Wornstrum if I am correct in saying so, he mentioned colonization as in settling the place as well. Not just for resources. But very good points on the energy side so I will leave that alone.

Now keep in mind that he is one of the people moaning and complaining about how much a cd costs (due to its manufacturing, packaging, shipping, etc).

So lets assume the we spend the billions (possibly trillions) of dollars to actually make the moon or mars inhabitable for people. Now we have to feed and water those people at a bare minimum. Then comes all the other amenities like clothing, hygiene supplies, educational supplies, entertainment supplies, and a whole host of other items that these people living on another "world" are still going to have expectations of.

My father is a truck driver so I can tell you that currently the cost of shipping dairy goods from PA to AZ is right around 2076 miles approximately depending on the exact locations to/from. Now the average trucker makes 30.3 cents per mile (my dad being a owner/operator makes more than that but it wont effect the point I am making) so you multiply the miles by the amount and you get 629.08 for just the travel portion. Now, the trucking company has to pay for its employees gas as well so we have to factor that cost in. 2076 miles into gallons is 260 gallons (at around 8mpg). Seeing as the majority of trucks have a large enough gas tank to only fuel up once for that trip we can just assume that the cost to fuel him up in PA will be 4.32 to fuel up at the Pilot Flying J. That makes 260 gallons of diesel fuel turn into 1,123.2 dollars now. So far this trip has cost the company 1,752.28 dollars for just that ONE trip. This doesn't account for what they are making for the trip!

Now a company generally will average 3,000 dollars per month on each driver. Assume that the driver does 2 trips a week and that turns into a total of 8. So the profit margin there is 30% without calculating what the company has to pay in road taxes and a whole host of other issues which will effectively drop it down to about 10% roughly.

That is just 1 driver taking a load of 25,000 lbs of stuff from PA to AZ.

The average person eats 1,095 lbs of food per year so lets just say we start with a small number for testing purposes on the moon and we move....30 people there. Now we have a total of 32,850 lbs of food needed for those people (just food, doesn't include water or anything else). The cost to transport that in the United States (distance is not actually realistic for this) would be 238857 miles turning into 1,104,235.24 dollars (factoring cents per mile and diesel fuel). Now we both know that an astronaut is going to get paid more than a truck driver, and we also know that rocket fuel is more expensive than diesel so we are talking LOW END prices here!

Basically the point I am making is the inflation cost of a product being shipped to the moon is going to be roughly 66,000% making a $1 candy bar turn into $661 for it.

Now to the real point...how are those people going to pay for it? They aren't! How is the government going to afford it? They aren't! You cannot expect normal citizens to eat the same things an astronaut does for the rest of their lives.

Therefore, based on the above statistics, space colonization is not a feasible solution.

EDIT~~ All shipping costs vary as some companies even pay truckers pick up/drop off fees as well. And it does not include any maintenance issues on the trucks.

> Einstein wrote:

> Error #1

To hot, to cold

Graphene on the exterior would create a safe haven for any artificial structure. While living inside a bldg for life, and having to have buildings be made, then attached to the 'city' then cleansed before it could be used... That is how you live on hostile planets.

So Venus to Pluto is possible.

Venus would still have possible issues with environmental damage to the infrasture (acid rain for example). Also, the air pressure on Venus is quite high I believe. Furthermore, Jupiter and Saturn are both gas giants, with rather high gravity from what I remember, so I think both of these planets are out.

Well, I did think of protective sheilding, but does graphene stop all heat disapation? It would need to retain most of the heat, and with that, it would need to be strong enough to handle large temperature differences (which when you look at glass, the thicker the glass, the easier it is to crack under different temperature extremes. This is because glass doesn't transfer heat as quickly, so the hot side expands, whilst the cold side shrinks causing the glass to break). So it would need to retain heat, whilst being strong enough not handle temperature differences (so I would imagine the cost of a settlement would be higher from placing graphene sheets through wear and tear). Furthermore, if we have look at the weather conditions on Nepture, we notice rather high winds forming (and we are talking a lot stronger than that of a hurricane, and how much infrastructure is often destroyed from a hurricane/cyclone each year?) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune). Also Pluto was declassified as a planet, not that it matters in this discussion, because all objects in the solar system are considerable choices, so we should also include all the other bits of rocks floating out there (there have been a few dwarf planets discovered beyond Pluto). Even if you can handle the control of temperature, I think there are other factors still proventing us from colonising these planets, such as, gravity, atmosphere pressure (Neptune and Venus both are quite high, for example). If we are talking about colonising these areas, I think deep sea exploration and mining will be explored more before we even consider the extremes of Pluto or Venus (with more obvious choices elsewhere in the solar system), so again the need still stops us still.

