barnes@infinet.UUCP (Jim Barnes) (10/21/86)
In article <700@cadomin.UUCP> andrew@cadomin.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) writes: > >This is about the same if you do your processing in space and launch the >raw materials using a mass driver. Once that thing is built, you just dig >up a convenient area of the lunar surface. Remember : on the moon and in >space you don't have to worry about land rights, access to transportation >or water, pollution requirements, and all the constraints that on Earth >determine where the most profitable place for a factory is going to be, or >if that facility is going to be built at all, or if some ore body is worth >mining. > This comment about "land rights, ..., pollution requirements, ..." sounds suspiciously similar to the strategy used in the late 1800s as industry was expanding in the western United States. No one minded if the forests were cut down, the rivers polluted, etc. because no one lived there (forgetting the Indians for a minute). Lots of damage was done to the environment that will take a long time to repair. I would hate to see us doing the same thing to the environments on other worlds as we expand out into space. -- ------------------------- {harvard,decvax}!wanginst!infinet!barnes Jim Barnes
andrew@cadomin.UUCP (10/23/86)
In article <410@infinet.UUCP> barnes@infinet.UUCP (Jim Barnes) writes: [ responding to a comment of mine about lunar industrialization . . . ] > >This comment about "land rights, ..., pollution requirements, ..." >sounds suspiciously similar to the strategy used in the late 1800s >as industry was expanding in the western United States. >No one minded if the forests were cut down, the rivers polluted, >etc. because no one lived there (forgetting the Indians for a minute). >Lots of damage was done to the environment that will take >a long time to repair. I would hate to see us doing the same >thing to the environments on other worlds as we expand out into >space. > Yes, maybe it does sound the same, but, last I heard, there *are* no *ecological* environments on any other planets for us to damage. I really don't see how you can get upset about strip mining the Moon, which has been dead in just about every sense of the word for the last two billion years. I understand your point of view, and I agree with it here on Earth, but the Moon? Where's my "Save the Craters" button when I really need it?