Re: Nostalgia For Medieval Explorers Won't Make Us Space Explorers

From: Mike Combs (mikecombs_at_nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti)
Date: 07/20/04 

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:47:11 -0500

"Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@dls.net> wrote in message
news:b72dnR0u6NIK_WHdRVn-oQ@dls.net...
> Mike Combs wrote:
>
> >>Nuclear waste would have to be packaged to survive launch accidents.
> >
> > And I wouldn't even argue that they couldn't be. The problem is
convincing
> > people who aren't technically oriented.
>
> Two points:
>
> (1) You've presented no good argument to show that this would be a
problem, and

Would the highly-vocal (even if not majority) outcry over the tiny amounts
of nuclear materials in Cassini not count as possible indicators of
political opposition to space-based nuclear waste disposal? If your
viewpoint is that no, that experience doesn't provide any justification for
concern, then let's say no, I haven't presented any arguments which met your
standards.

> (2) You don't have to convince everyone.

True, in a democracy, one only has to convince the majority. I'm not trying
to argue that space-based nuclear waste disposal will never happen, only
that I foresee considerable political difficulties. 

-- 
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."
   Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"

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