"Although energy abounded in space, the capital investment necessary to capture it was by no means negligible." (p. 54)
Surely this has been and continues to be the problem. The US government wanted to improve rocket and computer technology but not in order to develop space. Private interests can make profits more easily on Earth where:
"...geophysical and geochemical forces had beneficiated and concentrated materials through ages before humanity was - deposits, veins, lodes, Golcondas." (ibid.)
Maybe Earth will have to be gutted before anyone tries to go beyond it by which time it will be too late? A turn to space saves civilization in the opening story of Poul Anderson's Technic History. I know that there are current plans but let's see how they pan out.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
True, Earth first had to be "gutted" before anyone could think of getting off the planet in any serious way. Even Elon Musk, for all his passion for getting off this rock, had to develop profitable goods and services to generate the funds needed for advancing space technology.
I have seen suggestions that mining a few metals rich asteroids could obtain for mankind all the metals the human race could need. And it should be possible to build satellites orbiting Earth collecting and beaming down solar energy to distribution networks "dirtside." Truly cheap and plentiful energy would no make it necessary to use coal, oil, or natural gas.
And the rise of new societies and nations off Earth would have enormous consequences both in space and on Earth! My hope would be that including a lessening of the despotism and centralizing of the state we have been seeing since 1914.
I could go on and on, but this is enough!
Ad astra! Sean
Space systems currently under development (Starship) will make asteroid mining economically viable.
Which in turn put every mineral mining operation on Earth out of business in about a generation, and throw all their employees out of work, btw.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I absolutely hope the Starship space system does make asteroid mining viable and profitable. And I would be willing to invest a few thousand dollars in that kind of startup, as I did with Tesla.
As for Earthside mineral miners losing their then obsolete jobs, one way to handle that would be to encourage the younger miners to seek work off Earth in asteroid mining. The older ones could be, in effect, bought out, pensioned off.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it's called "creative destruction".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I believe in the desirability and necessity of that kind of creative destructiveness if we want a dynamic and advancing economy. But that should not mean giving some thought to measures like the ones I suggested above, if only to head off or prevent futile, counterproductive opposition to technological changes.
Ad astra! Sean
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