From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sun Sep 29 2002 - 10:15:09 MDT
Over two weeks ago, I sent this to Starship Forum, an egroup that
focuses on this and related issues. See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Starship_Forum/ for more on Starship
Forum.
"Mars Needs Saloons!" (see http://www.webleyweb.com/tle) should have
started a raging thread here with many members participating. I reckon
part of the reason this hasn't come to pass is that most or all of us
agree on the basic issues here regarding freedom and space settlements.
(Do we? If anyone disagrees, please post to the list and let's discuss
the matter. I can see a big area for disagreement around the area of
the stability of freedom and threats to freedom and civilization. I
would focus on internal threats rather than aliens and the like.)
That being said, the question still comes up of how to achieve this.
Currently, we're nowhere near having saloons on Mars or even in Earth
orbit. Manned spaceflight as it exists now is almost totally the
purview of governments. There have, in fact, only been two private
astronauts and they traveled on government rockets to a government
outposts after paying a hefty fee for a short term stay in LEO (Low
Earth Orbit).
Well, I hope that's the humble beginning of a hugh space tourism
industry. XCOR Aerospace (www.xcor.com) seems poised to fill in the low
end tourism gap. Trips to the ISS aboard Russian rockets are rumored to
cost $20 million per person. XCOR's proposed Xerus, if it comes off
will probably cost significantly less than that for a short duration
suborbital flight. I'll make a guess and say it will probably be around
$100,000 per per person per flight. (I don't recall XCOR actually
talking numbers here.)
Does Xerus or anything like it get us closer to the goal of space
settlement? Maybe. It widens the market for space tourism and brings
it into the reach of many more people. It's far easier to raise
$100,000 than $20 million. Depending on market size, this could spur
competition and, no doubt, if XCOR finds profit in this, it might fund
more research and develop more ambitious space vehicles, such as an
orbital rocket.
>From there, it's only a short step to space hotels and the like. Once
that kind of private presence is in space, I believe it will only be a
matter of time before there's settlements -- at first very small scale
ones. How so? Any temporary outpost like that will be easily
upgradeable to a permanent one -- even if it still needs extensive
support from Earth. (Who would be willing to pay for that? Imagine
rich retirees who might prefer to live off world in their sunset years
and spend their life's savings to do so. This is just one example.)
The thing is getting from our present state to the hotel-type outposts.
This is the most difficult part of the journey right now, IMHO, since
the infrastructure hardly exists. What little does exist is dedicated
to other purposes and controlled by people who do not share our vision.
So, how do we get from here to there? A simple way of looking at it is
to build what's needed and just do it. Since none of us, to my
knowledge, is fabulously wealthy, this is no easy task. We have to rely
on various funding scheme or find alternatives. The problem with the
former is the amounts of money involved and this is not seen by most as
charity. The problem with the latter is that most realistic
alternatives -- such as a space elevator or alternative means of
propulsion -- tend to need more up front investment or research and
development. Some of these projects are akin to the Wright Brothers
developing regular airline service between New York and London before
their first flight.:)
So what can we do? As investors, of course, we can take bets on XCOR,
which seems to have a good business model. However, one must be aware
that this is a risky bet. I would not want to hear of anyone here
taking out a second mortgage or raiding the 401(k) to buy shares of
XCOR.:) It must be considered very speculative and, as such, only used
with money one can do without. (I.e., if you don't have such money,
don't get involved. This applies to all highly speculative investments.
Look at the risks. You can lose money and space industry startups have
a history of doing just that.)
As advocates, we can make sure that the average person gets reliable
information on space travel, tourism, and settlement -- or, in the case
of the last, reasonable projections based on an honest and dispassionate
evaluation of near term (up to a decade) trends. This can involve
things like writing letters-to-the-editor or calling in on radio talk
shows when the issue comes up to maintaining web resources, to giving
talks, and such.
Carl Mullin has already brought up the art angle too and there's no
reason we should not explore that more, though I'd hate to see it never
get beyond art.
Any responses?
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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