Capitalism Doesn't Work... So What Would?

More of this post 267 silliness and you will get banned.
At Sciforums we assume people do not invent non-standard meaning for words that conflict with the dictionary as you have insisted upon doing.

What you were asking, reduced to a readable form, was:

“How about a system where people are free.” But you are not at all clear about “free from what"?

BTW, I have not yet had time to read your later than 267 posts. Perhaps you have already forced me to learn how to ban you.

 

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Bring something back to Earth from any other than moon solar orbit body takes more energy per K gram than from the moon, so from them, the cost is greater.

Again there is NOTHING WORTH THE COST OF RETURNING IT TO EARTH. If you think differently, tell what it might be (and estimate the cost per gram, if you can.)

 

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To J. Galt:

Your post 268 is fine – what we expect of posters.

Your post 271 is border line as too much with error or only based on your ideas of ethics, which are not absolute laws.
For example”
(1) “Yes, and that must be why your boy extended the tax cuts.” A reference to Obama who strongly opposed the extension of GWB’s tax cuts but legislative necessity made him bite his tongue and allow them two years more.
AND
(2) “How about instead attacking the message, ...” citing history’s many counter examples is a valid attack method. As Santa Anna said: Those you cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.”

Just so you know I am not “picking on you,” when I think your are wrong, I note your:
“It is not the responsibilty of everyone else to protect those on the lower end of the economic scale, it is those who are there. Others can provide help for them, but it is unethical to be forced to provide for others on the economic scale. “
is a quite permitted expression of your POV. I don’t agree with it, but that is just my POV.

BTW, I don’t like your reposting twice Joe’s text as that cost extra storage space, makes reading less clear, etc. Rather than repeat it in bold for your replies (which requires [ b] & [ /b], please insert replies into quoted sections of his post by copy of his [ID] & [/quote].

Your post 274 has: ” Go cry to billy t, he'll support you and your fucking bullshit debating tactics.”
This is totally uncalled for (and false). Being a mod is not a paid position and you are a pain in the ass for me.
I have had long disagreement posts with Joe and in general try to be both impartial and only interfere when very necessary.
You owe me and apology for this and many prior slurs.

Your post 278 is long so I only skimmed it and it seemed OK, except again the reference implying my biases etc.

 

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1) No system works perfectly.

2) We don't have a purely capitalistic system. We have elements of socialism, communism, and capitalism. We see pieces of a planned economy, a traditional economy, barter, gift economies etc.

That's sorta what we have. Police? Socialist. Air traffic control? Socialist. National parks? Communist. Consumer spending? Partly driven by a gift economy.

 

False. It replenishes at compound interest rates, and it inflates with inflation.

The concept of "property tax" should not be that difficult. Many people pay property taxes all their lives and still own the entire property at the end of it.

Some of it. Not the trillions made by not having to pay for the means of making it.

If I make money by running a bulldozer, and then don't pay for the bulldozer, some of that money was earned, sure.

Look at CEO salaries: are CEOs really doing ten or fifteen times as much work as they were in 1980?

Look at the list if wealthy people - did the children of Sam Walton (or their spouses etc) earn that money? How?

We'd be better off that way too.

 

If the products or resources procured from asteroid extraction were to return to Earth orbit, it could be a matter of barging or tether-pulling the load from the Asteroids to Earth orbit, in a low gravitational journey, which is the shipping cost of containment, and fuel to get the load to speed, and fuel to brake at destination. By Earth orbit I mean, at a location in the path of it's solar orbit, where the shipment could park, and wait for the Earth to return to that location, in it's yearly traverse. GRAVITY DOES THE REST.

 

I'm amazed.

 

I always figured it astroid mining were to happen it would involve an AI controlled automated mining ship going out to astroids, converting them into purified materials and then constructing cargo carrying solar sails from the material, which would then sail back to earth in regular intervals, fold up and aerocapture into earth orbit or even simply just crash land.

 

Yes, the details...Perhaps the raw materials will end up in Earth orbit, at a space-process plant, to be used in construction of space cities, that never need to go down to the Earth's surface. Supplies would be traveling in both directions (From Earth orbit bases to Asteroid bases), that reuse of vehicles would be in order. Robotic/Automated systems would most likely be prevalent, but humans will want to be onsite and in great numbers...that's just the way it is.

 

To land, rather than crash,on the asteroid you must match its speed. That takes a lot of fuel. Likewise to get the cargo back to earth you must match earth's orbital speed with fuel carried first to the astroid and then back to near Earth.

Getting the required speed changes via a solar sail might be conceptually possible if willing to wait more than 10,000 years for the trip out (assuming you know precisely where the asteroid will be that far in advance and its exact speed) and another 10,000+ years to change the speed back to Earth's orbital speed for return and landing (or even a "no burn up in atmosphere" crash) on earth.

Never mind the expense of doing the mining on the asteroid, just consider the weight of this fuel and mining eqiptment making three huge speed changes.* - That cost alone makes it so expensive that there is nothing worth the cost.

