[ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time

[The Avantguardian]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
> To: The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 1:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time
> 
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:43:53AM -0800, The Avantguardian wrote:
> 
>> > Machines can be people, too. Canned monkeys will never amount
>> > to much in space.
>> 
>> With the right preservatives, canned monkeys will be fine.
> 
> No, because ~100 kg buys you a slowtime bag of water, and carries
> according burden of many tons of life support. In machine-phase,
> a single kg goes a long way. Loss of volaties is no problem since
> there are no volatiles to start with. Tell that to lyophilized
> space monkey jerky after explosive decompression.

I am not saying canned monkeys would be more efficient than machine phase in space. I am saying canned monkeys in space are every bit as feasible as monkeys o' war in the middle east. I would argue that machine phase would have fought the war in the middle east more efficiently as well. If you could reversibly vitrify your canned monkeys, life support would be enormously cheapened.
 
>> >> It is most certainly feasible. You just need to build a logistical 
> 
>> > 
>> > The Moon is not Antarctica.
>> 
>> How is this relevant? It's not Dubai either.
> 
> Are you familiar with the logistics required to
> support a tiny polar settlement on Earth? How many tons/person
> freight for life support? Now add need to carry volatiles and 
> necessity to use vaccuum suits (deep sea diving has nothing
> on this) or teleoperation in a *really* hostile environment, 
> and look at costs/kg.

If you book your trip to Antartica through National Geographic, it is about $1500 per person per day.

http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/antarctica-cruise/detail

Admittedly space will be more expensive but volatiles can be recycled. My whole point is that yes it is expensive but it is cheaper than war.


>> >> supply chain one small step at a time. You guys are really good at 
> 
>> >> this. Think about it terms of warfare. You guys can get supplies 
> to 
>> >> your troops on the other side of this planet. That is 
> pi*earth's 
>> >> radius away. The moon is 60 earth radii away. The supply chain to 
>> > 
>> > Distance is not relevant, potential energy is
>> > http://xkcd.com/681_large/ 
>> 
>> This just helps my argument. The ISS is about 4% of the trip to the moon 
> potential-wise. GEO is over 86%.
> 
> The ISS (-29.6 MJ/kg, LEO is -17 MJ/kg, Moon -0.5 MJ/kg specific
> orbital energy)) is not Afghanistan, and of course LEO gives you
> the advantage of being able to use electric propulsion.

That's not that far off from the energy cost per soldier in the middle east which was about 1.1 MJ per soldier per day.

http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/AD/us_ad_EnergySecurity052010.pdf

So for the price of supporting 300 soldiers for one day in the middle east, you can send one 100 kg astronaut to the moon. For an additional 100 soldiers per day you could give that astronaut life support for a month. So at its peak, a single day's spending on the Iraq/Afghan wars could have funded a 430 astronaut lunar base for a month. Even at current troop levels in the middle east (approx. 67500), for every day the war continues, we could send send about 168 astronauts to the moon for a month. 
 
>> From L1, a hostile would have a window to drop a rock 
>> anywhere along the ecliptic (celestial equator) relative 
>> to earth's or moon's surface with a minimum of effort. 
> 
> To be able to drop a rock you have to be able to put
> up a rock first.

>From time to time, you would get the opportunity to grab a NEO. L1 would not be a bad place for that either, especially if the NEO was a civilization-ender.


> There is plenty of titanium on the Moon but even if
> the Moon was made from pure titanium or had gold ingots
> laying around it would be currently not cost effective 
> to transport it.

Even if the moon were made of feces, the ROI of sending astronauts to the moon would probably be higher than that of the war thus far.

 
> Space squirrels are optimally adapted to their
> habitats. Let's face it, we make pretty terrible space squirrels.

Life didn't crawl up onto dry land fully adapted to the environment. No, some poor fish had to flop up there in a most ungainly fashion, gills burning, at huge risk to itself only find out that land was difficult but not impossible.

Stuart LaForge