From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Justification for the Space Program
Organization: University of Rochester
Distribution: usa, world
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 14:35:17 GMT

In article <18DEC199221562125@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:

 >>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.

Believable in the sense that they are grounded in actual study
of physical reality, not airy untestable abstractions.  For example,
going out and actually studiny geological abundance, and demand
for, various elements.

 >>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?

Yes, I doubt it.  The idea that we're going to get locked
in some sort of technological stasis is a bizarre fantasy.  Technology
is continuin to advance smartly.

Of course, if you've made the bad decision to go into an area with a
doubtful future -- like defense, or space, or fusion -- you might see
things differently.


 >>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.

Endless people have, wingnut!  It's called fission.  There is sufficient
uranium and thorium in the earth's crust to supply current levels
of primary energy consumption for billions of years, if used with one
of the several breeding cycles.  Moreover, there is enough fossil
fuel around that we needn't go to fission right away.

The idea that we are near some sort of irretrievable collapse due to
exhaustion of energy sources just doesn't have any basis in fact.


 >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.

Get your arithmetic straight.  Current world energy consumption is
about 350 exajoules per year.  In the US, we consume about 3x10^11
J/year/capita.  A population of 10^10 consuming energy at our level
would increase demand about 1 order of magnitude.  If they consume
energy at the level of, say, current europeans, the demand would be
lower.

Direct thermal pollution at this level would not be of global importance.
Chemical pollution?  There's no law of nature that says chemical
pollution cannot be reduced as far as we like.  Certainly replacing
fossil fuels with nuclear-derived energy sources would reduce
this pollution greatly.

 >To blithly deride the space option by pointing to technology tha does not
 >exist or is even on the horizon is irresponsible.

Breeder reactors exist today.  The technology for reprocessing
nuclear fuel exists.  Better, cheaper technologies for this are
in the works (the pyroprocess being developed at ANL, for example).
They are not moving faster because we have such an embarrassing
glut of energy.

So-called "renewable" resources are less well developed, but
are on a steeper learning curve.  We can expect them to get cheaper
as well,

To baldly proclaim that space is essential, when it's orders of
magnitude away from being competitive, and when multiple alternatives
exist, is irresponsible at best, and (if coming from one feeding
at this particular trough) banal at worst.

 >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")

Complete and utter crap!

The most important driver of wealth creation is accumulation
of *knowledge*.  Economies can and do grow, and people get
wealthier, in the absence of increases in resource exploitation.


 >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? 

Then we go to lower grade deposits, or use substitutes.  You are
repeating the Malthusian nonsense here (along with a line of
politically silly gibberish about exploiting the 3rd world.)

The third world "waking up": just why do you think they're selling
their resources?  Because you can't eat copper or cobalt, and, absent
the real drivers of wealth -- a knowledgable population backed
up by accumulated capital -- these resources are just useless lumps.

To get specific, just which resource are you talking about?  I tell
you what: you mention one, and I'll demonstrate that we can either
tolerate price increases (because so little is used), can find other
sources, or can substitute.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh