[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Bush's 2020 Vision of Space

[Terry W. Colvin]

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 07:18:34 +1000
From: lawrie_williams at yahoo.co.uk
  To: forteana at yahoogroups.com
Subj: FWD [forteana] Bush's 2020 Vision of Space


Well I always thought that was where NASA and the USA were going anyway. 

But what is the goal? Where is this going? Explorers always have something firm
in mind. 

Getting stuff into space will need to become cheaper. Its still going to take an
awful lot of kerosene or liquid hydrogen. 

I think the Space Station is a bit of a dead loss. Too monolithic, too
vulnerable. And kind of sitting nowhere in particular. 

Trying to get to worlds without atmospheres might be a bit discouraging. The
Moon is a vacuum. Radiation is another problem, and 1/6 G will probably cripple
people pretty fast since it is not far off weightlessness which we know is a
real problem. 

A Moonbase for people will perhaps use the lava tubes there. They offer the
possibility of ready-made shelter that might be sealed and pressurized. But for
what purpose except to say they are there? To take advantage of the mineral
resources would require sending an incredible amount of infrastructure up there. 

And Mars hasn't any sort of air either, don't be misled by the colour enhanced
images. Nor much protection from radiation. And with such low gravity, it will
not be a healthy place to stay, at least for human beings as we think of them. 

Venus might be more interesting. They say it is too hot but that might not be
the case at high altitude near the poles. There may be places where people can
live underground. They will still need to make their own air. But at least the
gravity there is almost the same as on Earth. 

As for why go there, I think it is cost effective for the Moon, Mars and Venus
to be explored. Bush hit the nail on the head without meaning to perhaps when he
said it would cost Americans each as much as a month of cable TV. These efforts
by humans to survive and investigate will be avidly watched back on Earth.
People will pay to watch. In fact the energy spent pushing rockets loaded with
air, food, electronics and explorers into space will be far less than the energy
saved on Earth because people will be watching space being explored instead of
consuming the world's dwindling resources. 

To beat the gravity problem, I suggest craft in pairs attached by a cable. As
they revolve around one another they will have centripetal force and that is as
good as gravity. 

I hear physicist-philosopher-publicist Paul Davies is advocating one way trips,
an idea I have advocated and no doubt others have too. We are all going to die
anyway. No point hauling those ugly bags of mostly water all the way back to
Earth. 

As a species I think we need to cut corners where we can if we want to get into
space. Maybe we will soon see NASA setting up facilities in high altitude
places, perhaps in the Andes.  There is a lot to be said for sending midgets
descended from generations of mountain dwellers. Less air, water and food
needed, and at lower pressure too. 

Yup, that is the future - pregnant midget females from high altitudes. And then
years and years of sending out food, fuel and equipment while they get
established. 

All this ignores the possibility that there already exists the technology to get
into space without using rockets. That would make for a whole new ball game! 

Lawrie Williams ________ 


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