[extropy-chat] 10th Planet Discovered

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 01:12:14PM -0500, Brent Neal wrote:

> Except that you also assume that we've already colonized in 
> your argument about further colonization. That -is- a tautology. 

Colonization means different things to different people. First of all,
self-rep is a degree, denoted as closure. A closure over unity means the pink
bunny, which coppertops forever. A closure under unity means some degree of
local resources are being used which do not need to be hauled via rocketry.
A closure of zero means the status quo. Which sucks intensely, imo.

Colonization doesn't assume suited monkeys frolicking around in front of a romantic
barren landscape backdrop. It assumes a sustainable presence, which means a
local fabbing facility with a self-rep closure which is very close or over unity.

> And assuming that you are going to get a specific technological 
> breakthrough that will make it all magically happen is not 

It is not a specific technological breakthrough. It's an envelope of
technologies which result in self-replication. Humanity will not be able to
become a space-faring culture without utilizing respective local resouces. Earth is a
negligible presence even with an equatorial necklace of space elevators.
Volume beats surface. Exponential processes beat linear ones.

> terribly convincing in an argument.  If anything, history 
> should tell you that we're more likely to have a breakthrough 
> that -isn't- expected that will make it possible.

It is useless trying to make predictions based on things you cannot know.
I'm not including any magical new physics. No tabletop wormholes allowed,
sorry. If such technology is feasible, you can assume postbiology will find
it. Both AI and nanotechnology are causally corellated: we will soon have AI
once we have molecular circuitry, and vice versa (the AI will invent anything
which is within reach of designspace).
 
> Read the Smalley-Drexler debate.  As I said before, I'd rather do it

I do not care much about lowest common denominator level of discussion on
nanotechnology. It makes my brain bleed.
 
> now than wait for "something new and better" to come along. All the 
> usual aphorisms about those who dare, etc. etc.  

You're missing the obvious: I'm completely on your side, as long as you don't
assume space colonizations = canned/suited monkeys. The fastest route to
getting a sustained human presence (which is just a negligible footnote,
because the future with people in it is rapidly approaching an end) is a
teleoperated fabbing facility, including mining polar hydrate cryotraps, and
bootstrapping a closed-loop ecosystem (allright, a few tons of freeze-dried
food bring you a long way, if you've got just some 10 people to feed).
 
> After spending 6 years in nanotechnology research, the most important 
> things I learned were that (a) the nanotech advocates are overly 
> optimistic and (b) there is a gaping chasm between what is thought 

The Merkle/Drexler advocates? Absolutely. However, this doesn't have anything
to do with idea of machine-phase/autoassembly molecular self-replication. 

> to be possible and our current engineering prowess. Of course, I'm 

Of course. What has the current state of the art to do with anything? At some
point organic chemistry didn't exist. 

> an engineer that became a theorist in grad school, so I'm likely 
> to have very cynical views of both groups. :) 

Only fair, I guess.
 
> Neither of which is necessary to begin the process of bootstrapping 
> industry in the inner system.  You start with LEO and GEO first, 

noNoNONONO! You have to bring up anything you process up from LEO, and the
step to leap to microgravity vs. a more civil 1/6th is not to be
underestimated. You can prototype lunar hardware on Earth surface, and debug
them in parabolic flight rigs. You sure can't do this with outright
microgravity production. It's the natural next step after Luna (especially,
if you consider how many seeds you need to launch to seed all congealed
stardreck bits in this system).

I'm totally with you if we had a few 100 m rock up there already. But, no
suck luck. The closest one is Luna. And it has volatiles, to boot.

> which we most certainly have the technology to industrialize. And 
> for fsck's sake, you don't put humans up there at first! There is 

I'm totally with you on that one.

> no reason to do so.  If there is anything the Information Revolution 
> has taught us, its that humans are expensive to maintain and so 
> you save them for tasks for which they are needed. That's where 

Robots are one-way. Robots don't take life-support. You can shut them down
for two weeks, and resume them cleanly.

This alone completely kills people as bootstrap agents, as long as you have
resources within easy teleoperation radius, or automation at least as good as
social insects.

We're so lucky to have the Moon.

> your bootstrap starts. Making visionary statements about how 
> much easier it will be to do this once we have this or that 
> McGuffin  is fun, but it butters no parsnips.
> 
> The economics of a moon base are pretty marginal, from what I 
> understand. Mars seems to be a much better choice, but until 
> we do a better job industrializing Earth's orbit, even a moon 
> base will remain out of reach.

Have to completely disagree with you on that one. Mars is out of reach, so
ist LEO/GEO/Lagrange, Luna is just within easy reach with teleoperation.

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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