X-Message-Number: 12145 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: about full space travel and when it will arrive, really Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 22:56:18 +1000 (EST) To Olaf Henny: You raise one of the problems I myself have with predictions that we'll be mining asteroids on 25 years. I will say this, however, as someone who tries to follow developments in space. There has been progress, though much more slowly than people thought 30 years ago. Right now several agencies, both public and private companies, are planning the design of ships able to reach an orbit using only one stage and with prices similar to those of an aircraft flight. This level of cost actually seems reachable within current technology (though to be fair, it wasn't reachable 30 years ago). Yes, such an ability requires a lot more before we start mining asteroids, or even modifying their orbits to keep them from hitting the Earth. But there has been slow progress. Moreover, there's no sign that this slow progress will cease. Ultimately this will all be to the good, even for cryonicists: I once did some calculations suggesting that quite inevitably, in about 300 years we'd simply HAVE to move a lot of our industries off the Earth. (Yes, the calculations were VERY approximate). This would not be because of any of the pollution problems (such as CO2) that we hear of now, but simply due to the waste heat generated by our use of power --- something much harder to deal with than any kind of simple pollution. So I do expect that we'll be mining asteroids and all the rest. But not in 25 years, not at all. Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12145