[ExI] Thoughts on Space based solar power (Clinic Seed & a diverse future)

[Paul D. Fernhout]

hkhenson wrote:
> They don't need to be, though taking a bath and laundering clothes 
> before going up would probably keep out virtually every insect you 
> didn't want.
> 
> In any case, farming modules heat up like autoclaves if you just shut 
> off the heat sink.  That deals with any pest that I can think of.

Except soil is a living thing. It's not the same after you sterilize it. It 
has all kinds of complex ecological dynamics we don't fully understand.

Some resources I like:
   "The Soul of Soil: A Soil-Building Guide for Master Gardeners and 
Farmers" by Grace Gershuny

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Soil-Soil-Building-Gardeners-Farmers/dp/1890132314
"Towards Holistic Agriculture: A Scientific Approach" by R.W. Widdowson

http://www.amazon.com/Towards-Holistic-Agriculture-Scientific-Approach/dp/0080342116

"Natural wastewater treatment"
http://www.oceanarks.org/Natural_Water_Treatment.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_machines

An organic philosopy might suggest ship up living dirt and living pondwater, 
and you get what you get, and then you start tinkering with the balance. :-)

Even if you inspect everything and sterilize most of it, I just don't see 
quarantine being 100% effective, and it is in the nature of biological 
systems that 99.9999999% effective can quickly becomes 0% effective. :-)

> Possibly.  It depends on social enjoyment.  Dealing with the physical 
> world is almost certainly going to be less rewarding than a simulated 
> one.  It's slow and more limited.  

Maybe that will be what is spiritually exciting about it, like Yoga or Tai 
Chi or even knitting? :-)
   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=slow+exercise

> I have not been paying much 
> attention.  Has anything leaked out of Second Life or World of War craft 
> to become a real world product?  Or do the objects in there depend too 
> much on the local "physics" rules?  It seems that at least costumes 
> could be instantiated.

"Color 3D Prints - "Print" World of Warcraft characters"
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/08/color_3d_prints_print_world_of.html

And that Shirky article you linked to on 11/13 talks about the convergence 
of online and offline. So does his book "Here Comes Everybody".
   http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/
where he talks about meetup.com.

>>>> Anyway, to the extent you put your solar space satellite plans under 
>>>> free and open source licenses, people can collaborate on improving them
>>> Following the logic and math through the wiki pages seems to be 
>>> harder than what most people are willing to do.  Or perhaps a social 
>>> group has not yet formed around the concepts where people get support 
>>> from each other the way they do on open source projects.
>>
>> One contributor to project success is indeed to get people together 
>> who care about it. :-) One possibility is to integrate a wiki and a 
>> face to face meeting (as in, get people together at a workshop, and 
>> people work together on it). There certainly have been a lot of people 
>> interested in SPS based on previous SSI conferences. Maybe they don't 
>> know of it?
> 
> Possibly.  Do you still have contacts with them?  Could you let them 
> know the web pages exist?

I've never been in touch with any of them (other than meeting some people at 
the SSI conferences or reading their papers). Obviously, one could look 
through old proceedings, but people move and change email addresses and so on.

You could go to the SSI yahoo group and make a post perhaps and interact 
with people there:
   http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ssi_list/

Mike Combs has been an active leader there and I'm sure he would love to 
hear from the co-founder of the L5 society if you don't want to join that 
list yourself:
   "The Space Settlement FAQ" written by Mike Combs (mikecombs at aol.com)"
   http://space.mike-combs.com/spacsetl.htm

SPS is featured prominently in his FAQ:
   http://space.mike-combs.com/spacsetl.htm#SPS

You might find a bunch of people on that list willing to help with SPS issues.

--Paul Fernhout