From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: Bootstrap hardware for LunaBase
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 13:57:28 GMT

In article <ewright.719011934@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

>[lotsa heated rhetoric]

Neither asteroid or lunar enterprises have any signficant commercial
funding.   Neither are ready for that yet.  My point is that these
enterprises can and should be analyzed from an industrial and
commercial viewpoint, and NASA should support them with exploration 
and tech R&D accordingly.  It is ridiculous to devote most of the resources 
to the moon because of obsolete "next logical step" dogma, or because
one wants to include astronauts. We need diveristy -- lunar exploration 
_and_ asteroid exploration _and_ comet exploration.  Doing them all
can be quite cheap if we start taking a sophisticated, in-depth look
at the problem and the technology available, instead of dogmatically
insisting on the traditional, ridiculously huge and expensive methods.  

We also need to look at the material needs of industry and start designing 
future commercial scenarios around the bottom line.  It is ridiculous
to focus on the moon when the vast majority of industrial processes
require volatiles, and by far the largest industrial input is volatiles,
and volatiles are not found on the moon.

>Every time someone mentions a potential
>project that is not backed by Nick Szabo Enterprises, you tell us
>that it's already been rejected by private enterprise. 

This is nonsense.  I've rejected two or three kinds of proposals,
out of a vast universe of possibilities.  You keep proposing the
same failed or grossly uneconomical strategies over and over again,
and I keep rejecting them over and over again.

>Why is anyone who advocates a manned space program, even one that's
>not run by the government, denounced as a socialist

Not by be.  But the economically ludicrous "private enterprise astronaut"
plays right into the hands of those who insist that government knows
best when it spends the majority of NASA $$$ on astronauts, and that
the needs of astronauts should dominate regardless of the needs
of our commerical and military space needs.  I'm objecting to NASA
dictation of the direction of space industry, especially the style that 
snubs the real users of space in commerce and the military.  I'm not 
objecting to rational, diverse government support for space R&D and 
exploration, or private attempts to do whatever they want with their
own money.  

>And why do you wax poetic about how your asteroid-mining robots 
>will allow thousands or millions of people to live in wonderful 
>colonies in space, with robots serving their every need, when you 
>so strongly deny that man is ever cost-effective in space.

I don't deny "ever", I deny "is".  It's not just me that strongly denies 
it; it is also in practice military and commercial users of space and 
most scientists.  And "is" does not mean "will always be".  One of the 
big benefits of extracting volatiles and organics, and after that metal 
regoliths, is that the cost of space habitation comes way down.  Ice 
rockets alone provide enough propellant and shielding to drop the cost 
of an astronaut Mars mission by a factor of ten.  So it turns out
that automation is critical to affordably living in space, not the 
enemy as the Luddite "manned is more flexible than unmanned" bozos portray 
it.


-- 
Nick Szabo					 szabo@techboook.com
Hold Your Nose: vote Republocrat  ////////  Breathe Free: vote Libertarian
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