Re: Back to the moon? When?

On 14 Nov, 01:01, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:47:13 -0000, in a place far, far away, "Michael
Martin-Smith" <lagran...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

If the Chinese , Indians or Japanese prove, over the coming decade, that
they are truly aiming to set up shop- or at least industry on the Moon, I
very much doubt that "Joe Public" will remain totally indifferent- unless he
has first been rendered dumb.

The likelihood of that happening, given the pace of progress of any of
those countries' programs, is infinitesimal.

I think this is complacent to the extreme. All the Asian countries are
outproducing the US in terms of the number of Qualified Scientists/
Engineers that the economy produces.

There are several important fields where they are level/slighltly
ahead of the US AT THE MOMENT. Software and AI being notable examples.
I would imagine in point of fact that an Asian lunar effort would put
these technologies to the fore, rather than being a glorified Apollo.

"Industry" on the Moon would of course be based on robotics and would
in fact be the first stage towards the development of a Von Neumann
machine. Joe Public could not remain indifferent to that. The point is
that big rockets will not be required, even if the chance of a big
rocket is "infinitessimal" that chance of space manufacturing is not.
The traditional Asian skill (Japan) ia miniaturization and producing
small highly capable products. This will dictate to some extent the
route their space program takes.


- Ian Parker

.

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