"Wornstrum if I am correct in saying so, he mentioned colonization as in settling the place as well. Not just for resources."

I was trying to explain the reasons why we would look to colonise space. We generally colonise through needs on Earth, a perfect example are abandon mining towns (once the mining runs out). Furthermore, and we are going back a bit, areas were colonised that were at least to some degree self-sustainable (which is the reason Australia was ignored by explorers for so long, and there are records of explorers reaching it and describing it as a baron wasteland). Since transportation was long, self-sustainability to some degree was a must, and the same principle would apply to colonised areas in space, at least for a period of time. Again, there would be a need to colonise these areas first and foremost, and like most colonies on Earth, was based on needs (so more than likely resources of some kind...whether it be minerals, gas, space, agriculture, etc).

Oooops, I didn't see your post Firewing...

This was all based on repeated comments by xeno regarding the lack of momentum to move towards the stars:

"The "How" is not so important. Give it some time and private money, up we go. Our cultural evolution accelerates every day. The developments in the past 50 years is proof enough."

I do not disagree, I think that we will reach Mars in my lifetime. I was just pointing out current limitations that exist to explain why throwing resources into space exploration would just be a waste of time and money now. The how was to demonstrate that limitations exist that we do not have the current know how to solve, and these sorts of solutions would have a benefit on Earth, so it is more than just a lack of resources that has "prevented" such innovations.

"The "Why" is much more important. The world economy produces some very rich people with special needs."

James Cameron diving to the deepest part of the ocean for excitment/research is a bit different than take colonising space. James Cameron did not take a whole settlement down to the deepest part and establish a city down there, and the same can be said about rich people travelling to the moon. They are not taking a whole colony with them. If they decided to though, as mentioned about transport costs, the colony would be self-sustainable to some degree, or it would need some sort of output in order to constantly afford incoming goods. I cannot see rich people giving up everything to move to the moon and become a farmer, so the only option I could see is them taking poorer people with them (not entirely implausable actually). I still think the forementioned comment about an output of some kind would still be the driving factor of colonising (it would need some sort of economy), and I think it would need to be supply of some kind of resource (mining, labour [although I can't see how this would be cheaper than Earth-side options], agriculture, land, etc].

Having said that, rich people travelling to these areas could start the "tourist" economy that invests more money into the industry of space travel, but again, still meets my criteria of need (demands from rich people) and the colony offering some kind of resource (tourism).

"It is not the need for new resources. There is no oil in the solar system, except on earth. For other minerals we can mine the oceans first. There is enough for at least 100 years to come."

Yep, that was the point I was trying to make, is that because there is no need to do it, this is why we haven't pushed hard for it.

"A real breakthrough would be the discovery of basic life forms e. g. on the moons Titan or Enceladus. This will cause a "run" for aliens. Best would be an earth like planet "close" to our planet."

Well this I agree with, just look at the missions to Mars (discover water or life ), and I believe life on Mars hasn't been completely ruled out. As for the planet "close" to our planet, I do not think there would be anything close enough for a direct push in space exploration, since it would be far enough away that it would take decades to reach (and we are still talking close to our solar system). Still think the solar system would be first to explore in any case.

One thing I did forget, is possible research stations, and this would be funded directly governments, but again what is there to research that satellites, probes, drones cannot accomplish at less expense?

> The Riddler wrote:

> Oh I was not arguing against you Wornstrum. Everytime exploration/colonization has been done in the past it was due to needs driving it. America was the need to be free from religious oppression...and so on.

I know, and I think most people are at a consensus on it anyway (except Xeno), and it is really just pointing out different points to consider as you mentioned in your post

"When he simply has to understand that we can not afford to do such an endeavor at this time."

Or even that such an endeavour is working against the very thing he wants.

If we get that far, I'd say the Chinese and Indians would be the first to colonize other planets.

Just to throw some more numbers out there for you guys...

Approximate cost to build/launch a shuttle is 1.5billion dollars.

A space shuttle can carry 50,000 lbs and 8 people (including pilot)

A mining town would most likely consist of around 400-4,000 people so lets just play the small numbers and go with 400.

To get 400 people to the Mining town they will live in is going to take 57 flights (7 people per flight due to pilot always being there) and at 1.5 billion will cost 85.5 billion dollars.

