Re: SF rocket propulsion?


We've explored a tiny little bit of it, and not all that well. Are
there "useful" botanicals on Mars? We can't yet say one way or the other
if there's any life at all but proponents of both positions have good
theoretical support. We need to look closer.

I'm all for sending more probes, and if we find something worth going
to get, going to get it. But at least there aren't any -obvious-
botanticals on Mars. :)



and we -already- have the shopping list - it's the
periodic table.

You repeat this like an article of faith. ;>)


:) - also because it's true.

Besides, there're many things on that table that are rare on Earth
that we'd like to have lots more of.

Again, check the commodity prices for the cost of bulk raw material to
see what we are really willing to pay for stuff, no matter how rare.


Seems to me the "shirtsleeve barrier" is higher than the "sound
barrier" or even the "light barrier".


Well, maybe not the light barrier, but I take your point - take a
competant woodsman from 17th century Europe and drop him in
shirtsleeves into a new world forest and he'll get by just fine - even
find a lot of very similar animals.

My little rewrite actually was intended to illustrate the fact that
what was once seen as not worth going to get can become the foundation
for an economy that supplants the old once it's many uses become known.

But that doesn't follow because it was known the New World had land,
forest, farmable land, mineral resources, etc. etc. and that getting
there was about as easy as geting to India, if not easier. The value
would have to be a lot higher to make something worth the money it
takes to go to space.




No, I'm talking in-system. You haven't seen them because we haven't
looked all that closely. Besides, the age of robber-barons expecting to
become billionaires on a single investment is over; corporations are
immortal.

Tell that last to Enron and Arthur Anderson. :) but seriously, we
haven't found any botaticals of value and there very well might not be
any. Soon as we find such, it changes the situation, but so far we
haven't.


"Only manufactured in space" isn't what I mean; I mean
refining/manufacturing processes that can be done anywhere, but are
easier to clean up after anyplace but on Earth.

No one really cares about the clean-up, certainly not the currret
administration.


Yes, and that's increasingly being seen as A Very Bad Thing.
Regulatory processes will only get more stringent. (I think that's a
fair "if things go on", don't you?)

No, because in fact we've lowered the amount of regulation, refused to
join Kyoto, passed a Clean Air act that is anything but, etc. etc.
People talk a good game about safety issues but really aren't willing
to pay more for safety products.



There's balance-sheet costs, and there's larger kinds of cost like
cleaning up toxic spills or defensive advertising when you can't do the
cleanup. Those latter are being folded into the first because
corporations wanting to do "dirty work" now have to show they can afford
to keep it clean, and that cuts profits. What corporation in its right
mind wouldn't want to be able to avoid throwing large fractions of its
money into superfunds?

It doesn't do that now. The Superfund program has failed.



If something comes up that it is easier and cheaper to manufacture in
space, and then can be sold to people on Earth at a big profit (btw -
just -being- in space is inherently more dangerous than being on Earth,
which has to be taken into account) then more power to it. Can you
give a specific real-world example?

Of course not. But we can analogize; know what copra is? Why isn't it
processed where its end products are sold? Because it reeks.

Yes, but it is processed in the cheapest place that it can be.

Just being on the ocean is inherently more dangerous than being on
dry land, yet merchant fleets exist.

Because they make a huge profit.

Another of your unspoken assumptions seems to be that lots of money
will be tied up in the space-based infrastructure and will never develop
profit external to that infrastructure; who sells steaks to merchant
marine crews who hate fish?

No, I'm saying there is no profit in building the infastructure in the
first place. That many of the plans I've seen seem to imply that the
infrastructure is already in place, when there is no motivation to
build it.


"Cheaper than Earthbound" means many things, including "cheaper than
finding someplace to put a processing plant". Used to be you chatted up
third-world warlords and got them to build maquiladoras; that's becoming
impossible.

I'd be a heck of a lot cheaper to put a processing planet in the
Austrailian outback than in space, and we don't do that, either. :)


Oh, and to defend SF - name three things considered impossible in 1956
that we have now accomplished. If anything we're behind the curve. :)

Others are beating that one to death.

Can you point me to where?



There are also lots of examples of the opposite; Really Neat SF ideas
that never were, but not for then-obvious reasons.


Right. And a large space-based infrastructure and planetary trade is,
IMHO, one of those that didn't come true because the analogy was not
well thought out.

.

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