“Sigh. So many trolls, so little time.”

I’ve repeatedly tried to explain my thinking very clearly to both you and Googaw, only to have both of you misstate it, along with the facts that underpin it.

There is a bell curve to this, and you two are 2 people out of some 300 million people living in this nation. Since neither of you vote on the NASA budget nor have executive say, you’re really not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

What’s going to end this nonsense is three large holes in the ground.
I can only hope that that work is completed in time.

No, my gripe with Ed is that he was incapable of understanding the severity of a threat to this nation’s well being because he was so addicted to his brain juice thrill from cosmology.

Further, he and Griffin committed an act of open contempt of Congress.

I don’t hate or fear Ed Weiler, and I am not fixated on him.

“Fooled me. You don’t miss an opportunity to diss him. I would love to see you in a face-off with Ed. He’d take you apart intellectually.”

Now you know why. As far as the face off went –
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce091702.html

I was a reporter, and interviewed Weiler and reported “objectively” until I could not take any more crap.

For that matter, I’ve tried politely many times to explain my thinking to both you and Googaw. The facts do not appear to sink in – but then most of this is material form before my stroke, and the typing is good exercise for my fingers.

“Well I am glad to see the old googoo back, the one that only posts “constructive” posts.”

Must be a problem with the meds on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off…

and on and off and on and off and on…

Darn what did I do with *my* meds????

“I can understand why this would not make sense to an astronaut cultist”

“(2) Every post I’ve made has been constructive, whether you like it or not. “

Well I am glad to see the old googoo back, the one that only posts “constructive” posts.

“The reality here in the world we actually live in is that unmanned systems already do all of the practical heavy lifting in space.”

You apparently think that telecommunication satellites are going to spread humanity throughout the universe. Not quite.

“Here in the world we actually live” it is predominately humans that do the majority of the work, and robotic systems are only used for repetitive, dangerous or high-volume applications.

Out in space, the one place where humans do live there are not a lot of robotic systems, and the ones that are there are not very capable for doing physical things.

You continue to want to drive your car forward by looking in the rearview mirror to see where you came from.

“The voodoo doll theory of space colonization … yet another of these useless diapered fetishes.”

I guess the old Googaw has taken control of the keyboard again. And I was so looking forward to finally getting a lucid conversation…

Typical astronaut cult “dialog”: completely ignore reality and instead use as the supposedly normal point of comparison a retro “vision” of “the future” that became obsolete long before the end of the last century. The reality here in the world we actually live in is that unmanned systems already do all of the practical heavy lifting in space. In fact, unmanned systems have always done all the cost-effective commercial, military, and scientific work in space. Astronauts are many orders of magnitude too expensive to do any cost-effective and practical work. That is not a gap that tweaking NASA contracting practices and chanting “commerce! Musk! commerce! Bigelow!” can come anywhere close to closing, no matter how obsessive your chanting or elaborate your designs for doll house “infrastructure”. Unmanned systems have been more cost-effective than astronauts ever since the first satellite was launched over five decades ago. The gap between the two has grown orders of magnitude greater since, and continues to grow.

But trying to introduce reality into a discussion with an astronaut cultist is like beating one’s head against a brick wall. When your interlocuter is obsessed with cosmic pilgrimages out of the pages of decades-old pulp fiction and pop “science” mags, reality matters to them only insofar as they can twist it until it seemingly justifies their glorious cosmic pilgrims.

These cultists aren’t the slightest bit interested in actually exploring the planets , “backing up earth” , developing actual space industry, improving national security, or any other laudable goal they proclaim as a justification for their fetish. They are interested only in one thing and will always, regardless of reality, quickly and relentlessly return to it like a dog to its vomit: in yet again stiffing the taxpayers to build yet more billion-dollar doll houses and “man-rated” rockets for their useless diapered Buzz Lightyears. When they invoke any of the afforementioned laudable goals they do so purely as rationalizations that reveal themselves as astronomically preposterous to any normal and intelligent person who bothers to escape from cult “visions”, observe reality, and use it to drill down into this kind of “thinking”.

