Over at Reason's Hit and Run an article or more accurately, the comments makes me despair of the current state of the movement. By the time I read it, there were 71 comments. Most of the time was spent assessing a Mars colony when a moon colony is on the likely Bush agenda. In other words, instead of dealing with the reality of what's being proposed, they preferred to retreat into an irrelevant fantasy that has little utility. What a waste of time. Below is my crochety contribution:
What a crock! Mars isn't up for colonization, the moon is. The reason is simple, you can make money on the moon.
Without an atmosphere to shield the cells, you can ship up a starter solar cell plant plus enough machinery to expand on the original plant. It's close enough that most things could be done remotely from earth without a great deal of local human presence (though you'll need some, especially at the beginning). Beam the produced power to relay satellites and beam down to the surface to a remote location. Crack water and pipeline the hydrogen to where you need energy.
Why do you do all this? Because the DoD has come up with the bright idea that poor people that don't have a stake in the global system are dangerous to the security interests of the United States. To get them integrated into the global system is going to require energy supplies that will dwarf what is even theoretically available on earth. The War on Terror requires the Bush democracy and freedom crusade and for that to work, the hydrogen age and moon colony have to pan out.
70+ messages, no clue. Sheesh
Posted by TMLutas at January 9, 2004 08:41 PM