suggest that short-period comets,
including Comet Halley, come from a zone called the Kuiper Belt, just
beyond the orbit of Pluto. However no one had found anything there
until David Jewitt of the University of Hawaii and Jane Luu of the
University of California at Berkeley looked at images taken by the
University of Hawaii's 2.2-metre telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii on
the nights of 30 and 31 August and 1 September. They found a slow-
moving, extremely faint object and calculated its distance and size
from its motion and brightness.
  Jewitt and Luu began searching for faint bodies in the outer Solar
System in 1987. "The fact that they found one fairly easily suggests
that there are a lot of these things," says Marsden. Jewitt believes
the objects may be half ice. Pluto and its moon Charon may be larger
objects of the same type; comets may be smaller members of the family.
  Astronomers have discovered two other objects of similar size to the
new body, but which come closer to the sun. Chiron, a comet-like body
between Saturn and Uranus, was found in 1977. In January of this year,
an object now called Pholus was discovered to orbit between Saturn and
Neptun.
  The new object is still in a semistable orbit in the Kuiper belt
where it formed. Gravitational interactions, probably with Neptune,
perturbed Chiron inwards, towards the Sun, a few million years ago.
Pholus, with an orbit that goes farther from the Sun, apparently was
perturbated inwards more recently. "Presumably Chiron and Pholus are
the largest members of a class of objects diffusing inwards from the
Kuiper Belt," says Jewitt.
                                                    Jeff Hecht, Boston

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 14:18:59 GMT
From: Susanne Huettemeister <[e-mail]>
Subject: pollution of space around MIR station ??
Newsgroups: sci.space

A short time ago, the German cosmonaut who went up to the CIS space
station MIR this year gave a talk in Bonn. During this event, he stated
that small particles are piling up all around the station *due to its
gravity*, forming a cloud dense enough to interfere with astronomical
observations.

Does anybody on the net know if this is possible? Isn't it more likely
that the cosmonauts just throw their garbage overboard and that it stays
around for a while? Or might electrostatic effect be involved?

Is this really a problem that has to be taken into account by the
builders of FRED, too?

Any ideas out there?

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

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 17:44:10 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Lunar landing in 2002

> Venture firms are different. They tend to bet the farm on one high
> risk idea. If it doesn't pan out, they fold. Therefore venture
capitalists
> tend to only fund companies working in a "hot" area, and place
demands on
> the company to generate a large return in a short time. Since most
> space exploitation projects don't have short timeframes on their
returns,

> venture capitalists tend to avoid them.

>


Well, yes and no.

Most venture limited funds have a group of investors who pool their
money. They then pick a number of ventures on the expectation that
they can have 10 dry holes and make it up with one high tech
gusher...

And as to venture capital for space ventures: everyone complains
about the "lack" of it. And yet... how do you think Amroc (and it's
predecessor companies), PALS (and its' predecessors), OSC ($50M on
Wall Street), SpaceHab, and on and on have gotten startup capital?

I think the issue is that the $10^9 range of dollars is not yet
available for space ventures because the risk does not yet warrant
it. But space capital is increasing year by year. There is another
effect that was seen in the electronics, computer and software
industries. The first generation winners took their winnings and
created limited venture funds to back 2nd generation winners, etc.
That set of first generation winners is just barely getting off the
ground in the launch business. In satellites (communications in
particular) it is going quite nicely. Look at the amount of risk
capital going into Iridium.

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

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 15:12:53 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Space and Presidential Politics

> Allen Sherzer has also complained that Clinton and Gore are
> relying on the advice of space pundit John Pike, whom he accuses
> of being skeptical (heaven forbid) about the prospects for SSTO
> technology.  Consorting with a known agnostic!  I know John Pike,
> and if he has a fault it is that he is too much of a space
> enthusiast.
>


I've met him as well. He is nice enough as a person but is not
technological aggressive enough for my tastes. He was on a panel at
the end of the DC conference and came off looking like a victorian
era spacer. I think he went pale when the president of the NSS
suggested that nanotechnology might well be a shortcut to space. I am
not at all surprised he doesn't support DCX. I do however. If you
think HE is too much of an enthusiast, then I am afraid I will have
to take anything you say about pro-space attitudes of Clinton with 3
grains of salt. Or less.

