Why is nobody paying attention to this?

[fpb]

I had never even heard it, had any of you? And yet it is since 2007 that Germany had announced the establishment of a purely German space program, separate from the European space agency, and intended to go to the Moon. Now Peter Hintze, the German federal director of aerospace, has announced that Germany plans a mission to the Moon within ten years. One of the many ways in which the world media are corrupt is that they never pay any attention to news like this. There is a meme that Europe is lazy and declining, and that the future is in the Far East. Any news that contradict the meme simply are not publicized. And when German spacemen will in fact be walking on the Moon, everyone will be surprised, not knowing that the program had been widely announced.

(the news was reported by today's Italian Catholic newspaper L'Avvenire)

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Someone has to start. And if I were to bet, I'd bet that on a whole PLANET (Luna) there will be at least something whose discovery will more than justify the expense of manned exploration -- and probably lead to those "colonies."

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It would have to be something absolutely extraordinary. I suspect that it will go the other way: the settlement will be led by tourism - obviously, millionaires' tourism, like the kind that is currently feeding the Russian space program - and once there are permanent settlements on the Moon, they will grow by themselves. People will be born there and want to stay and work at home. The settlements will have to be self-feeding from the beginning, so a considerable amoung of farming and even mining will develop just to keep them going - and that will feed local growth. I doubt that it will ever be profitable to take goods in bulk from Moon to Earth or vice versa, and so interplanetary trade is unlikely to develop.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I doubt that it will ever be profitable to take goods in bulk from Moon to Earth or vice versa, and so interplanetary trade is unlikely to develop.

I disagree. The ultimate limit on the reduction of transport costs is the amount of energy required to move the objects from the surface of one world to the other, and that's fairly low -- not much more than a couple of intercontinental jet flights.

The reason why it costs so much now is that we are moving everything by rocketship, and that it's right at the limits of our technological capabilities, so we have to carefully prepare each flight. Far better cargo transport systems than rocketships are in the works (particularly, space elevators, skyhooks, magnetic catapults and laser launch systems), and even where rocketships are concerned, we are developing far better hull materials.

And at that, tri-helium would already be valuable enough to ship, with current technology, if we had solved the problem of building a nuclear fusion reactor hot enough to burn it.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

Another likely import is iridium: as a very heavy, iron loving element, most of it on earth has sunk into the core of the planet. Iridium is the rarest element on the surface, but very common in meteors.

However, it's very easy to overestimate the wealth to be gained in hostile environs. Antartica and the nickel/manganese nuggets on the sea bed come to mind, of vast resources that aren't economically feasible to mine.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

However, it's very easy to overestimate the wealth to be gained in hostile environs. Antartica and the nickel/manganese nuggets on the sea bed come to mind, of vast resources that aren't economically feasible to mine.

Yet.

fpb said "ever." I would be astonished if, say, a thousand years from now, Antarctica or the seabed remained unexploited. Or Luna.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

oh, granted. But consider the 19thC maxim, "no railroad can be considered viable unless it has been bankrupt at least once". The majority of space pioneers will regret getting involved.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The majority of space pioneers will regret getting involved.

Well, yes. And most of the big money will be made by a few very canny and lucky developers, and those who sell supplies to them and to all the other pioneers.

That's how it always works on a frontier.

Quite a lot of space pioneers will succeed moderately well, though. That's also how it always works on a frontier.

And a vast number will fail, for levels of failure up to and including horrible death.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

One of the features of American frontier history that is not frequently discussed is the numerous cases of cannibalism.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I'd heard about the Donner Party ... to which other cases were you referring? I'm sure there were some ...

The notion that the hardships of space pioneering would be or are too great for humans to ever endure always amused me. Bone loss, solar flares, cosmic rays, sure ... but nothing as bad as was scurvy (and other vitamin dificiency diseases before the late 18th to early 20th century) and the overall lack of adequate food storage technology before mid-19th century canning practices. Between disease and storm, long-duration 16th-17th century sea voyages might expect to lose 1/3 to 2/3 of crew, and some expeditions fared even worse. Travel times were comparable to interplanetary flight.