KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") (03/13/86)
From: Leslie R. Eastman <lreastma@crdc-vax2.arpa>
Some people on this net talk like free food, energy and building material
are there in space just waiting to be picked up and beamed back to earth
where it will also be free for the taking by who ever needs it.
Pretty much, yes. All that is needed is practical robotics and a
modicum of AI. Then you can send robot probes into space that
reproduce themselves and that mine asteroids, moonlets, and comets,
that get energy from sunlight or perhaps from uranium in the
asteroids, and that manufacture various goods from apples to cars,
from oranges to computers, from gasoline to buildings, from toys to
T-bone steaks. These can be parachuted to Earth for use there, or can
be used by people colonizing space.
What's more, these robots could build space colonies for us. Fully
furnished, where the phones are clean and you can get a good haircut
(apologies to Douglas Adams). Anyone who wanted to would be able to
board a space-robot-manufactured safe shuttle at the nearest airport,
and go live for free in a giant O'Neill type colony, complete with
forests and streams and (small) mountains and fully furnished houses
with central heating and air conditioning. (This should answer those
people who asked how we would 'force' people to move to space.)
...Keith