January 20, 2004
Of what use is a newborn child? --Franklin
Pedro writes
[Lefty-blogger discussing Bush Space Plan asks:] "WHAT'S THE PAYOFF?" Holy rocket ship to the moom, batman, some of you people need to read a little less narcissitic literature and dig into some rock-'em sock-'em science fiction. 'What's the payoff?' Are you freakin' kidding me? How about the resources of an entire freakin' planet? No wait, one extra planet, one extra large satellite (the moon), a couple of little ones (Mars' moons), plus the asteroid belt thrown in as a bonus. PLUS the spin-off technologies. But how can you ask "What's the payoff?" when we're talking about an entire planet? NASA = bloated gov't, OK, we can fix that, and it's a valid point. But "What's the payoff?"If you gotta ask, it probably means you don't really want to know. Reminds me of how our Great Plains region was once thought of as the "Great American Desert." And Alaska was "Seward's Icebox." Posted by John Weidner at January 20, 2004 07:11 AM | TrackBack
The issue is that space will only become a source of resources in the distant future. No one doubts that there are valuable minerals on the moon and Mars, but the cost of bringing them back here now would be prohibitive, and it will stay that way until at the very least we have factories on those planets to refine whatever raw materials we find there and then send the finished products back.
China's rhetoric about mining the moon's riches for the benefit of humanity is just that. For now, the only place in space of any strategic or economic value is low Earth orbit.
Posted by: John A. Kalb at January 20, 2004 11:47 AMIf the mining of He3 on the Moon leads to fusion, the cost of bringing He3 back to Earth will be miniscule compared to bringing back oil from Mars (like the wacko on Slate.com suggests we're going to do!).
Furthermore, there are alternatives to an actual shipping of the fuel. We could beam back the energy instead of bringing back product.
The project is long term in nature. It's a step in the right direction--the payoff may be down the road, but we've got to start going down the raod to get to the payoff.
Posted by: FredKiesche at January 20, 2004 02:43 PMYes, beam back the energy, that makes far more sense than anything else. Matter of fact, I'm on my way to the Hollodeck right now, I'll ask Spock to take care of that before lunch.
Posted by: Jim at February 2, 2004 09:34 PM