I also think Dan Goldin is possibly NASA's last hope. It would be the
act of a low grade moron with the mental cabilities of an amoeba to
replace him.

> I can only conclude that if you care about space so much that you
> would base your vote on the issue you have 1) little to go on and

As has been said before, the sum total of everyone's special
interests is the public interest, NOT what the political pundits
claim is the public interest. For some on this news group space
(read: the future) IS the defining issue. That is their right and
perogative. Who gives a damn what the Washington Post says anyway?


> 2) loose marbles.  Get real!  Space is not and should not be a big
> issue in this Presidential election.  The issues are how to
> strengthen the economy and give people real opportunities to
> improve their lot while reducing the deficit and the burden of the
> national debt and healing the divisions in our society.  Without
> that, NASA is going nowhere.  Only a prosperous and united society
> will support space exploration.
>

> So don't lose the forest for the trees.  Vote on the big issues.
> Vote for Bush and Quayle if you really believe that they are
> better for the country as a whole (I certainly don't), but don't
> vote on the basis of dimly defined space policies.
>


Which is why my (absentee) vote is for Marrou/Lord.

                Live Free or (let the other guy) Die,
                Dale Amon

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 13:48:18 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Space and Presidential Politics
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark Goodman) writes:
>
>I can only conclude that if you care about space so much that you
>would base your vote on the issue you have 1) little to go on and
>2) loose marbles.  Get real!  Space is not and should not be a big
>issue in this Presidential election.  The issues are how to
>strengthen the economy and give people real opportunities to
>improve their lot while reducing the deficit and the burden of the
>national debt and healing the divisions in our society.  Without
>that, NASA is going nowhere.  Only a prosperous and united society
>will support space exploration.
>
>So don't lose the forest for the trees.  Vote on the big issues.
>Vote for Bush and Quayle if you really believe that they are
>better for the country as a whole (I certainly don't), but don't
>vote on the basis of dimly defined space policies.

The first rule of politics is that all politics is local. In this
group, the local issue is space policy and space funding. Maintaining
the poor in thrall to Big Brother government is not a local issue here.
Healing political divisions is not a local issue. Getting a handle
on fiscal policy *is* a side issue that we must consider since
sharp cuts in space funding would be damaging to our local interests.

Your contention that only a prosperous and united society can support
exploration is clearly false. Looking at the history of exploration,
and even looking at our world competitors in exploration today show
that it is precisely contention and competition that drives exploration.
A nation of contented sheep doesn't look up.

Gary

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 14:27:18 GMT
From: Jim Mann <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space platforms (political, not physical :-)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom) writes:
> Sure it is.  I see a lot of people talking about letting private
funding do
> what it can in space, wihtout gov interference.  That's what the LP
> platform is all about.  All references to gov. 'helping' people,
'creating'
> jobs, 'reforming' education, etc. are a side-issue to the LP, as
all
> these goals would be fulfilled by letting the citizens keep their
$$, and
> getting gov back to it's job:  Catching crooks, cleaning the
environment,
> or making the jerks who [explitive] it up fix it, and generally
protecting
> our rights; something 150 years of Rebublicrats have destroyed.

Intersting.  Our society is now freer than at any time in our
history.  Books that could not have been published 50 years ago
are published.  People can say or do things in public that would
have had them arrested in many places 100 years ago.  But, as usual,
people look at the few places where we aren't as free as they'd
like and bemoan the long lost days.  (To be fair, we have lost
a few freedoms.  Like, 150 years ago, people would chew tobacco
in public buildings and simply spit it on the walls or in the
corners. They'd probably be arrested if they did that today.  Ah,
for the long lost days of being able to spit chewing tobacco
freely, before the Rebublicrats [sic] stopped us from doing so.)

