REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (01/06/84)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC> Well, that's a start. But we still need a manned station up there for experiments that need more human intervention than just remote control from Earth. Or do we? How would it be if except for shuttle flights to service the platform and other satellites, the whole space program was unmanned for the next several years? We could run an automated mining station on the Moon and on asteroids, run an automated smelting station and materials-processing station in low Earth orbit, and eventually construct (in LEO) full size solar-power collectors and habitat out of lunar and asteroid materials; the whole operation controlled remotely from Earth, with long feedback delays for mining but short Earth-to-LEO delays for everything else, until such time as the hotel-in-the-sky is finished and ready for occupancy. Then we start actually moving people up there to live. Opinions anyone?