From: alizard@tweekco.uucp (A.Lizard)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Space, The Final Frontier
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 93 00:32:43 PST
Organization: Tweek-Com Systems BBS, Moraga, CA (510) 631-0615

>   Yes, the summary helps. Does it help your case? No. What you write in
>your final paragraph does crystallize my attittude. You sound like someone
>who pictures themselves as an older aunt, patting the head-in-the-clouds,
>several-cards-short-off-a-deck 12-year-old on the head, saying those are
>lovely stories, and thinking, "too bad he's so dumb/crazy". I will point
>out that you seem to have a problem with anything to do with space: from
>science fiction, to fans, believers in space, to actual space development.
>You have yet to show *any* acceptance of any validity of our ideas.

Nice summary. The only thing you can do with a person with a completely
closed mind is ignore him and pursue discussions with people who are
willing to discuss the issues involved seriously. From what I've seen
on this thread from people who are willing to discuss the technological
issues involved on both sides of the question, the primary question
regarding the possibilities of doing this are political and in a lesser
sense, business (how does one demostrate that a fairly immediate profit
can be made... and what tax and other investment incentives are possible
in this context). 

We have described in a fair amount of detail how space industrialization
can be used to improve environmental and economic conditions on Earth.

Most people on this newsgroup believe that improving environmental
conditions, and some believe that economic conditions on Earth is worth
doing. 

The real question is... can this be done cost-effectively. My data
says yes. If this can be done, a future where the ordinary human can
aspire to getting a job is space is possible.

If attitudes like Ashley's are allowed to dominate the future, mankind
isn't going to space. Ever. As our resources dwindle (which will happen
in ANY scenario where conservation is the only method used to reduce
the drain on earth's resources) the primary use of the remaining resources
is going to be protecting the comfort level of those who control these
resources, and the level of violence relating to control of these
resources will increase. Civil liberties in societies like our own will
dwindle as the power elite finds it necessary to militarize society to
protect their grasp on the Earth's resources, the real goals being to
control enough of the Third World to allow them to live in the lifestyles
to which the rest of us would like to become accustomed. Resource
allocation for "useless frills" like space exploration will become
increasingly unlikely as this process continues, and the schools will
teach that space flight was one of the strange things that people used
to do, like building pyramids and wearing corsets.

This is the future that Ashley and the technophobes among us want us
to live in. This is a game I'm not interested in playing, either.

Blessings...
A.Lizard

-------------------------------------------------------------------
A.Lizard Internet Addresses:
alizard%tweekco%boo@PacBell.COM        (preferred)
[path]!pacbell.COM!boo!tweekco!alizard (bang path for above)
alizard@gentoo.com (backup) alizard@Blue.Kludge.com (if all else fails)
PGP2.0 public key available on request.