🚀 go-pugleaf

Sometime earlier, amethyst!spock!chris@noao.edu (Chris Ott) wrote a
rather science-fictional message about what we could do in space.
I considered responding, because while I am firmly convinced we should
start moving out into space *RIGHT NOW*, I don't think that plans
that neglect such minor considerations as the cost of delta-V, and
shuffle off into the ozone of "stellar lifting" are particularly
helpful to the cause.

Then, in article <890214185544858.AFZR@Mars.UCC.UMass.EDU>
Castell@UMASS.BITNET (Chip Olson@somewhere.out.there) writes:

>A general comment: You have got to be kidding.

A reasonable question.  Not to defend wild fantasies such as turning
the sun into a white dwarf, of course, I see some serious problems with
Chip Olson's position, too.

...
>Do you have any idea what you are saying? Since we've already pretty much
>ruined this planet, we should go out and carve up the others?
...
>I hate to burst your bubble, but you
>and I are just a couple of hairless apes with ideas above our station.
>It is these kinds of attitudes that have ruined and are still ruining
>the balance of life on this planet.  Now you want to go out and ruin the
>balance of the solar system for good measure.
...
>I'm far more interested in making this a more
>livable planet ... than I am in pipe dreams.

Granted that much of Chris Ott's message consisted of far-out pipe
dreams, there's an element of truth there.  We have two choices:
Move forward, or slide backwards.  Staying in the same place is also
a pipe dream, because it is impossible in the medium-to-long term.
How long can you keep dividing up ever smaller pieces of a shrinking
pie?  Not long enough.  Without access to the resources of the solar
system, we're headed back to the 14'th century, one way or another.
Either by uncontrolled collapse, or (scarier...) by being dragged
back by Ecocrats.  Either way requires somehow disposing of the 
majority of the Earth's population, and I'd far rather that that be
something we tried to avoid and failed than something that we,
like Hitler or Pol Pot, deliberately planned.

So, forward.  Much of what we can do in space (Not pipe dreams like
solar lifting, but solidly possible things, like SPS and capture
of Earth-intersecting asteroids) can help to take some of the pressure
off Earth's ecosystem.  New energy sources and sources of platinum-
group metals makes it much less likely that war will break out over
mid-east oil or South African mines.

It will buy us a little time until we can figure out what the next
step should be.  Which may be enough.
-- 
Mike Van Pelt            Video 7            ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp
There are  no perfect  power sources.   There is no  such thing as
100% perfect safety.  There is no such thing as zero environmental
impact  short  of the entire human race committing  mass  suicide.