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From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 89 05:21:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #232

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 232

Today's Topics:
		    Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?
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Date: 9 Nov 89 09:02:47 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?


When I see an educated person talking about how difficult it would be 
to live in space, and how fundamentally expensive, my reaction is half
amused, half bitter.  The thought I have is that this person has no 
idea of the complexity and the power of the infrastructure that 
supports modern technological society.  Because in comparison to what
we already have, the new infrastructure needed to make life in space
cheap and easy is very small potatoes.

Which is not to say that its development is inevitable.  The
development has to be driven by real world economics, and it is not
obvious that there is a path that will take us from where we are now
to where we (many of us, anyway) want to be.  

Look at it this way.  Over here, you have our current civilization.  
Over there, you have a space based civilization.  It has the
infrastructure needed to build habitats and process lunar and
asteroid resources.  It enjoys the benefit of abundant and easily
utilized solar energy and controlled gravity environments.  Existence
proves that our current civilization represents a viable point in
"civilization space".  Analysis can make a good case that a mature	
space based civilization is also viable.  (You may not agree, but
grant it here, for the sake of argument).  The problem is that between
here and there is a gulf that we haven't seen a way to navigate.

Development in computers has been so dramatic and rapid because, at
every step in that development, there was a sufficient market
providing sufficient economic incentive to undertake the next step.
If an alien civilization had wanted to permanently stifle our
development of computer technology, they could have done so by
selling us, starting in the early 50's, as many computers as we
wanted with mid-60's price/performance.  They would have looked like
fantastic bargains at the time.  Even if a few visionaries realized
that they were orders of magnitude below what was theoretically
possible, those visionaries could never have mustered the resources
to sustain the development needed to surpass them.  

I don't know if it was sneaky aliens who provided us with military
rockets to stifle our advancement into space, but the end result
has been the same.  Makes an interesting story line, no?

- Roger Arnold

P.S: no address.  I'm moving, and won't have a net address for a
few weeks.  It'll be tough, but I'll survive.

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End of SPACE Digest V10 #232
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