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On 26/09/2020 19:20, spike wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.74.1601144442.3037.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<p class="MsoNormal">> <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Grigg via
extropy-chat<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Fwd: Space governance<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">>…Spike, as our resident engineer, does
Ben's math check out? : )<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ja, sure does. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">John we knew back in the early 90s that any
notion of people living long term in space was really
dependent on Single Stage To Orbit, or failing that… all
recoverable everything. We knew you don’t build a 737 in
Seattle, fly it to Orlando, unload the passengers, then hurl
it into the sea. No part of that aircraft is thrown out.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Space hardware is inherently expensive,
that isn’t going to change. Until we get some way to get
stuff to orbit cheaply, none of the space-hab notions are
practical. All supplies need to be hauled up there for a long
time. We can’t do that at $10K per kilo, which is one man-day
of food. Can’t do that now, can’t do it later.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To answer your question: space habs aren’t
there yet. There are technologies missing, such as how to
make food from sunlight a looooot more efficiently than
putting it thru vegetables.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It pains me to be the wet blanket on the
notion, but I used to it. I ended up in the same position
with the early 90s engineering teams working on SSTO: I
calculated that anything you can do with one stage can be done
better with two. Turns out that was true then and still is
now.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We aren’t there on space habs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">spike<o:p></o:p><o:p> <br>
</o:p></p>
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<br>
I feel that this is missing my point. I'm not saying it's too
expensive (although it is), I'm saying we just don't have enough
energy available, and are unlikely to ever have it, this side of the
singularity. That's a much more fundamental constraint than monetary
cost. It's physics, not economics.<br>
<br>
The OP was about governance systems for populations in space. We
aren't ever going to have large enough populations (of biological
humans) in space to make thinking about governance systems for them
worthwhile.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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