Re: Worst SF/F book you've read


"James Nicoll" <jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ddnnk2$4e9$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In article <6M2dnW-GFb9ox2LfRVn-sA@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Ken from Chicago <kwicker1b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>"James Nicoll" <jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>news:ddnl7q$5le$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> In article <X-adnZ2dnZ0oM9janZ2dnYGTYt-dnZ2dRVn-yJ2dnZ0@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>> Ken from Chicago <kwicker1b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>"James Nicoll" <jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>news:ddktga$qd1$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> In article <I-ednW3FAsgCT2DfRVn-2w@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>>>> Ken from Chicago <kwicker1b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I was massively disappointed in Stephen Baxter's MANIFOLD series
>>>>>>because
>>>>>>I
>>>>>>liked the character of "Reid Malefant" and his early speechifying in
>>>>>>the
>>>>>>first of the trilogy--one of the best cases made for space exploration
>>>>>>/
>>>>>>colonoization / exploitation--
>>>>>
>>>>> Could you refresh my memory on this?
>>>>
>>>>In the start of MANIFOLD: TIME Malenfant gives speech about bootstraping
>>>>space exploration by sending out a robot to mine asteroids and send the
>>>>processed results back to Earth, sell it and build more robots or if the
>>>>robots find the right materials have them replicate and spread further
>>>>outward and sending the profitable materials back to Earth at no further
>>>>cost (other than getting them orbit). Only it sounds a whole lot better.
>>>>
>>>>-- Ken from Chicago (who favors robotic space exploration followed, say
>>>>a
>>>>few years to a decade, by human space colonization--let the machines
>>>>stay
>>>>on
>>>>the front lines)
>>>>
>>> That's a proposal on _how_ to exploit space, not why. Does he give
>>> a why?
>>>
>>The good of all humankind.
>
> [Statement so dismissive so to defy typing]
>
> That's not a compelling enough reason to get nations to invest
> in crewed spacecraft.

But that's the popular spiel about space colonization, the noble "good of
all peoples" deal.

Then there's the pragmatic cost / benefit, what the frell's in it for me
answer.

Personally I favor robotic space exploration followed by human space
colonization. If the cost / benefit of human colonization of space is too
costly, I have no problem in waiting. I think robots are far more efficient.
All the arguments about robots can't do what humans can is so much rubbish
for much of it:
--In Earth orbit: you simply have humans remotely controlling the robots
--On the Moon: you have humans give near real-time orders to robots
--On Mars and the planets: you have humans give directives and have the
robots do the routine procedures of travel, digging, sampling,
photographing, and transmitting the results back to Earth.

Plus with robots, you don't have to worry about food, clothing, medicine,
entertainment, and most important, you don't have to spend half the fuel
just for the return trip.

Colonization of the Moon and Mars would mostly be for the obscenely wealthly
and for government, military and ultra-megacorporations to do scientific,
military and technological research. Mining could be a robotic deal not
requiring human presence.

> In fact, right now the attractions of space (despite images of
> space colonization permiating our culture) are so low that the new world
> nation that spends the most on crewed space spends far more on cosmetics,
> which is as it should be since the amount spent on is a decision made
> by tens of millions of consumers using their free will.
>
> In fact, correct me if I am wrong but the nations who have real
> crewed space programs (By which I mean "build their own launchers" instead
> of hitching rides and then gasing on about the CanadArm and the CanadaFoot
> and the CanadaSpaceTampon [1]) tend to be brutal centralized
> dictatorships.
> The exception was the US, which at the time the space program started had
> certain unfortunate habits like preventing those blacks unfortunate to be
> trapped in what we will call for the sake of diplomacy America's Retard
> Zone from voting. The more influence Americans got over their government
> (as the voting age dropped and the South experimented briefly with the
> Age of Enlightenment) the less support the crewed space program got, aside
> from its utility in spreading pork around [2].
>
> Which isn't to say that doing things through the use of a
> government is bad, any more than using levers is bad [3] but it says
> something about the weakness of the case for space as it is done now
> that usually the governments that do the most in crewed space are the
> ones that don't have to listen to their citizens. This is at the very
> least a huge failure in PR.

That's what private corps want to get in the game.

>>And profit--the universe's resources are waiting to be mined and sent back
>>to Earth merely for the cost of the initial launch of self-replicating
>>robots.
>
> The problem is, the Earth's resources are sitting right here
> to exploited and replicating robots demonstrably work here as well.

There's no Spacepeace, Stella Club, Friends of the Cosmos, Space Wildlife
Fund, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Astronomical Bodies complaining
about stripmining asteroids, planetoids, moons and planets.

> There are not a lot of resources available in space that are
> not available right here. We can tell this from the way few companies
> are investing in space exploitation. In fact, for a lot of materials
> Earth is the best source we know of, thanks to the effects of liquid
> water.
>
> One exception is heat or rather radiation: planetary societies
> are limited by the physics of heat radiation and the desirablility to
> keep temperatures low enough to avoid shaking our protiens apart. The
> chemistry of the Earth (the presence of chemicals which if heated can
> produce a runaway heating effect by blocking the emission of IR) limits
> us to energy use no greater than 5,000 times the present one (if we
> do not block the sun's light) or about 15,000 times greater (if we do).
> If we want to increase energy use more than that, then we must do it
> somewhere other than on Earth.
>
> Simple extrapolations are always wrong but if human energy use
> grows over the next 50 years until the whole planet uses energy at
> the Canadian rate, then grows at 1% a year, then somewhere between
> AD 2600 and 2700, heat will force us to limit the growth in energy
> usage or to move portions of our economy off Earth. I fear this lacks
> something in area of instant gratification but on the scale species
> operation is rather fast.
>
>
> 1: Canada's space program pretty much skipped the brief "getting stuff
> done" phase in favour of edifice building in Ottawa.
>
> 2: The need to bribe states with a share of the pork is what killed
> Challenger: if the SRBs had been made in Florida, they would not have
> had to be train-transportable, which is why they are made in sections
> and there is the need for O Rings.
>
> 3: Note to self: write anti-leverist manifesto.
> --
> http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll

Speaking of radiation, you can always build nuclear plants on other planets
and asteroids and not worry about meltdown or the "China syndrome".

-- Ken from Chicago


.

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