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

[hkhenson]

At 01:05 PM 11/23/2008, you wrote:
>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.

Plants don't need soil.  They grow just fine in rock or vermiculite 
or nothing at all if you spay the roots with hydroponic solution.

snip

>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. :-)

Every hear of Biosphere II?  They tried this and it was an 
unmitigated disaster.

>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.

He does not seem to respond to email.

>>>>>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.

Will try.

Keith