[ExI] Asteroidal mining was Nukes was less expensive > energy

[Jeff Davis]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 5:22 AM, Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> One method mentioned was constructing a large plastic film in a sphere around your asteroid, metallising half of it to form a reflector which then heats up the asteroid. The most volatile parts vaporise and form a shell on the inside of the film. You cut this apart, then repeat the process for higher and higher temperatures, each time getting a different set of temperature-controlled vapor, until you are left with highly refractory stuff in the centre.

Thanks, Tom, for this little bit.  Can't say precisely why -- probably
my obsession with what I refer to as "gadgeteering" -- but certain
ideas nail me in my pleasure center and send my mind racing.

I stopped reading science fiction when I was 13 or 14.  Dang!  I have
GOT to get back to it, ...catch up on my reading.  Though these days
it would be science non-fiction (science prognostication?,  science
imagineering?, science prophecy?).

 This space habitat (slash starship) idea has just totally infected my
brain. First, it was JD Bernal.  Then about two and a half years ago,
the serial Fermi paradox discussion provoked an exchange between
Eugene and BillK, where Eugene said -- (ymmv) -- "You don't see any
engineered galaxies, do ya?  Ergo, we're all alone." and BillK replied
(ymmv) and I agreed -- "Not so fast.  Our still-barbarically-limited
understanding of things makes that assessment premature ."   Within
that exchange Eugene also insisted that galactic expansion would be
mediated by von Neumann probes, not "monkeys in a can".  Then appeared
the old nostrum: there's no point in even attempting to travel to the
nearest star because when, after so many lifetimes your descendants
finally arrived, they would be greeted by others who had arrived ahead
of them, courtesy of better tech.

I thought about that, and developed a little "attitude".  That damn
nostrum is the perfect recipe for NEVER making the attempt.  A
variation of the "it'll never work" mantra of the ignorant and
vision-less.  "It'll never work" is all it takes to make me respond,
"When do we start."

That was the moment I became a true believer,... in the superiority of
possibilities beyond  the gravity well.  And asteroid mining is step
three in the program of setting off to the stars.

One of the more interesting parts of this über-escapist dream is
trying to figure out who would start such a project and the nature of
the motivation.  Would it be a government project?  A religious/cult
group?  Corporate?  Social rejectionist?  Explorers slash adventurers?
 Survivalists?  Any of these seemed plausible, so I just chose my
favorite: rejectionists.  People fed up with the horseshit of life on
planet Moron.

My wife is harassing me.  She insists that I have work to do, so I'll
wrap this up for the moment with an observation:  Against all
earth-centric prejuduce, life outside the gravity well may prove
decidedly "better" than life shackled to dirt.  Better or not, it's
coming, it's the future.  The notion that going to the stars is a
fool's errand cause "you can't get there from here" -- ie the trip
time exceeds the current human lifespan -- is based on the premise
that arriving at the destination is everything.  But clearly, the
multi-lifetime duration of the trip means that the trip itself --
living in-transit in interstellar space -- not the arrival, is the
true life-style choice of these "travelers".  For those embarking on
the trip, transitioning to a life in interstellar space is the goal,
rather than the destination.  If the resources for such a life-style
are abundant in the asteroid belt, Oort cloud, and Kuiper belt, then
gravity-well-independent life should take off, both within the local
system and in the vast shrinking interval beyond.

Best, Jeff Davis

 "We don't see things as they are,
       we see them as we are."
                  Anais Nin