[ExI] De-Orbiting Gold

Mike Dougherty msd001 at gmail.com
Sun May 20 16:19:19 UTC 2012


On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> However, I'm questioning the whole basic assumptions of Sqrat
> spaceflight (gather *all* the nuts and drag them home). A more
> advanced Sqrat would set up nests where all the nuts are.

I kept thinking through this thread, "why bring anything DOWN to
earth?"  It's so difficult to get things out of earth gravity well,
what possible value is there for bringing anything down here?  If you
gather a bunch of rocks and put them in place for space elevator
counterweights they'd have more value than as coins and jewelry over
the counter.  If you extract the gold from those rocks you can make
wires with it for all the other stuff you want to build in-place
without having to pay to lift it off the ground.

Remember that thread about how we'd bootstrap modern technology if we
found ourselves fallen through time 200+ years?  It's the same
scenario to be pioneers in space.  You know what you know now and
you're equipped only with what you managed to carry into orbit.  Now
how to build all the comforts from scratch?



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