Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!ncar!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!right!szabonj
From: szabonj@right (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NSS Board membership
Message-ID: <93@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 89 03:29:15 GMT
References: <6145@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <1989Jan15.095906.18357@utzoo.uucp> <92@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1989Jan18.043708.27547@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: news@beaver.cs.washington.edu
Reply-To: szabonj@right.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Organization: U of Washington, CSCI, Seattle
Lines: 47

In article <1989Jan18.043708.27547@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>Uh, discoveries?  Leading to settlements?  Can you please explain this?

Every major settlement in human history has been preceded by 
exploration.  Settling in an unexplored area is dangerous, dead-end 
(how do you know there are any resources to support life or to export?), 
and totally unecessary given modern technology.  Planning such a 
settlement, as anything but entertainment, is an equally fruitless exercise.
*Sticking* to such plans, as to a religion, is bizarre beyond belief, 
but a sin many space supporters are guilty of.

What if we build our $100+ billion dollar lunar base, and then find out
there is nothing worthwhile there?*  Or a similar amount on a manned Mars
mission?  In fact, both the Moon and Mars might turn out to be terrible 
places to build space industries and settlements or to provide material
for same.

On the other hand, we can spend this $200+ billion sending out probes
such as CRAF, Cassini, and the Observer missions, and on basic scientific
research leading to new technologies.  This pays for 200 probes, even
if you don't account for economies of scale (I suspect we can build at
least 2000 probes, much better equipped than the current generation, for 
this price).  With these we can explore every nook and cranny of the 
solar system, from Pluto to Mercury, with dozens of probes to look at
each moon and major asteroid, and some comets as well.  The data can
be distrbuted around the world; you will be able to analyze them
on your home computer at leisure.

This gives the scientist, the prospector, and the space settlement planner
orders of magnitude more knowledge and flexibility to work with.  The
choice becomes no longer Moon vs. Mars (an odious debate), but pick a
spot from any part of the solar system.  

------------

* Lunar materials to support other space industries (eg LOX) are not
worthwhile until such industries generate the $100+ billion/yr plus   
demand needed to pay for such a base, and  such materials can be made 
and transported cheaper than from Earth or asteroids.  He-3 is unproven 
and depends on other scientific discoveries to provide demand.  Besides
these possibilities we already know the Moon is likely a dry hole.


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Nick Szabo                          "Want oil?  Drill lots of wells."   
szabonj@fred.cs.washington.edu                J. Paul Getty