We’ll just expand out into space the old fashion way – one additional person at a time.

The voodoo doll theory of space colonization in a nutshell: launch an astronaut today and by cosmic magic another will follow in their footsteps. No reality required. Just relentless mindless efforts year after year to lobby to stick the taxpayers and their children with more billions of dollars for yet another of these useless diapered fetishes.

I can understand why this would not make sense to an astronaut cultist. But why would this straightforward observation of reality not make sense to a normal person?

Actually it does because people will not want to risk capital without that clear title. Without the title, you can not put the asset on the books.

Many people have said that utilizing something like the sea treaty on the moon would be best. I disagree, you can not put the ocean on the books as a asset. Property does not have to have to be “useful”, in the usual sense, to have great value to the asset side of the ledger, the only thing that matters is market value versus aquistion costs. Frontiers are almost always defined by lots of new resources that are gained for minor fractions of what it is worth.

Something that goes along with any frontier is the speculation phase and the buying and selling of those rights to resources on the new frontier. This is what makes it possible to go out and try and strike it rich in the new frontier. Water rights, timber rights, sand and gravel rights, all the PMG’s, et cetera, et cetera. This always happens with every frontier. From grants from the king to grants from the state, land is claimed, ownership established, grants made of resources, enterpreneurs try to turn the free to cheap resources into a marketable product.

I know I routinely drag out this dead horse, but until Earth tackles the issue we will not see real capital flows. It is also why I no longer advocate landing on moon or mars for right now but just develop the transportation systems infrastructure.

The more human traffic doing overflights of that 9 billion acre unclaimed asset called Luna the sooner the issue will get settled.

“I promote unmanned space development because it’s the only viable form of space development we have: all viable paths to space colonization go through unmanned industries.”

Maybe in your head, but you’re going to need to provide some details since this doesn’t make much sense.

In our history here on Earth, colonization usually happens because of commerce and industry. If that is done by robotic system only, then there is no need for a 7-Eleven (or it’s equivalent) staffed with people, and all the people it takes to give the 7-Eleven staff somewhere to go and something to do after work.

Robotic systems may end up doing the heavy work for us in space, but there will be a need for humans, because we are the ultimate (and smartest) multi-purpose machine.

Besides, what you sort of describe sounds like a sci-fi book I read decades ago, where robots build our cities and then we just show up and occupy them – that is too far in the future to be something we should be planning on.

We’ll just expand out into space the old fashion way – one additional person at a time. And the more people that go, the less expensive per person it will get.

Iron ore for instance isn’t very useful until it is turned into something (like a steel girder). Diging holes in the ground wither on earth or on the moon isn’t isru. Producing something that you intend to use is.

Even on earth no such thing as a self-sufficient economy, some are more dependent on trade than others (i.e. places like Japan), but even the US imports things like natural rubber, oil, fruits and vegetables. It is just that at the moment there are no people on the moon with which to trade with. Even if the trade from the moon to the earth were lunar rocks because people think they look pretty there would be economic activity on the moon.

“Without a self-sufficient economy, there is no such thing as a “lifeboat” space colony, which is the motive most space colony advocates have (“back up the earth”).”

Ah nope not this one at least. I view it more as bringing the universe into the economic sphere of humanity. Making luna and the rest a place where people want to go, would have reason to go and where people hopefully will set up lives there. A lifeboat is just one reason, but imho not the most convincing of reasons.

The moon, mars and other places have things that can be used to make life there more sustainable. Sure, you will be importing say microchips but humans on the moon would in theory have lunar ices and metal ores in the soil and use of those materials onsite could be cheaper than importing(depending on the item). Imho find a reason to send someone to the moon that goes beyond flag waving and flag planting. Find a way to involve commercial spaceflight as much as possible so that costs are contained and controlled and so that you don’t need to go to Congress for every investment and send people who are not astronauts employed by the government and the moon will become developed. Might take some decades but it can.