--
Jim Mann
Stratus Computer   [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 08:07:40 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

Dennis Wingo writes:
>>[in type-M Apollo-Amor asteroid]...approximately 90 billion dollars worth
>>of gold and 1 trillion dollars worth of Platinum, give or take a few million.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>That's before you bring it home. Actual price of gold and platinum on earth
>would drop, ASSUMING you can bring home the metals for a price less than or
>equal to the price of extracting them using current and near-term methods.

If we can produce more cheaply than most earthside mines, we can assume
revenues >50% of the current worldwide mining markets.  These
are roughly $4 billion/yr for platinum-group elements, and $20
billion/yr for gold.  Volume typically goes up faster than price
drops, as the metal is substituted for other materials and recycling
decreases.  If space mining brings the cost down considerably
the market may expand, especially for the industrially important
platinum-group.  For example, a factor of ten drop in platinum prices
might increase volume by a factor of twenty, giving a market of $8 billion
per year.

For comparison, the worldwide comsat market is about $5 billion/year,
and total worldwide space spending about $40 billion/year.  Historically
the minerals have declined as a fraction of GNP as humanity gets wealthier,
until now mining is only about 1% of GNP for developed countries.
Communications and other information services, in contrast, have as far
as we can speculate an infinite potential for growth.  More native
materials mining will go to support these industries than for direct
export to earth.  For example to build very manueverable spysats with
big tanks full of native propellants, huge antenna farms in Clarke orbit
made from native metal regolith, etc.  In addition, native materials
will enable large microgravity and vacuum manufacturing processes where
it is prohibitively expensive to launch raw materials from earth.
Earthside manufacturing is in the $1,000s of billions per year, so
this also has much more growth potential than export of raw minerals
from space.


--
[e-mail]        Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian

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

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 17:35:20 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)

> That's before you bring it home. Actual price of gold and platinum
on earth
> would drop, ASSUMING you can bring home the metals for a price less
than or
> equal to the price of extracting them using current and near-term
methods.
>

> Basic laws of supply and demand. More goods, prices drop.

>


Actually it's a bit more complex than that. Prices have elasticity,
ie, there are ranges over which there are somewhat linear changes.

For example, the price of a good may fall with supply until some
threshold is reached at which it becomes feasible to use if for a new
purpose, say your gold plated urinals. The demand curve then goes up,
and the price will fall more slowly. If the new use becomes the "in"
thing to do, demand might even push the price above the original
point at which the new use became feasible. There is a hysteresis
involved, ie it may have to go considerably higher than the initial
point before demand slackens again.

If many new uses open up, the curve might be almost flat for a
considerable change in supply.

Rising prices can show the aforementioned effect on prior uses, and
they can also be affected by the economics of substitution. And once
the substitution has occured, the old material price may have to fall
very considerably before users will switch back to it.

A lot also depends on the capital investment involved in switching
from once material to another, and in changing uses of that material.
The higher the capital investment involved, the more elastic the
price. Of course some materials, such as Heroin, have a price
elasticity for very different reasons.

I am not implying that your statement is necessarily wrong. Just
indicating that the situation could be a bit less straightforward.

Just another friendly minilecture in economics....
                Dale

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Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 14:54:56 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: What is this ?

Have the U.S. some kind of RPV with such performances ?

 Seconds after    Heading                    Speed    Altitude
   lock-on       (degrees)                  (knots)    (feet)

      00            200                       150       7000
      01            200                       150       7000
      02            200                       150       7000
      03            200                       150       7000
      04      sharp 200          acceleration 150       6000
      05       turn 270             = 22 g    560       6000
      06            270                       560       6000
      07            270                       570       6000
      08            270                       560       7000
      09            270                       550       7000
      10            210                       560       9000
      11            210                       570      10000
      12            210                       560      11000
      13            210                       570      10000
      14            270                       770       7000
      15            270                       770       6000
      16            270                       780       6000
      17            270                       790       5000
      18            290                      1010       4000
      19            290                      1000       3000
      20            290                       990       2000
      21            290                       990       1000
      22            300                       990       0000
      22.5          300                       980       0000  Break lock

Don't ask me how I got this one. There are others, but I have not those.

J. Pharabod

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 261
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