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From: barnes@infinet.UUCP (Jim Barnes)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Pollution in space (was Re: Response to Globus ...)
Message-ID: <410@infinet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Oct-86 09:34:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: infinet.410
Posted: Tue Oct 21 09:34:04 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Oct-86 05:54:44 EDT
References: <2156@mtgzz.UUCP> <505@aurora.UUCP> <2163@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: barnes@infinet.UUCP (Jim Barnes)
Distribution: net
Organization: Infinet Inc., Andover, MA
Lines: 26

In article <700@cadomin.UUCP> andrew@cadomin.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) writes:
>
>This is about the same if you do your processing in space and launch the
>raw materials using a mass driver.  Once that thing is built, you just dig
>up a convenient area of the lunar surface.  Remember :  on the moon and in
>space you don't have to worry about land rights, access to transportation
>or water, pollution requirements, and all the constraints that on Earth
>determine where the most profitable place for a factory is going to be, or
>if that facility is going to be built at all, or if some ore body is worth
>mining.  
>

This comment about "land rights, ..., pollution requirements, ..."
sounds suspiciously similar to the strategy used in the late 1800s
as industry was expanding in the western United States.  
No one minded if the forests were cut down, the rivers polluted,
etc. because no one lived there (forgetting the Indians for a minute).
Lots of damage was done to the environment that will take
a long time to repair.  I would hate to see us doing the same
thing to the environments on other worlds as we expand out into
space.

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{harvard,decvax}!wanginst!infinet!barnes	Jim Barnes