[extropy-chat] Moon news

[David Lubkin]

Robert Bradbury wrote:

>Journalists are catching up faster than you might think from where I sit.
>Perhaps due to the fact that they can't escape from more informed writers
>who simply throw stuff onto the net without having to make a living as
>a journalist.  Its tough to push ca-ca when a Google search will cleearly
>show it as such.

And yet, here it is.  Look at how this news is being covered.  No one -- 
reporter, politician, or commentator -- has discussed this story with any 
greater depth than they would have in 1972.

>I believe anyone who is an extropian who believes nanotechnology will 
>develop reasonably rapidly (say within a century) would be foolish to 
>support any Mars colonization or even Mars human visitation 
>efforts.  There is no point to expending resources to put humans at the 
>bottom of another gravity well.
>         :
>If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could do if invested 
>in nanotech development...

That's not an option.  You aren't going to get $100B for nanotech 
development.  Money will be spent on space projects.  This is political 
reality.  The question is which space projects will be most useful of the 
alternatives that are politically viable.

I am not necessarily advocating the Mars project.  I *am* saying that it at 
least needs to be in the public discussion.

If the choice is only between the Moon and Mars, there's a decent case that 
it is more useful to go to Mars now than to go back to the Moon.

Of the three space choices we're discussing, I'd pick asteroid mining over 
the Moon or Mars in a New York minute, except that I want it done 
privately.  In the long run, I think we might be better off delaying 
asteroid mining over doing it now as a government project.

Funding realities aside, I am a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy.

Of course I want space-based habitats.  But I also want self-supporting 
human habitats off-world that are minimally dependent on technology, as 
soon as possible.

It's a tremendously useful safety net that we can be dropped with the 
clothes on our back almost anywhere on this planet and survive.  Or that a 
catastrophic event can set our society back centuries and we can recover.

Mars has all the raw materials for life, and we can survive there with 
lower-tech than on the Moon or in a space-based habitat.  Me, I'll take 
space, but I want somebody living on Mars.  Maybe the Amish will go....

I am a strong advocate of nanotech but I don't want to see getting 
off-world delayed --

(1)  Nanotech may be harder than we think.
(2)  Nanotech, genemods, biowar, or an Eliezer-class AI may jeopardize 
earthbound sentient life.
(3)  Asteroid mining is dirt cheap, as in there are many individuals who 
could personally fund it altogether.
(4)  As we agreed, there are synergies between developing nano and 
developing space.

Kevin Freels wrote:

>I think that a permanent presence would be extremely valuable for anything,
>regardless of whether or not MNT comes along soon. To simply have a place
>with lots of people and industry that's not buried in a deep gravity well
>like Earth would increase our abilities more than I can even guess.
>If you could start small and bring asteroids to the moon for processing, it
>could grow just as rapidly as the US did. It would be even more useful if we
>came to learn that it is easier to manufacture MNT self-replicators in low
>or zero g. (I don't know if this would make a difference, but with all the
>materials research on the ISS I guess it could be possible).

And it would be pretty useful to be able to work on assemblers or genemods 
on an isolated orbital station, instead of an office park.  A lot less 
reason to fear something bad getting out the door.


-- David Lubkin.