Re: Space travel not war

On Mar 30, 10:43 am, "Martha Adams" <mh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've been thinking since last year's ISDC that
solar power satellites may after all, have a
lot going for them. The environmental cost of
electric power is becoming a major problem, and
as population expands, people will ignore (for
now) the practical necessity for limiting the
population and they'll keep on wanting more
power (and water, but that's another topic).
So where can this power come from? This close
in to Sol, there's your source. Like the
space elevator, this is not a thing you can do
small to test it out, it takes the all-out
kzinti method: scream, and leap. So it seems
to me, the topic seems to be only, what can
you and I do to make this happen sooner?

That is not true about proving out the LSE-CM/ISS worth, because that
one can be accomplished on a very small scale and minimal budget.


As for the wars, I believe those are pork wars.
It's customary to imagine if there's a war then
we must all rally etc etc; but things have
changed around here and today these wars are
just devices to funnel lots of pork money to a
small number of well-placed military-industrial
people. Hopefully these pork wars can go away
soon: we cannot afford those even without we
look at the future and make provisions against
what it will bring. If you compare the several
trillion dollars the recent pork wars are taking
and going to take, vs the scream-and-leap kzinti
approach to getting early solar power stations
up there now, I'd guess even some Republicans
could see which way the difference stands.

99.9% of Usenet wants nothing short of WWIII, because there's always
profit in war. (unless you're on the losing side because you're
accused of hiding those stealth/invisible WMD)


So how about if you guys quit blattering at
each other and come up with some *thinking* on
how to make something like solar space
satellites *happen*? ??

Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2008 Mar 30]

I agree that Mook's outrageously spendy satellite power alternatives
that would be at best decades away, as such are technically doable.
At least I've never flat out stipulated that such wasn't doable.

However, at a purely terrestrial 40 kw/m2 of a given tower footprint,
where's the all-or-nothing need for going into orbit, not to mention
our thorium options that'll beat anything of uranium by at least
better than 10:1, and without hardly 10% of those spendy negative
consequences to boot (in my book that's a 100:1 improvement if going
for either alternative).

Is it just myself that sees the future need of setting up 100 TW of
affordably clean global energy that is not fossil, uranium or
satellite related?

BTW, I've already offered to give lord Mook access to utilizing my LSE-
CM/ISS, with its tether dipole element reaching his terrific pod of
laser cannons to within 2r of Earth, as well as sharing unlimited
teraWatts of the easily accessible energy that's out there to behold.
But no way is that ever going to fly because, it's not of any Mook's
all-or-nothing mindset to start with.

I'd put the all-knowing mind of Mook into the R&D phase, and in charge
of educating others as to what's technically doable, and then I'd have
to put an entirely different soul or team of honest souls in charge of
counting beans, plus others in charge of not pushing those do-not-push
buttons (especially of Muslim buttons), because it's going to get real
difficult to pull ourselves out of this self inflected mess,
especially if we also have to survive WWIII plus the GW gauntlet worth
of mother nature going postal at the same time.
.. - Brad Guth
.

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