[ExI] pentagon wants orbiting solar power stations

[David Lubkin]

Dagon wrote:

>The immense difficulty of creating an industry in near-space,
>with development of lunar or NEAR asteroid ores, as well as
>harvesting solar energy is so incredibly disheartening it gives
>me a nauseous feeling. My gut is telling me things are going
>all wrong.
>
>It is all but certain that we will need to take this step, barring
>a Kurzweilean quantum leap in AI/Nanotech/longevity advances.
>I am concerned to rely in my expectations on any singularities,
>it would be just too convenient. I really want to see industry
>and accompanying economical growth start real fast, as I
>am really starting to get nervous about the Peak Oil issue.

I'm not convinced that the early analyses (Stine's The Third 
Industrial Revolution, Bova's The High Road, and the more detailed 
works) were wrong about the technical feasiblilty of and approaches 
to mining the asteroids. It seems to me that a Paul Allen or Jeff 
Bezos could (and profitably) fund the start-up out of pocket by 
themselves. I think the 1970's estimates were around $150 million to 
bring a decent nickel-iron asteroid back, which translates to about 
$500 million today. Even off by a factor of ten, it can be funded by 
one person. I am surprised that none of the tech rich who are putting 
money in space are talking about asteroids. Maybe (he hoped) they're 
working on it, but quietly.

I do feel very strongly that getting off this planet *asap* is vital, 
for all manner of reasons, without regard to how easy it would be 
given other technologies (MNT) that we expect but haven't happened yet.


-- David.