REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (03/11/84)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC> I'd gladly pay my share of the station IN ADDITION to what's already being spent for space stuff ($150 million / 500,000,000 people = $.30 per capita), in fact I'd gldly pay three times that each year for the next five years if it would get the station built sooner. You have some valid arguments for not diverting planetary-program funds to the space station, essentially arguments about how wonderful the planetary program is (and I agree, in fact I want more funds for the planetary program), but no arguments against the space station per se. You challange us to give arguments in favor of the space station. (1) zero-gee experiments of long duration, both for materials processing and biological experiments, (2) a nice place for people like me with bad backs to have sex and sleep without strain of gravity making everything painful, (3) rendezvous point for space ships, including facilities for food and water and toilet and medical supplies that may be needed in an emergency by some crew whose own ship has broken down, (4) assembly place for advanced spacecraft such as proposed modular-spacecraft planetary program, (5) first step in full industrialization of space using lunar and other non-Earth materials, (6) eventually place for mankind to survive nuclear war or other Earth-based disaster. After we've solved problems of long-duration habitat in space, and have industry etc. out there, we can move toward longrange plans in both science and survival (for example: sending crews to explore nearby stars, setting up large radio and astronomical facilities for observing more remote stars, shielding Earth from our Sun later in the Sun's life when it is hotter than at present, moving mankind closer to the Sun and/or setting upmirrors to concentrate sunlight on Earth much later when the Sun is dying and not emitting anywhere as much energy as it does now, and finally moving mankind to another star before our dying white-dwarf Sun gets to the point where it doesn't produce enough energy to support mankind any more). To accomplish all that, we need a lot of things now (yesterday), one of which is a permanently-staffed space station.