Aucbvax.4269
fa.space
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space
Tue Oct 6 04:13:00 1981
SPACE Digest V2 #6
>From OTA@SU-AI Tue Oct 6 04:08:24 1981
SPACE Digest Volume 2 : Issue 6
Today's Topics:
Re: SPACE Digest V2 #5
Avoiding war, avoiding running out of oil, into space now!
Summary of immediate priorities
Re: SPACE Digest V2 #5
Conservation and mining rights on the moon
Letter writing campaigns
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 1981 11:39:33-PDT
From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley
In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin
To: ZEMON@MIT-MC, duke!decvax!ucbvax!space@Berkeley
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V2 #5
Cc: POURNE@MIT-MC
There is a draft treaty on lunar rights, etc., that is (I think) signed
but not ratified by the U.S. A strong opposition to the treaty has
grown up, claiming that provisions declaring it to be "the common
heritage of all mankind" would discourage private enterprise, since
there'd be no guarantee of profits. Jerry Pournelle wrote a column on
it in Analog several months ago (guess which side he's on...); I'm sure
he can provide the reference more easily than I can. My own opinion
after reading his column was that the language was fairly vague, and
not likely to be a problem. Then again, I do have views on collective
responsibilities, etc., that I'm *sure* he doesn't agree with....
------------------------------
From: REM@MIT-AI (Sent by ___052@MIT-AI)
Date: 10/05/81 20:08:53
Subject: Avoiding war, avoiding running out of oil, into space now!
REM@MIT-AI (Sent by ___052@MIT-AI) 10/05/81 20:08:53 Re: Avoiding war, avoiding running out of oil, into space now!
To: ARMS-D at MIT-AI, SPACE at MIT-AI
Re needing oil to get into space: There's a critical window now when we have
developed the technology to bootstrap ourselves into space, and we haven't yet
exhausted the oil that made the industrial revolution possible. Once we get
into space, have industry there to convert solar radiation into usable energy
and convert moonrocks and asteroids into materials and fuels, we will be able
to get along without oil. There's such a vast amount of energy and fuel out
there in space that we could have robots out there manufacture foam-steel (iron
from metallic asteroids) filled with hydrogen gas (hydrogen from water from
lunar poles and/or asteroids/comets) and just drop it to Earth to be used here,
or beam microwaves down and decompose seawater here. With vast surplusses of
energy, there are amazing things that can be done. They don't even have to be
efficient in terms of energy, because after all we're right now wasting
99.99997% of energy from the sun, so even if we get only 1% efficiency in our
actual process we're doing several orders of magnitude better than we're doing
currently by just letting it go to waste. The critical thing is bootstrapping,
we have to use processes that don't require much from Earth, that get
themselves bigger and bigger as they produce materials to be incorporated into
their own selves. -- Now here's the rub. If we have a nuclear war or we spend
the next 30 years "conserving" instead of developing space energy and
manufacturing, we'll no longer have all this nice Petrolium, and it'll be
harder to make rocket ships and other things to get the whole process started.
If we wait too long, we may never again be able to get to space, and we'll
stagnate here on Earth until we get wiped out.
------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 1981 19:04:02-PDT
From: jef at LBL-UNIX (Jef Poskanzer [rtsg])
To: SPACE at MC
Apologies to all for my recent seemingly off-the-wall message about
nuclear war and global extinction. As Ted guessed, it was supposed
to go to ARMS-D. Blush, pound head on keyboard, tear hair, etc...
---
Jef
(I hope I got this one right.)
------------------------------
Date: 5 October 1981 22:36-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM MIT-MC AT>
Sender: ___155 at MIT-MC
Subject: Summary of immediate priorities
To: SPACE at MIT-MC
Here's what seems to me to be the concensus on what's important in space:
(1) Space Transport System (shuttle), to get people and equipment into low
Earth orbit -- Although the 5th orbiter would be nice, at the present the
project has enough money and just has to work out the technical problems.
(2) LEO (Low Earth Orbit station, also known as space operations center),
a place to house personnel and experiments BETWEEN shuttle flights --
I think this is funded but we have to keep it funded, not let it get cut.
(Was it cut last week? I don't know.)
(3) Lunar-polar-orbiter, survey polar regions for water ice, needed to get
hydrogen for use in life-support, fuels, and manufacturing processes --
No funding presently, we urgently need funding for this!!
(4) Asteroid-carbon-assey, land on various asteroids and assey the material
to see how much carbon they contain, needed for life-support and many many
industrial materials used in manufacturing (glue, lubricant, steel, fuels)
-- No funding presently, we urgently need funding for this!!
Once the above have all been accomplished, assuming the asseys show enough
hydrogen and carbon for our needs, we can then proceed to build colonies
on one of the polar regions on the moon, to process by remote control
from Earth or LEO the lunar rock and water-ice, and we can seriously
plan towards bringing an asteroid into Earth orbit to mine it for carbon
and metals.
Of less practical use, but of immense scientific value, are Galileo (probe
Jupiter's atmosphere and survey the moons; funded but in danger of being
cut), Halley (take pictures and analyze chemical content of Halley's comet;
not funded, probably already too late to get funding, sigh), Solar polar
mission (half-funded, sigh), Large Space Telescope (funded last I heard).
Did I leave out anything important? Errata?
Oh yes, almost forgot, SEPS (Solar Electric Propulsion System), useful
for long space trips but not urgent presently.
------------------------------
Date: 6 October 1981 04:22-EDT
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V2 #5
To: chico!duke!unc!smb at UCB-C70
cc: ZEMON at MIT-MC, POURNE at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC,
duke!decvax!ucbvax!space at UCB-C70
Re the Moon Treaty: regardless of one's views on "collective
responsibility" (whatever that means--does it mean no one is
responsible since we all are?) vague language which becomes,
under our Constitution, "supreme law of the land" is an
invitation for lawyers to become wealthy while whatever the
treaty concerned languishes.
This is as true of the Moon Treaty as anything else.
However, the subject is a dead letter. the Reagin
Administration has no intention of submittiing that mess to the
Senate (and for that matter, both Republican and Democrat
leaders on the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate have
declared the Treaty not to be in the best interests of the USA.)
------------------------------
Date: 6 October 1981 04:39-EDT
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Conservation and mining rights on the moon
To: ZEMON at MIT-MC
cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC
SOME environmentalists have alrady spoken: it is sacrilege (and
a violation of the rights of American Indians who worship the
Moon) to mar its surface, including strip mining.
I wish I were kidding.
Observation: enough lunar material to build a dozen
space solar power stations would be dug by a single bulldozer,
and the "blemish" could not be seen from Earth with the best
telescopes available.
ah. well.
------------------------------
Date: 6 October 1981 05:34-EDT
From: Steve Kudlak <FFM MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Letter writing campaigns
To: SPACE at MIT-MC
L-5 wants to do another letter writing campaign to
try to stop budget cuts(or reverse??) being applied
to NASA. They recommend writing to V.P. Bush at the
following address:
Vice President Bush
Space Policy Council
Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20501
(**Please include thisin space digest if it is not a duplication of
previous message**)
Have fun
Sends Steve
------------------------------
End of SPACE Digest
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