Author Topic: Creating an off-planet industrial society?  (Read 27909 times)

Offline Ludus

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #100 on: 05/24/2014 12:26 am »
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"Colonizing" Mars or any other place won't provide the "incentive" to become a "space-faring" civilization, it doesn't work that way. The "incentive" to become a "space-faring" civilization and the willingness to build up and expand the infrastructure to do THAT is what leads to colonization. The "dead-end" that Zubrin advocates (and I'm very much afraid that Musk has drunk that "kool-aid") is becoming a "multi-planet" species without ever becoming a "space-fairing" civilization. By concentrating on a single "goal" and pushing everything in that particular direction you  end up creating a specialized system that "works" well enough for ONLY that particular goal.

To me the idea is that other humans settled in a place that requires being space faring to trade with is the driver for becoming a space faring civilization. Given a reasonable toehold in a place where ISRU allows people to make a living and breed is the minimal condition for that.

If you know there are other people you want to trade with on the other side of an ocean, you become a sea faring civilization. The skills and technology you develop to do that are not specialized even if they were developed with a very specialized goal in mind.

If there was an alien civilization on some accessible planet with things we wanted in trade, we'd have the incentive in place. Since that doesn't seem to be the case, we have to jump start that alien civilization to create a trading partner.

I don't quite get your take which seem to be that the massively expensive infrastructure comes first and only later does anyone have a use for it.

Offline GregA

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #101 on: 05/24/2014 01:34 am »
I think most people interested in colonising mars also have a fundamental desire to see (and belief in) humans as a space-faring species.

Whether I'm right or wrong, you may be reflecting a truth that a large number of people who don't care about Mars, when confronted with the idea of settling Mars, think that's the end goal. (And indeed landing on the moon had that ring to it. ).

I personally think mars is the first step to an off-planet industrial society. It's just easier to focus on that step first, than the big picture. 

Offline Jim Davis

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #102 on: 05/24/2014 02:10 am »
The legal status of Antarctica keeps it from having much influence on the global economy. Any change in status would be strongly resisted. dependent Mars was a policy goal that was good for the terrestrial economy...it could happen very fast.

No. The legal status of Mars is very much a second or third order influence on its potential for economic influence. The horrific environment and difficulty of access are much more important and place settlement and economic influence out of the question for the foreseeable future.

Offline Ludus

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #103 on: 05/25/2014 02:55 am »
The legal status of Antarctica keeps it from having much influence on the global economy. Any change in status would be strongly resisted. dependent Mars was a policy goal that was good for the terrestrial economy...it could happen very fast.

No. The legal status of Mars is very much a second or third order influence on its potential for economic influence. The horrific environment and difficulty of access are much more important and place settlement and economic influence out of the question for the foreseeable future.

Would you agree that the Apollo program had a significant economic influence on the US in the 1960's ?

That was motivated to a significant extent by the open legal question about whether being the first to land on the moon would create a valid claim of sovereignty. Whether all the potential future value of the moon was at stake. Once it became clear that wasn't an issue everybody lost interest.

Horrific difficulty just adds to the economic significance of the effort. It doesn't matter much for this purpose exactly how successful the effort is at any given time.

Legal status determines property rights...ownership....wealth. The quest for wealth motivates economic action.



Offline Jim Davis

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #104 on: 05/25/2014 04:04 am »
Would you agree that the Apollo program had a significant economic influence on the US in the 1960's ?

Sure. Whether for good or ill will be debated for a long time to come.

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That was motivated to a significant extent by the open legal question about whether being the first to land on the moon would create a valid claim of sovereignty.

Uh...no.

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Whether all the potential future value of the moon was at stake. Once it became clear that wasn't an issue everybody lost interest.

No. Everyone lost interest when it became clear that such missions offered little of value. That is still the case at present though that might possibly change in the future.

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The quest for wealth motivates economic action.

Which, of course, explains the very limited interest in the moon and Mars hitherto.

Offline Darkseraph

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #105 on: 05/25/2014 08:09 am »
The social/economic component to Mars settlement that's not there with O'Neill is that even a small group of people who are permanent residents of Mars might plausibly create demand for space travel that resists political winds. This is much less true of "stations" or "colonies" than Martians who are sovereign and independent regardless of their numbers and this isn't important to Zubrin.

