Rogue Keeper on 6/3/2006 at 11:57
Good luck with that... :cool:
TenTailedCat on 6/3/2006 at 12:38
Well, given the amount of private companies attending - more than seventy, and the increasing number of multi-national corporations lke Virgin who are developing their own space technology I think the odds of getting something aren't too bad
Rogue Keeper on 6/3/2006 at 13:11
Maybe, but again this presumption is based on theory of infinite economic growth. You would need all those companies getting richer and richer, as more sophisticated technologies will be needed for development of the base into a small self-sufficient colony, then more companies supporting this project during passing years. Then, these investments must be really profitable for engaged companies, and they won't be until there won't be any reliable industry making raw products. There have to be factories which can prepare them, a small spaceport which can ship them back to Earth. There have to be laboratories to manufacture special components which can be made only in vacuum and low gravity conditions. Maintenance costs of such complex won't make a small item either. It will take a long time until all those large investiments will turn into some reliable profit, and it's always possible that some investors loose patience or their situation on the market changes so much that they'll have to seriously reconsider what they should put money into. Investment into an extra-terrestrial base is quite a luxury expense.
There are so many uncertain and variable IFs.
If they want to build a sophisticated base equipped with advanced weapon systems just in 15 years, they should better start sending rockets there right now. And work like crazy.
Tony on 7/3/2006 at 00:05
Well, the American economy is in an obvious recession and probably the brink of a depression due to bad judgement on the part of nearly everyone who has any impact on the economy whatsoever. However, if everyone "did things right," the "infinite economy" theory is correct, or nearly so. An economy can sustain itself until the heat death of the universe, if things are "done right." Even if a country exhausted all of its exhaustable resources, like oil, coal, and iron, it would still be able to sustain itself with renewable resources like food, wood, and stone (I know I know, stone isn't technically renewable but I promise we are not running out of that before the end of the world). The only limiting factor would be the life of the sun.
My big beef with space travel is not the expenditure of resources like oil and iron, but that of resources like oxygen and hydrogen. Life cannot exist without those two critical elements (unlike oil and iron), and currently we're throwing vast amounts of them into space. Most of it will never come back to Earth.
I think that, if we are going to attempt space travel, we need to make sure that we're bringing back anything important that we're sending out. We should concentrate on such propulsion devices as the solar sail, the Bussard ramjet, and the laser (yes, a laser can be a propulsion device). Theoretically, a spacecraft powered by one or more of these devices would not actually leave matter in space. The problem of getting to orbit could still be transcended by conventional means, since matter used for this purpose would be drawn back to Earth by gravity.
Agent Monkeysee on 7/3/2006 at 00:29
Quote Posted by Tony
Life cannot exist without those two critical elements (unlike oil and iron), and currently we're throwing vast amounts of them into space. Most of it will never come back to Earth.
Haha we are throwing so little of that into space that it's not even worth talking about.
Tony on 7/3/2006 at 02:47
Okay, let's assume we survive the next three million years. What if we reach Alpha Centauri and other stars, and find no other planet with hydrogen and oxygen? Eventually we would run out of it. You must remember that our current spacecraft are propelled by oxygen and hydrogen, and that they are hurled into space in order to move the ship forward. And they are none too efficient about it, either.
Komag on 7/3/2006 at 02:50
Quote Posted by Tony
Well, the American economy is in an obvious recession and probably the brink of a depression due to bad judgement on the part of nearly everyone who has any impact on the economy whatsoever.
I'm not sure how 10 consecutive quarters of more than 3% (annual) growth constitutes an obvious recession. Along with over 2 million jobs created over the past 12 months, and over 4.6 million since May 2003, I'd say that a depression is nowhere on the horizon at all.
But that's beside the point.
And the percentage of the Earth's oxygen and hydrogen we waste out in space is about .000001 baquillazillionth of what we have. If we ever get to the point where we're approaching actually using up a whole 1% permanently, then we'll talk policy.
Jonesy on 7/3/2006 at 03:25
Quote Posted by Tony
Eventually we would run out of it.
Did you fail high school chemistry or are you just mindnumbingly stupid?
Tony on 7/3/2006 at 03:36
Do you just like being contrary, even when you're wrong?
D'Juhn Keep on 7/3/2006 at 03:37
I, for one, find it strangely comforting that Tony is batshit insane about all subjects, not just one or two. :)
