T
tomnackid
Guest
In an industrial society the only thing that matters is energy. If energy is abundant enough all the other problems go away (with the possible exception of what to do with the waste heat.) The only reason to go into space in the long run is for energy. "Space tourism" (really "space barnstorming") is a fad that will be over in less than a decade (but it can be a useful fad just as the barnstormers of the '20s got people interested in air travel.) The only resource that matters is energy. If mining asteroids is cost effective we'll do it, or we may just drill into the Earth's core, or mine the solar wind--the point is the basic resources are always there for the taking its just a matter of having the energy to make it worth while.<br /><br />The best thing that could happen to expand space travel is for oil prices to go up to over a hundred dollars a gallon, or even for oil production to stop completely! Back in the 70s we thought that this scenario was about to take place at any minute. That's why people like Gerard O'Neil could propose with a straight face space based solar power stations the size of manhattan and habitats housing thousands of workers (complete with hang gliders and backyard barbecues and built before the millennium no less! "L5 by '95 was the rallying cry.). People laugh at these ideas now that we got fat and happy again in the 80s and 90s, but I can tell you that pessimism spurred by "no gas" signs, overpopulation, pollution, runaway crime and all that other fun 70s stuff can be a real inducement for radical technological change. (Of course the other side of the coin was the "small is beautiful" crowd who wanted to change technology by eliminating it and taking us back to a pre-industrial society--very few of them actually volunteered to be among those billions who would die of starvation or disease though.) <br /><br />So, the next time you complain about gas being 3+ dollars a gallon (still cheap by world standards) just remember every penny extra