Re: Ceres as a planet

Jordan wrote:
norrin wrote:
James Nicoll wrote:
In article <1155992282.539653.320640@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
norrin <adweiland@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Unskilled labour in space? Why would you expect that?
Successful colonies are built on rich resources and relatively
unskilled labor. Resources can be grown, mined, or chopped
down. Labor can be hired, conscripted, indentured, or bought.
Land that can't be colonized can be used for something
else, like trapping and fur trading.

Nowadays we substitute machinery for unskilled labor, where such labor
is not available.

Now there's a question: what kind of technological background would it take to make "unskilled" labor believable in a space environment? Spacesuits that any idiot could use and could fix themselves for all the most common minor problems would be one requirement. Tools of almost "never break" dependability and capable of extracting bare minimum survival resources from local matter for another.
But if you have tech that good, why not just use robots? The only scenario I can think of is one where the tools are incredibly good at what they do, and not breaking, but have very little flexibility, this making a man-in-the-loop still useful. Seems like an awfully narrow target, though.



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