Now assuming for each flight we load up the 50,000 lbs with JUST the supplies they need to survive (not including mining equipment) and nothing else (entertainment and so forth) each shuttle would need:

Food: 1,095 pounds per person x 7 = 7,665
Water: 182.5 gallons per person x 7 is 1,277.5 gallons = 10,667 pounds (just for drinking...does not include bathing or cooking)
Hygiene supplies: For the sake of time lets just say that each item is used at the rate of 1 per month so you need 12 deodorant sticks, 12 bottles of shampoo, 12 bottles of body wash, etc...for all your hygiene supplies. Doing rough math this is going to weigh 50 pounds per person x 7 = 350 pounds (I could be really far off on this but doing the math of converting different types of ounces into pounds is just too much work)
Clothing: lets say they each take 10 outfits and these outfits weigh on average 4 pounds each. so 40 pounds x 7 = 280 pounds (they are miners so they might just go through more than 10 outfits in a year)
Furniture: Table, 4 chairs, 2 beds, refrigerator, stove/oven, microwave, couch, 2 dressers, washer, and dryer as a bare minimum base for each household. Average weight per person is going to be 565 pounds on the low end for those items x 7 = 3,955 pounds

So far we are at 22,917 pounds for the flight and we have covered SOME of the bare minimums. Water will most likely destroy the rest of that weight when you factor in cooking and hygiene.

Basically my point is that you are going to have to run at least double the amount of flights in order to provide for those 400 people.

So now our tally is at 171 billion and I have not even begun to factor in the cost of purchasing the items. That cost is merely transportation!

I could keep going and going with the math on this and you will watch the bill rise and rise into an astounding number but I am not going to. Because anyone of sane mind would see how the cost benefit is largely in favor of exploring all options on earth before wasting more money in space.

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> Well I do not think the Russians would strike with nukes,

Why?

> and furthermore, if they were fearful of this, they would seek to build their own life boat, and we see another "Cold War" but instead of nuclear weapons, we get "lifeboat shelters".

No... you're missing the timeframe.

Let's assume it takes the US program 2 years to finish their lifeboat.

For the Russians to adequately have a lifeboat to prevent the asymmetry problem I described above, they would need to build a similar lifeboat before the US finished its own lifeboat.  This puts them at a couple disadvantages, first because the Americans had a head start, and second because the only way to finish earlier would be to find some inefficiencies in the American program and correct them... a procedure which was likely to be done already by the Americans to minimize the timeframe anyway.

If the Russians can't beat the Americans in the lifeboat construction, the Americans would still have their first strike opportunity gained from the lifeboat.  Thus, the Russian would have that incentive to first strike before its completion.

But if the Russians beat the Americans, you end up with the exact opposite problem: now the Russians would have the opportunity to deliver a first strike.

> Also, the life boat being self-sufficient then goes back to my original points doesn't it? In order for it to be self-sufficient, it severly limits its destinations (the moon is not one, since I don't believe that there is any resources of any value there). Furthermore, solar panels are not infinite, and they do burn out in time, so solar itself needs to be replenishable, so we are back to where can a colony get everything it needs in order to be self sufficient?

I'm conceding the limited amount of destinations.  Remember, I'm the one who suggested to you in chat the idea of colonizing an asteroid in orbit of Earth. 

As for solar panels, how long does a panel last?  If the average time a colony would need to remain self-sufficient is 2 years (the time it would take an asteroid-disaster to wear off), and a solar panel lasts 10 years... you're fine.

A properly doped (scientific term) graphene wall would be able to prevent bleed over of temperatures. 100 degrees inside, -100 degrees outside, and from the inside the walls would feel 100 degrees warm.

And the walls would be thinner than a cotton shirt (though actually applying ones hand over the surface would peel a small amount of skin as you went... graphene is like hills and valleys and should sheer off lose stuff and skin is actually fair loose in those terms)

Of course using graphene would require a bit more technology (right now the largest peice of pure graphene is still smaller than a sticky note) but... it can be done.

And Riddler... I am a truck driver myself, and there is one more in the game who drives, fyi.

Oh and for a 700 mile trip my company typically see's $1,800 and I get 17%. I get to see the actual charges we charge the customer.

darwins law needs to be rewritten to include idealogies. no longer shall the weaker creature die. the weaker beleif will now die. evolution continues!

why colonize a planet other than to harvest rare minerals, if we can survive in a giant space station, make it your home, we cant move a planet, we can move a space station.

for energy, lets hope that something comes from dark energy, dark matter, even anti-matter, aswell research into absolute zero shows that matter reacts amazingly differently proposing even more options for energy use, storage, and efficiency. this being even more possible stating that it is really cold in space already

Check the various types of doped graphene, then try to post it.

I specfically said doped graphene.

I.E. a layer of graphene, a layer of the doping material, and a layer of graphene.

The various tests with graphene continue, but one version of a doped graphene has proven to be a significant insulator.

Riddler... actually it's unique.

The owner has a dispatch company, dispatching 500+ trips a day for his clients. He also owns two trucks as a seperate company.

I believe the bill is for the trucking side only... not the dispatch side where the employees are.

Repairs and maintainance is the only other costs than fuel and pay. And fuel is always a part of the contracts (part of that $1800)