SPACE

[Firefox]

I tend to take a middle view, which is: Earth's going to be mined out soon, there are literally huge mountains of valuable elements drifting around up there in space, let's get some Von Neumann machines out there to mine the asteroid belt, make nice things for us, and sent 'em back here.

[Dio]

Same argument, though; the first thing we're likely to run out of on earth is energy.

[Firefox]

Get the machines to manufacture lots and lots of high-efficiency solar cells and drop them all around the Earth.

It said in that documentary the other day that something like 13,500 times the human race's energy requirements falls on the Earth continously in the form of sunlight.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Get the machines to manufacture lots and lots of high-efficiency solar cells and drop them all around the Earth.

It said in that documentary the other day that something like 13,500 times the human race's energy requirements falls on the Earth continously in the form of sunlight.

And as soon as someone figures out how to charge you for it, they be on it like a shot.

[Firefox]

And as soon as someone figures out how to charge you for it, they be on it like a shot.

Charge us for it? Eh? If you do it right you only have to send one Von Neumann machine out into the asteroid belt and a year or two later little capsules packed full of solar cells (or other useful stuff) start drifting to the ground, free for anyone to use.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

And as soon as someone figures out how to charge you for it, they be on it like a shot.

Charge us for it? Eh? If you do it right you only have to send one Von Neumann machine out into the asteroid belt and a year or two later little capsules packed full of solar cells (or other useful stuff) start drifting to the ground, free for anyone to use.

You don't think the big utility companies might want to prevent that happening then?

[zip accident]

My view has a pretty simple progression:
- Viable colonisation requires one of large-scale interstellar travel (thousands of people and the infrastructure for them to be 100% independent) or terraforming to be viable

If you think colonists need planets, then yes. I, however, think that living in environments in space is what we should do.

- Even negating all other implausible factors, the energy requirement for either of these is not even over-the-horizon science. (Note that even if we get fusion working it does not change this - we're talking ten-plus orders of magnitude deficiencies here)

- We therefore require either completely new (unimaginable) science to either totally change the energy requirement or to supply near-infinite free energy.

The sun is very energetic, most of that is lost into interstellar space. Any likely way of harnessing that is a potentially horrendous weapon, but if we need that much power we can get it.

Same argument, though; the first thing we're likely to run out of on earth is energy.

Run short of, maybe, run out of no chance, the sun is good for millions (or is it billions?) of years yet.

[teamonkey]

The only thing holding us back is lack of funding. If, say, tomorrow there was an announcement that there was some mineral (oil, gold, whatever) on Mars, there'd be three or four mining companies on the planet within ten years, no problem. It just needs to become commercially viable. Or physically necessary.

[axel000]

The Sun is estimated to have 5 billion more years until it SuperNovas.

As for space mining, the problem is that right now we are only present here on Earth. Everything needed to accomplish the mining has to be sent up at sufficient velocity to escape the Earth's gravity. That makes this prohibitively expensive. This is why small steps to build a long term presence on the Moon and then Mars make sense. They won't return any revenue for hundreds of years, but we must start to be able to become self sufficient on other bodies.

Once we can do that, we can build equipment using material from the moon and / or mars, with the much lower escape velocities inherent to these bodies reducing the amount of cost in launching this equipment to a mining location.

Ultimately, we will need to be able to refine / process in space too. This is a big reach for the human race, and its probably several hundred years out - but if we get a permanent presence on the Moon in 20-30 years, a permanent presence on Mars in 100 is likely. From there, you may be able to begin mining and processing in 200...then out to the outer planets, and moons, and the asteroid belt, 300 + years out.

Its all do-able, people just have to realize that a) This is important, and b) Its going to take a long time

[zip accident]

The only thing holding us back is lack of funding. If, say, tomorrow there was an announcement that there was some mineral (oil, gold, whatever) on Mars, there'd be three or four mining companies on the planet within ten years, no problem. It just needs to become commercially viable. Or physically necessary.

Not gold, for The Patrician's very good reason, and not oil I think, because Mars' gravitational field and atmosphere would make lifting it to Mars orbit energy inefficient (if oil for perfume etc became rare on Earth that might be a different matter economically, but you'd definitely spend more fuel mass getting oil to Mars orbit than the mass of the oil itself).

[teamonkey]

Well, no. Not gold or oil. I meant something desirable. Some substance that is useful for manufacturing.

[zip accident]

Well, no. Not gold or oil. I meant something desirable. Some substance that is useful for manufacturing.

Yeah.

Not anything that depends for it's price on rarity, so that's jewels out, like gold. Titanium maybe? It would have to be found first of course.

[axel000]

Bad news for the astronauts on ISS...

[RedOktober]

Space poos!

Not content with anal probing, the aliens are now stopping up the plumbing. Anyway, can't they just open a window and let it out?

[Darkflame]

Space is long term survival, its that simple.
Just because the goal is so far away is more reason to work on it as much as possible now, not less.

Technology dosnt improve magically without you pushing it. Leaps don't happen by sitting back and waiting.
Sure, lots of things invented for other reasons have helped space technology. But that equally goes visa-versa.

This is exactly the sort of wacky argument from the space colonists that is just pure pipe-dream. ..

Why is any of that wacky?
What statement there is even remotely whacky?

Your reply only was saying, basicaly "its very hard".
That dosnt contract the fact it has to be done one day, and it will take a long time to develop.
It also dosnt counter the fact that directly developing space technology will get you a hell of a lot further then just waiting for earth tech to happen to help you along. Which may never happen.
(and this before we even mention the potential for "new science" to be discovered by observations out in space. If you think no science is being done on Phoenix, you have an incredibly narrow view of what science is).