Scylla,
I agree, let’s stop debating the finer points of propulsion mechanisms; we have some minor quibbles over some exact numbers but basically agree.
We should build it for the glory of building it. Why not? These things prove technology and show mankind and his achievements at their finest. Sound familiar? It’s a rephrasing of your last paragraph.
And the reason for creating a virtual world is so that people can experience things that they never could in the course of their lives. I somehow think that future generations would appreciate a technology that lets every single one of them walk on Mars a bit more than one that lets them remember that some other people walked on Mars a few generations ago.
So it’s you’re opinion that they’ll think that we’re stupid for not doing something that you can’t give any real reason for doing? Personally, I think that if future generations do consider space travel highly important, they’ll look back on propaganda exercises like the Apollo program and wonder why we wasted effort getting a man to the moon and then leaving rather than building a real infrastructure for future space development.
It backs up my point; lumber in England was used up when it was cheaper to use that lumber than import it, but the Brits never came close to wiping out all of the lumber in their empire. After that experience, they began using modern lumber harvesting techniques, replanting new wood to replace the old.
Unless I’m badly misremembering history, it was the Spanish and the diseases they brought along with them that basically wiped out that civilization. Various groups at various times in history used slash and burn africulture when they could easily move around, then switched to more sustainable forms of agriculture when it became too expensive to keep running away from burnt areas.
One specific species qualifies as a resource? What did we get from Buffalo that we don’t get from other animals?
Last I checked, we still have rainforests.
Last I checked, there are still many fish in the sea. When a given area gets fished out, people begin fishing in other areas until the fish population in that area recovers.
And we’re not out of any of them, so I guess it proves my point. Also, I’d be interested in an explanation of how asteroid mining is going to help us in getting agricultural products, rainforests, or fish.
Define ‘problems’. It’s not like we’re going to run out of them, and recycling is not all that difficult. When oil gets expensive enough, people will ditch gas cars in favor of some other power system. When steel gets expensive enough, people will either recycle steel or use alternate materials.
Out society does not have exponentially growing consumption of resources. The US actually uses less raw materials per capita now than in the past, and as other countries move towards the technological level of the US, their resource consumption will follow the same pattern. Since the population is not growing exponentially (contrary to the factless propaganda of ZPG and other fruitcake groups), and is expected to either level off or even begin to decline within the next 50 years or so, I don’t really see how resource usage can be growing exponentially.
Which had more to do with the easy availability of resources from exploration, something which interstellar travel or landing a guy on Mars doesn’t give us.
What exactly is meant by ‘second rate powers’? All of Western Europe is richer and more technologically advanced than they were back in the ‘good ol days’ of Empire.
Only if your only criteria for how good a nation is is how much land area it controls. Britain enjoys more technological advancement, higher standards of living, and is more secure from war than she ever was during the colonial era. Even if we factor in the whole area once covered by the British empire, it’s still more technologically advanced, more wealthy, and has a population with a higher standard of living than any previous period.
Ummm… and when the idustrial age was propgated to an area, that area ceased to be a frontier. You’ve also neglected to explain how in the Early 20th century the US became the wealthiest, most technologically advanced, and most militarily powerful nation in the world while not adding new lands. In fact, during the early 20th century, the US divested herself of many of her colonies and refused to expand into areas her armies controlled during WW1 & WW2.
It is a one-shot glory trip. The base established will not be self-sustaining, and will require almost all of its supplies to be ferried over from Earth.
You have not demonstrated that this mission is the best, or even a very good way, of achieving that goal.
A base which is not self-sustaining will die off
Hello? Exactly what fuel are you accelerating? Does that ring a bell?