Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!noao!amethyst!spock!chris
From: chris@spock (Chris Ott)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Space Resources
Message-ID: <900@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu>
Date: 9 Feb 89 08:41:52 GMT
Sender: rbc@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu
Reply-To: guest@spock.ame.arizona.edu (Paul Hughes)
Organization: Computer-Aided Engr. Lab (CAEL), University of Arizona, Tucson
Lines: 70


Sorry if this is a re-post, but the article didn't go through the first
time.

Boy! Are you tired of hearing the same old arguments going around about the
same old topic, using the same old metaphors?
I believe we need to speed things up a bit, don't you.

PREPARE YOURSELF!

The following ideas may be hazardous to your DOGMA!

I make no excuse for my utopianism and my optimism.
We are running out of time, so somebody has to do it!
And I'm getting tired od people arguing abd worrying about the future
instead of creating it. Anyway.

HERE WE GO!

Limits? I see no present evidence of limits? A limit can only be proved
completly and beyond a shawdow of a doubt, after it has been tested an
infinite amount of time, under an infinite number of conditions, forever.

  
Re: Space - Everything should be happening in space.
    Everything that can be done on Earth can be done in space much more
    efficiently and cheaply. All modes of gravity can be simulated in space.
    All temperatures; all manufacturing.
      
    In the book "Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience", David
    Criswell, Ph.D, demonstrates that there are enough resources in the
    asteroid belt to construct an extremely massive infra-structure
    consisting of 40 trillion people with 40,000 trillion tons of supporting
    structure, occupying aporx. 1 billion cubic km - which is 1 millionth of
    the space available in the L4 and L5 regions alone! All of these people
    could be in contact via laser communication with 0.2 seconds in one 
    L-volume and aprox 1 second to the other L-volume and Earth. Since space
    is frictionless, transportation between any two points in this matrix
    would be almost nothing. This would end phase 1 of Solar system
    development according to Criswell.

      He goes on to talk about phases 2 and 3 which would hinge upon the
    theoretical technology (perhaps extremely high energy lasers) to
    dismantle the outer planets, and then mine the sun. He has shown that
    it would be theoretically possible to convert the sun into a white
    dwarf, which would extend the lifetime of SOL 1,115 times. He calls
    this process, "Stellar Lifting".

        Using stellar lifting as a away of collecting the higher elements,
    Criswell shows that a civilization consiting of 10(16) - 10(21) power
    humans on a surface area equivalent to 1 billion earths would be
    possible. This civilization, due to Sol's extended lifetime, would have
    a potential lifespan of at least 10 trillion years. All of this is
    possible within the solar system.
      
    What limits?

    When I log on again, I will talk about nanotechnology, zero-point energy,
    immortality, intelligence increase using neural, genetic and nanotech
    engineering, info-space, hypermedia and human evolution evolving towards
    self-replicating systems.

    BYE! BYE! for now.


 Paul Hughes              |   Internet: guest@spock.ame.arizona.edu
 1386 N. Country Club Rd. |   UUCP: {allegra,cmcl2,hao!noao}!arizona!
 Tucson, AZ  85716        |          amethyst!spock!guest

 "Anything is possible through imagination and Will."