Doubtful. What item is worth transportation costs above $1,000/pound? That we can’t get on Earth easier and cheaper.
So, he’d make a great Doper. But is that really what we want for President?! :eek:
Well, Moon rocks on the souvenir market. But only in the short run. Eventually they’ll lose their novelty.
“I’m from near that one town!” has got to be the least convincing credential I’ve ever seen proffered to support a public policy opinion.
I think everyone can get on board the idea “I don’t want my tax dollars funding drug use”. Where we diverge is when it becomes “I don’t want my tax dollars funding drug use and I’m willing to pay ten times more than we do now and cause significantly increased misery, especially to those whose drug use is minor, to prevent it.” The merits of the plan are far outweighed by the demerits. That’s why it’s a dumb idea. It’s right up there with the “We should have nuked Tehran in 1979” school of thought.
But you are identifying a single trait and saying, gee that would make him a good president. Is Romney competent? Sure, but what makes him acceptable to the electorate is that he pretty much lines up on the Center Right with Obama on a lot of issues from TARP to stimulus to Obamacare/Romneycare to saving the auto industry to a whole bunch of social issues.
Well, the $1000/pound cost is based on the very expensive space shuttle program is it not? If we found a gold mine on the moon, I suspect the cost of buildinga moon mining base and shooting capsules full of gold back to the earth would cost less than $1000/pound.
Also unobtainium is worth $20,000,000 per kilogram. (which apparently would make it uneconomic to mine in a distant galaxy un less you had stargates)
Granted. That don’t put food in the kids’ bellies, though.
There are vast quantities of metals available in space. Nor do I see any reason why space travel won’t become easier and cheaper as time goes on. It’s gonna be us, or it’s gonna be Russia, or China, or the EU.
Somebody’s gonna grab a bucket and head out to where it’s raining soup.
So. . . whoever we turn out to be claim jumping, are we to expect them to greet us as liberators?
This is American politics, those qualifications keep them out.
What’s really amusing about that is it coming from the party that impeached Clinton over a blow job.
Thanks for that link. OMG, he actually proposed orbital mirrors that could simultaneously light up the dark spaces to make it harder on criminals, and be turned off at night so people could sleep.
Name a program that is cheaper.
What basis do you have for that suspicion?
That was the premise behind the Shuttle. Didn’t work. Will the next big idea in space travel lead to cheaper access to space? I hope so, but we’re kinda not there yet.
The biggest problem with mining space is getting the stuff back down here. Even if you can round up an asteroid, and move it from whatever orbit it’s in to a stable orbit near the Earth, getting the stuff down here still is going to take a hell of a lot of effort and cost. Unless maybe you want to drop “city killer” sized asteroids into the Australian outback or something?
Future space mining will be most useful when we have the resources to build things in space with those materials. Don’t bring them to Earth, build a factory on the Moon.
Prediction:
If Romney gets the nom, look for attack ads against Obama that paint him as an elitist, out of touch with the common working man, unlike Romney who had to work his way up in life the hard way.
If Gingrich is the nominee, look for attack ads against Obama that paint him as a poor family man, a man with no sense of morals, unlike Gingrich, who knows the true meaning of family values.
My prediction:
Santorum will drop out of the race next month and endorse Romney. Nothing else of interest next month except for a debate on CNN, February 22nd. The turning point will be March 5th, when Gingrich, Paul, and Romney debate on NBC, the night before Super Tuesday. It’s too soon to tell what will happen on Super Tuesday; however, Gingrich will win Florida, partly because of his performance in the previous debate on CNN.
You held me until “Gingrich will win Florida…”
Nothing anywhere on this planet gives any indication that Gingrich will do any better than finish a distant second in Florida.
I don’t think he will. Romney currently has a 14 point lead in the polls, probably due to him taking the gloves off and running a lot of negative ads directly attacking Gingrich’s past ethic violations. I live in Georgia, but I am just over the state line so I get all the Jacksonville TV stations and the ads run quite a bit. One of them in particular is very effective in its simplicity. It’s just a 1997 clip from NBC Nightly News.
As usual, Tom Tomorrow nails it.
Gingrich is addressing a crowd in Orlando holding “46 States to Go” signs. And he’s doubling down on the crazy.
The pre-Callenger disaster space shuttle program.
It is cheaper to achieve escape velocity from the moon than from Earth.
Space shuttle didn’t work because we didn’t have the stomach for dead astronauts. But sending unmanned rockets form the moon to the earth is much much cheaper.
Why do you say that? I would think that getting the stuff back here is pretty cheap if not easy.
So has Mitt become inevitable?
Getting stuff back to earth is cheap and easy. Getting stuff back to earth in a manner which prevents it from squishing whatever it lands on, less so.
I’d say so. Even though Newt was vowing to fight it all the way to the convention-floor, saying he can still win if he sews up all the not-Romney delegates.
I hope it plays out that way. I want Republican riots in the streets of Tampa in August! 
“The whole world is laughing! The whole world is laughing!”
Hmm. Seems I underestimated the power of negative advertising. Looks like Romney has it in the bag.