It will be centuries if not millennia before any "Martians" will be able to give earth the figurative middle finger.

Based on historical analogy, we tend to assume that political independence is something that happens despite the best efforts of founding groups to prevent it. That's based on the assumptions by founders that their best hope of profits came from maximal control.

I don't think this has to be true.

A modern analogy is Antarctica which has a similar legal status to what Mars would have by default under current international law. No one settling there would have any hope of property rights or political independence. There would be no framework for investment. The legal status of Antarctica keeps it from having much influence on the global economy. Any change in status would be strongly resisted.

If we wanted to maximize the economic growth and wealth creation of Antarctica (which may not be desirable in the same sense as it might for Mars) I suggest working to make it a Sovereign state would make a huge difference.

I don't think Mars settlers would be able to fight for independence against resistance for a very long time. If however, there was a consensus that an independent Mars was a policy goal that was good for the terrestrial economy...it could happen very fast.

They are able to pass treaties protecting Antarctica, The Moon and Outer Space easily because no one thought they were of economic importance. Political groups love to take strong actions on trivial matters to show they are doing something. If there's was massive amounts of money to be made out of space or Antarctica in the foreseeable future, no amount of writing on paper could prevent it. No police department would ever back up your "property rights" if you were ripped off in a drug deal, yet the drug trade continues without without end and is expanding.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." R.P.Feynman

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #106 on: 05/25/2014 09:04 am »
They are able to pass treaties protecting Antarctica, The Moon and Outer Space easily because no one thought they were of economic importance.

Exactly the opposite. Those treaties were signed to avoid wars over those unclaimed territories.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Darkseraph

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Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #107 on: 05/25/2014 09:21 am »
They are able to pass treaties protecting Antarctica, The Moon and Outer Space easily because no one thought they were of economic importance.

Exactly the opposite. Those treaties were signed to avoid wars over those unclaimed territories.

I don't buy that. I'm sure that's what they claimed when they were promoting it but I've never known a nation to forgo war for something massively valuable. No one was going to to war over the ownership of the space or Antarctica in the 60's, so some feel good laws were easy to pass.  Every once in a while the American Congress passes a motion supporting a 32 county Irish Republic even though it doesn't intend to enforce it! The barrier to exploitation of space is a mix of access being too expensive and no one being sure what's valuable there in first place. If they declared private property rights across the solar system tomorrow, no one would have a business case that closed to even pursue exploitation.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." R.P.Feynman

Offline Ric Capucho

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Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #108 on: 05/25/2014 01:29 pm »
Seems to me that the setting up of the first off-planet industrial society will be unprecedented in human history.

The Antarctic Treaty is indeed of interest, but was drawn up with an ecological bent in mind; the Lunar Treaty is more about setting up the ground rules (regolith rules?) for sharing the Moon's resources between the nations so that future fisticuffs can be avoided. The Lunar Treaty may indeed be copied and pasted with respect to Mars, the asteroids and beyond; but that class of space treaty is as yet untested, so may have a few corners that need knocking off before it become practicable in the real, erm, off-world.

However, the observation that national economic interests usually trigger land grabs (not quite sic, but that pretty much summarises the recent back and forth on this thread) sadly has historic merit. Think Ancient Greeks, Rome, British Empire and Stalin.

One recalls a pulp sci-fi short story read in one's youth where some obscure space miner finds an asteroid that's composed of a single diamond crystal... and the fun and games that follow. Sort of a space version of The Pearl, only with nation states battling it out.

So, a large economic advantage may very well trigger the effective colonisation of space. But sure as eggs are eggs the *first* diamond mountain will be staked out by one or other nation states, who'll then meter out said commodity to the other nation states at great profit... which will cause the unlucky states to in turn go and look for their own diamond mountains. Round and round goes the merry-go-round until the tea gets chucked into the harbour, and the first off-planet nation state is declared (I'll modestly name it the Federation of Capucho Worlds). But unless those off-planet colonists are self-sufficient, then all the nations will have to do is stop the resupplies and wait until the oxygen's run out...

Fun to conjecture.

Ric
« Last Edit: 05/25/2014 01:31 pm by Ric Capucho »

Offline Chris Bergin

Re: Creating an off-planet industrial society?
« Reply #109 on: 05/25/2014 01:36 pm »
Thread is low quality. Locking it.
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