>>If they don't find water on the moon, I have a hard time believing that
>>there will ever be large colonies there. Maybe small stations devoted
>>to running astronomical instrumentation.
>I'd have to agree with this: The key to a large colony would be minimizing
>imports (since high transportation costs make them impracticle.) If
>all the hydrogen needed to support a lunar colony had to be imported,
>I doubt it would be possible.
Not quite accurate, at least in the long term. Ask people on the street who
they condsider the world's biggest economic powers and Japan is sure to come
up. Now take a look at Japan's resources. It's not so much a question of
minimizing imports as maximizing the balance of trade. Reducing imports is
part of it, but if you add value to the raw materials and then send them back
out you've met the real requirement.
Even if there isn't water on the Moon, we know that hydrogen is around. It's
the most common element in the Universe - helium is the only thing that comes
within a few orders of magnitudes. More relevant, we know that hydrogen is
available in quantity in the outer solar system and travel doesn't have to
be that expensive. Now if the Moon has anything of value on it, and I think
it might, then all it has to do is increase the value of it's exports over the
value of it's imports.
Personally I think projections this far in the future require more hubris than
I can muster at this point. I'm reminded of one of Clarke's Laws (?) which,
paraphrased says that people who say something is possible are probably right
and people who say things are impossible are often wrong.
>>The urge to colonize the universe seems to come from an urge for
>>terretorial conquest that has been with us for a long time. It is
>>interesting how old themes are constantly repeated in the present.
>"... for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of
>all the western stars until I die... To strive, to seek, to find and
>not to yield." (from Ulysses, assuming my memory is accurate...)
Yes, and by James Joyce if my memory is accurate. I think there's an important
difference between the desire to conquer new territories and the desire that
I think many of us feel, which is expressed by the above quote. I don't need
to control any of this stuff, I just have to experience it.
--
Josh Hopkins jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Q: How do you tell a novice from an expert.
A: A novice hesitates before doing something stupid.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1993 19:59:52 GMT
From: rabjab <rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Goldin's future
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space
In article <1j5ldbINNeaq@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> earle@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Greg Earle) writes:
>Hate to say this, but you won't see me rushing to join the "Save Goldin" gang.
>Background: I attended Caltech; I am now back at JPL for a 3rd tour of duty;
>I've been at JPL for 5 of the last 7 1/2 years;
....long speech deleted....
> - Greg Earle
I think you're DAMN lucky to be working at JPL at all, and if I was in
your position I wouldn't give a hoot who was running NASA. Just do
a good job without complaining and maybe someday you'll be administrator.
-rabjab
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1993 06:27:41 GMT
From: Jeffrey David Hagen <hagen@owlnet.rice.edu>
Subject: Goldin's future
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space
You went up to the administrator of NASA at a public meeting and accosted him for letting his agency not offer you enough money?! No wonder he didn't want to talk to you. You may have a perfectly valid point, but that is hardly an effective way to go about making it.
Besides, catch a clue about JPL. It is widely considered to be the single most bloated, pig-headed, and inefficient part of NASA among industry folks I have dealt with. Having spent some time as a student at Caltech myself, I can certainly see were they get that impression.
Jeff Hagen
Rice University
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1993 03:20:50 GMT
From: Tom A Baker <tombaker@world.std.com>
Subject: In Memorium, RAH (was:needed: a real live space helmet)
Newsgroups: sci.space
In article <C0wxuF.A6s.1@cs.cmu.edu> ssi!lfa@uunet.UU.NET ("Louis F. Adornato") writes:
>to those fields thanks to Robert Heinlien. Even though NASA gave him a
.....
>What I'm wondering about is the possibility of naming some sort of geological
>feature after him. Something on Venus would be appropriate, as all the other
.....
>Any suggestions?
Excellent Idea, but I'd be surprised if something hasn't already.
Anyone know if there is a "Crater Heinlein" or something somewhere?
Tom
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jan 1993 05:20:05 GMT
From: Jeffrey Alan Foust <jafoust@cco.caltech.edu>
Subject: SNC meteorites
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary
In article <1993Jan14.225859.24442@siemens.com> aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri) writes:
>> 1)the SNCs were equilibrated at ~4.51Ga (U-Pb and Rb-Sr).
>
>Context makes this look like a dating, but I've never seen "Ga" used as a
>unit.
Ga = gigayears ago = billions of years ago. It's a not-uncommon unit in
the geological sciences.
--
Jeff Foust Senior, Geophysics/Planetary Science, Caltech
jafoust@cco.caltech.edu jeff@scn1.jpl.nasa.gov
Final score of the Interstellar Space Deep Space 9
Station Championship Softball Game: Babylon 5
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 22:15:05 PST
From: Brian Stuart Thorn <BrianT@cup.portal.com>
Subject: Supporting private space activities
Newsgroups: sci.space
>You want to be as close to the equator as possible to take maximum advantage
>of Earth's spin. If you're launching rockets that fall apart (e.g. they
>have multiple stages), you want to have lots of water downrange. Those were
>the only really technical reasons for Florida (the weather is lousy).
Being closer to the equator than almost anywhere else in the
continental U.S. didn't hurt either. South Texas and the Georgia
coast were viable, but not particularly better than Florida,
weather wise. Besides, anyone living in Florida will tell you
that if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes. :-)
Don't blame Florida because NASA chose to launch Challenger on
the coldest day of the year. Don't blame Florida because NASA
launched at Atlas-Centaur into a thunderhead (ignoring the
near disaster of Apollo 12). Florida weather is no worse than
anywhere else. The weather is a serious problem only in Shuttle
landings, and even so more than one Edwards landing had to be
diverted elsewhere. Of the nine launches in the past year, only
one was delayed more than a day by weather. Two landings (one
at KSC, one at Edwards) were diverted due to weather.
-Brian
>There's no fundamental problem with putting a launch site elsewhere --
>the Aussies are trying to do one at Cape York -- but the US is the single
>biggest customer and is a prime supplier of bits and pieces even for
>other people's hardware. The US is also just about the only country
>that has a large space industry which is not completely a creature of
>the government.
>--
>"God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
