Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.space,sci.space
Subject: Re: Justification for the Space Program
From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Date: 18 Dec 1992 21:56 CST
Distribution: usa, world
Organization: University of Houston
NNTP-Posting-Host: judy.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1992Dec18.191837.11025@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes...
>In article <1992Dec18.182222.20471@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> mrw9e@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Michael Robert Williams) writes:
> 
>>I read an article in the British Interplanetary Society Journal about
>>a guy named Forrester (or was it Fisher?) at MIT who had done some
>>predictive world modelli, tracking several variables like population,
>>pollution, natural resource usage, standard of living, etc. Some of
>>his assumptions may have been...incorrect, buI didn't see anything
>>that looked grossly unreasonable. He projected the world 500 years 
>>into the future toee what trends we could expect (yeah yeah, I know
>>don't trust computer numbers at first glance, especially extrapolations
>>that far in the future, but even with that caveat, the numbers are
>>scary).

[stuff deleted]

> 
> 
>This is all *so* ludicrous.  You are refering to results from the
>infamous "Limits To Growth" study.  It's been widely disparaged as so
>simplified as to be useless (for example, aggregating all "pollution"
>into a single variable.)  It's propaganda masquerading behind computer
>models.
>
You are half right. The limits to growth study did not consider space
resources at all, thinking that they would have zero impact.  The models
that are usually grouped into the "Malthusian" box to derive their genesis
from the Club of Rome studies. 

By the way, our new Vice president is an adherent to these models so don't
blithly discount their impact on public policy.  Also there are many other
very powerful people in the U.S that have bought the Doomsayers predictions
hook line and sinker, such as Ted Turner of CNN fame. (Oh and his wife Jane)

>Much more believable results have been obtained by actually studying
>specific resources here on earth.  When you do that, and when you take
>into account technological improvements, the idea that things are
>going to necessarily go to hell just evaporates.

Believable by whom? You? Well all of these extrapolations and any belief in
them are acts of faith. You believe what you choose. Sophmore calculus teaches
the fallacy of extrapolating a value beyond the known data point.

> 
>The 1500 year figure you present is a figment of your imagination.
>Come on -- technology is going to be rather different by the time the
>year 3500 rolls around, space exploration or not.  You can't possibly
>have any idea what technology will be like even 100 years down the
>road, let alone 1500.

Yes technology will be a lot lower, if we let those who are vigorously 
promoting a turn from technology development to get the upper hand. Doubt this
you do? Look then at the trends in funding for technology development worldwide.
It was a great surprise when I read in Pliny's (Roman naturalist) how he
decried the loss of the impetus to develop new technology and how this lack
was coming back to drain the Empire of its very life and vigor. (Pliny 214-xx)

> 
>The fundamental limit to resource exploitation is imposed by
>availability of energy, and space exploitation is *not* needed to get
>essentially inexhaustible supplies of that.

Oh really? Tell us how you intend to accomplish that? No one else has. True,
if we get cheap fusion we can drive the cost of energy way down. Too bad we
are a long way from that. The demand for energy to support a world population
at a standard of living comparable to the industrialize nations would mean
a two order of magnitude production increase in the supply of energy, and
material resources, with it's attendant pollution, both chemical and thermal.
To blithly deride the space option by pointing to technology tha does not
exist or is even on the horizon is irresponsible.

> 
>The argument *against* spending money on unprofitable space activities
>is that our descendants would be better off if we spent the money on
>capital formation here on earth, so that they will be more prosperous
>(and, if they like, go into space).  We are able to launch rockets now
>not because the Victorians wanted to go the moon, or because they sent
>explorers to Antarctica, but because they had the industrial revolution.
> 
>	Paul F. Dietz
>	dietz@cs.rochester.edu

Captial formation means wealth. This has been the driver of civilization for
at least four thousand years. Where there is wealth there is plenty. In the
past, wealth generation has come in Three ways:

Natural resource explotiation
Economic activity redistributing the wealth to the more productive
War and conquest

The only truly platible, long term solution to the problem of not enough wealth
is clearly option one. Option two breeds option three by the jealousy endengered
by the winner of the economic war. (Remember Japan went to war with the US 
because we were denying them natural resources, "economic sanctions")

Sorry Paul but go to any freshman chemistry class in college today and listen
to the litany of scarce resources. We are still going forward because we are
taking resources from the third world. What happens when those are gone?
What happens when the third world wakes up and says that they are gonna keep
their resources to fuel their own climb to prosperity? 

Without the temporary diversion of resources to build a solar system wide
transportation structure that will allow the exploitation of the nearly
limitless resources of the solar system, we will eventually hear the
beating of the hooves of the four horseman of the Apocalypse. The gulf
war and Somalia are only the first shots in a new an dangerous era. How much
more expensive will it be in lives and dollars spent, to continue as we
are today?

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville.





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