I'm a bit of a space nut, used to be really a space nut, now I'm a bit of a environmentalist space nut. It always amazes me the lack of reality put into thinking about space. It seems like it is a arena where only technology matters, and technology that seems to function independent of reality, in particular how technology actually does function in the real world is usually ignored, not to mention politics, human psychology, and other problems. It is often times in the lexicorn of the space nut, that the problem is technological, that the real reason we are not in space is that it is not easy enough to get into space, once it gets easy then it we all go, in this thinking development of a ion engine, or heavy lift rocket is the only problem. But we have had the capability to go into space for close to fifty years now and it has only gotten easier, but yet there has been no conversant expansion in space access. It could be argued that economics is also the problem, but we maintain many expensive technologies even at a economic cost.
The fact is if there was a will, we would go, there are no signficant technological or economic hurdles just rationalizations for why we don't go, just political and psychological, so it is there a space nut must focus his or her efforts.
So I began with that long talk about space travel, now I bring in the reality of limitations even in a asteroid mining civilization. Some rules, one developed capacity equals actual capacity, put simply all those wonderful technologies for doing X don't matter if they don't work in real life. It is one thing to design one method for mining a asteroid, another to see it play out in the reality of mining a asteroid. Right now our actual developed capacity for mining applies only in the arena of terrestrial mining, and farther a enviroment goes from that arena, the more unknowns are presented in mining.
Also as to developed capacity, there is a additional sociological dynamic. If developed capacity equals actual capacity, then that is who has actual resources, and only those resources. The potential for asteroid mining is only relevant to its actual developed capacity. Which presents a problem for conflict, if say company x has developed x asteroid and is making a profit, and company y comes along sees its developed capacity, then instead of spending the time of developing its own asteroid, it might decide it is more profitable to just take company x resources if it is easier then mining its own asteroid. Again we have only to look to the past for examples of this.
Two if you do not have technology to get there, it is irrelevant as to how much of x resource is there. To take a more earthly example, say there was a huge quantity of oil at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and it would be able to sustain the human civilization indefinetly. But since we don't the technological capacity to reach the Marianas Trench, we are practically dependent on the resources we do have, and for all intents and purpose are the resources we really have. Mining helium three is a more spacely example, sure the gas giants might have a large amount, but no capacity to get it, and it might as well be nonexistent.
Three, time spent transporting resources, equals a bottleneck of actual capacity. No resource transportation system is instantaneous, and in the real world this creates supply disruptions and limitation. If you have mined this huge amount of uranium, and your ship takes say several years to get back from the asteroid belt to earth, it does not matter that it was for all practical purposes unlimited, the travel time creates a limitation of resources all its own.
Four, life support system plus propulsion equals actual capacity to stay out in space, if your recycling system is only x efficient, then your propulsion system could make up for its deficiency by getting there faster. Needless to say the slower you are the more efficient the recycling the system will have to be. No system is ever a hundred percent efficient, so there will always be losses, which necisates replenishment.
Five, free floating oneil colonies, are only as viable as their capacity to replenish resources, and their distance to a resource node for replenishment. It's also a economic argument, Oneil colonies when put in place would need a actual reason to be there, such as nearby valuable resource nodes such as asteroids, where they could serve to refine those resources.
Six and this applies to what the limitation of a spaceborne environment does to those living in them. People tend to think the environment does not apply when it comes government or politics or sociology, but the reality is that the environment always has its say in what human system evolves. Space would be no different, and herein my thinking tends to run at odds with the usual dogma about space being free.
Think about it, what is being proposed is a system of free floating colonies, colonies on Mars, moons of jupiter, the asteroid belt; colonies which with the possible exception of Mars require huge limitations on resource consumption. This is not a terrestrial environment, it is a environment which requires its life support system to be very efficient, in which nearly everything must be used, because it is hard to get replenishment otherwise, in which nearly every act of the people must be regulated mainly because x person's resource use impinges upon y's resource use. If one person uses to much water or air, how does this fit into our environment. What happens if one or more limitations affect our backup supplies, what happens? What are the ways you would control each person so that they don't hurt the overall whole? Even a completely benevolent system would need to make decisions that would affect other people's freedom. Like Birth control, it would be a necessary requirement, and yet look at the hubbub that goes on here on earth. There if a person has a baby illegally, it represents a real threat to colonial survival, as it means they put a strain on all the resources which are limited per the population.
As to resource limitations, lets say I decide I want to go out to start my own colony, I am part of a reasonably successful Oneil colony, now how do I go out without getting a portion the common wholes's resources, answer I couldn't. I would need a spacecraft, a certain percentage of the population, and technological assistance to get it going. Could I just go out like a frontier person in the old west and just go out? No I couldn't. So you get limitations sociologically, and what you can do just because of the environment you are in.
Seventh, and this really should be partly linked to developed capacity, but I will call it self sufficiency. Living space in outer space does not just materialize out of air, everything that is there must be built, if you want to expand the population of a colony you must build in more air water, and living space for that population. This should be a rather obvious fact, but tends to fall by the wayside in space talk. They always talk as if it were a terrestrial environment, as if once we get access to space billions will go out, and what die in the vacuum of space? This is not a environment we have long years of experience in, this is not wild west in space. This is more like Antarctica in space, where you live in a tin can for the rest of your life. Anyway self sufficiency is important in response to developed capacity. Quite a bit of fiction and space talk in general acts as if Earth were somehow a optional choice, like once we get space colonies, then we can cut the bonds to Earth in general, and screw the environment entirely.
But this is where reality also enters in, no terrestrial colony starts out self sufficient, the United States took quite some time before it could reach some degree of self suffciency, and they had the help of natives to teach them how to live. Actually when you get right down to it, the initial colonists like the Pilgrims and Jamestown were practically dependent on the indians for their very survival. But anyway the point was that was a terrestrial environment, and it had its own perils enough, and add to that the requirement to recycle your air, manufacture your stuff, provide power, and you get better idea of what it means to be self sufficient from Earth entirely.
You are planning on creating self sustaining organic ecosystem, fair enough how? How do you adapt the orgnisms to the environments they are in? You perhaps say gene engineering, fair enough how does gene engineering work, by transfering traits from one organism to another. But those genes are not created out of thin air, genetic engineering is dependent on the biosphere of Earth for new genes, and for new traits. We do not create those genes out of whole cloth, they are just transferred not created, which means until you attain some degree of biotic diversity your hypothetical space colony will always be dependent on earth to apply new traits to your organisms.
And that is just your recycling system, what about manufacuturing, fact it took centuries for the US to get a degree of industrialization which allowed to be reasonably self sufficient.
So in terms of time to be self sufficient, you one tack on say two hundred years to be self sufficient in a terrestrial environment, and then tack on whatever amount of time it takes you to build up self sufficient system that approximates what we have here on Earth. And only then can you crow about leaving all the common people behind. Until you have that developed self sufficiency, you are just farting in the wind, and smelling it and thinking it smells of perfume.
Now what do I think about a space colonies purpose, it is to help those on Earth get over the hyperEcoMalthusian cycle we seem to be heading towards, but not to serve as a home away from Earth.
Long blog, but hey its my second blog so whatever.
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