Eugene Leitl wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > Solar power satellites could make a great energy source - if only it
> > were economical to deploy them. Being able to get stuff into space
>
> It is going to be economical soon after we'll establish a teleoperated
> bridgehead on the Moon. So, the real problem for deploying cheap cheap
> energy everywhere is about developing industrial processes in a hard
> vacuum, and packaging that into a boostrap sequence deployable with
> current or near-future technologies. So, somebody build a lunar simulator
> (cum teleoperation latency) the size of a tennis court, allocate a budget,
> and let smart people play with it.
Agreed. But...how do you *get* the bridgehead to the Moon in the first
place? That's the barrier that cheap launches can help solve.
> > cheaply might make this possible. It'd also open up a lot of
> > potentially cheaper material resources (asteroid/lunar mining), with
> > similar benefits.
>
> The launch problem is really tough. It is really more interesting working
> with what you have.
Possibly...but I note that, despite the number of people who have said
teleoperation et al would be a good thing, no one's scraped together
the money to do it, except for a few limited-function scientific
probes.
> > If things take a turn for the much worse, we could set up a refuge in
> > space with very little possibility of those who would hunt us down
> > being able to touch us once we are there.
>
> You, personally? ExI? Excuse me, by definition you're asking for resources
> which few 0.1% of the world command. What makes you think you're going to
> wind up one of the 'leet?
Again, once cheap space launches are possible, resources become less of
a problem. That said, I, personally, am trying to become one of the
'leet so I can turn ideas like this into reality...but until and unless
I suceed, I have the alternative of discussing these ideas so that
either:
* An existing 'leet may decide to implement them (from which I, as a
member of the general public, will still derive some benefit)
* If and when I come into money, I will have a more workable version of
the ideas to implement (which may reduce the amount of money I'll
need)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:01 MDT