[ExI] Moon Bases Not Needed

[Keith Henson]

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 5:00 AM,   Kevin G Haskell <kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> I don't think the technology you are using is anywhere the time frame close
> to where we are headed as compared to the Singularity.

I take it from looking at your Google page that you are not a
technology heavy kind of person.

The technological singularity is generally thought to incorporate both
nanotechnology and AI.

At present we are making progress on both fronts, but the path to
either of them is not clear, not even close to clear.  Neither is the
time frame to get there.

The path to low cost transport into space is a hard engineering task
and a bigger financial task, but there are multiple ways to do it and
no real breakthroughs are required.

>  I could be wrong,
> but that technology seems awfully unrealistic anytime soon.  It certainly
> can be a technology that we keep working on as one of the many alternative
> possibilities, and I would never rule it out, but I am just saying that,
> compared to the rate at which computers are evolving, the Singularity is
> likely to occur sooner, or, at the very least, other sources of less
> complicated forms of alternative energy.

You might be right.  The big unknown is the political will.  Japan and
to a slightly lesser extent, China don't have a lot of other energy
choices.

> Lastly, it also depends on another great "if" we are able to locate
> sufficient materials that can be used for energy consumption on earth.
> Materials on the moon may be very limited in scope as to what they produce.

We know the bulk composition of lunar rock.  As much as a third of the
mass of thermal type power satellites can be heat sink fluid made of
finely ground rock and low pressure gas.  Alternately, silicon for PV
cells can be refined from lunar rock.

Getting it off the moon is much less complicated than was proposed in
the 1970s.  Spectra fiber is strong enough to build a lunar elevator
out through L1.

> Thank you for that link.  It appears to be a very good source of
> information, and I've saved it for future reference.

It's only a snapshot of thinking at that time.  There may be better
approaches, such as replacing the Skylon with a microwave heated air
dropped stage.

Keith

> Best,
> Kevin