If you dis agree, I again ask you to tell me what you would mine there and bring back to earth. It would not pay off even if the asteroid surface were covered with diamonds, just sitting there for the picking up. The asteroid ain't in the earth's orbit like the moon is. It has a vastly different speed you must match to avoid crashing on it, and then get back into Earth orbit with earth orbit speed. - Much more fuel needed than round trip to moon which has earth's speed.

* Compared to going to the moon, which has almost identical speed about the sun as it travel about the sun with Earth, the asteroid speed will change much more than that relative just while you are on it mining and may be several times faster than the moon as it journies about the sun relative to the speed of he moon when you need to change ship's speed from Earth's speed to land on it.

SUMMARY Don't get hung up on the gravity well potential difference only. The required speed changes alone will kill the economics, even if there were no gravity hills to climb and get back from without excess falling speed gains.

 

The asteroids are loaded with resources (including more fresh water than is found on Earth):

[1]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

Hayabusa probe (Ion engines) succeeded in returning samples to Earth orbit[2]
[2]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa

For latest, see Dawn asteroid mission: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

Desalination is cheaper than interplanetary spaceships. And we sure as heck won't run out of salt water.

 

To Kieth1 Thanks for your second link of post 290 (Part of that link I quote here below in this post):

I did not know that for not stated cost (10s of millions of dollars at least) ~1500 rock like grains ("most of them were judged to be of extraterrestrial origin, and definitely from the asteroid Itokawa") were returned to Earth.

"According to Japanese scientists, the composition of Hayabusa's samples was more similar to primitive meteorites than known rocks from Earth. Their size is mostly less than 10 micrometers."

That is impressive

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- For probably more than 10 million dollars the weight of less than a flea's legs was returned in a tiny re-entry capsule that did not burn up with re-entry!

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Based on this, I would expect we can get the cost down to only a billion dollars per gram returned.

 

Fred (Grub)meyer came West, in his first effort, with a wagon of pots and pans...the rest is capitalist history.
I believe I've completed your questions.

 

There is another story of doubters that remained behind, and became "pillars of salt". Drink up.

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Not really. So, I'll ask my question again for the third time:
What is you you can bring back that is worth the cost of doing so?
I.e. worth something on the order of a 100,000,000 dollars per deci -gram. (a billion dollars a gram)

I tried to get you to consider the speed changes (wrt to earth) required. Fred's speed wrt to just the earth's surface was at best a few km/ hour. The earth's orbital speed is 107,000 km/h and energy requirement go as the square of speed. How fast the asteroids is going wrt to earth is on the same order of magnitude as Earth's orbit speed I.e. rocket must change from earth's speed to the asteroid's speed, land and then make that same order of magnitude speed change again to get back and land on earth.

No amount of capitalistic progress will change these astronomical facts so what Fred did with his wagon and capitalism is of no use to thinking about this problem.

 

No, I think you have that wrong too. Lot's wife looked BACK, not to the future to see what is and what is not possible.

You are looking back to Fred and his wagon, not forward trying to understand what is and what is not possible.

 

It's your obsession to bring riches back to Earth. My intention was to point out the best mining opportunity was not on Earth, or on the Moon, but in the Asteroids. No, you can't use yourself as an example of future excellence. Some things must be built in space before they can be brought to Earth's surface. The Earth is a destination to work towards, as well as a nest to escape.
Perhaps you have more "nest" around you, than a work atmosphere. Hmm?

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No, I am certainly not obsessed with bringing riches back to Earth from asteroids because it is not economical to do so and never will be.
I was only replying to your post:

Because few who suggest this have even the slightest idea how lacking in economic feasibility (for fundamental reasons) it is; I spoke of returning mass from the moon as people do have some feeling for the cost of that. - The “to huge for humans to really comprehend” costly program Kennedy proposed did bring a few pound of moon rocks back, which were just picked up with no mining or refining expenses.

Very few understand that the doing the same (even with un-manned robots) returning mass just to only a near Earth orbit (never landing it back on Earth) from an asteroid would be dozens, if not 100s of times more costly per pound returned. This is not due to the need to climb up out of Earth's gravity well but due to the speed changes required, which few, including you, understand is the main (and FUNDAMENTAL) problem.

Landing on the moon and returning to near Earth orbit is very easy compared to doing the same with an asteroid, because both moon and Earth are orbiting the sun with the same speed (~107,000 km/h) and at essentially the same point in the sun’s “gravitational well.” (less than 0.1% difference in potential energy when extreme and exactly the same every14 days) All those gigantic Apollo rockets had to do was give the space ships a little less speed wrt to Earth than Earth’s escape speed (40,200 km/h) to go to the moon. This speed is also all you need to crash into an “earth orbit crossing” asteroid if you time the encounter to be when the asteroid is at1AU from the sun (same distance as the earth is) BUT if you want to land on the asteroid that is an entirely different and much more expensive story as you must have fuel, lifted from earth, (with 100s of times more than that fuel’s weight burnt during launch to give the fuel taken to the asteroid a speed wrt Earth of 40,200 km/h) adequate to change the velocity (speed and direction) of the rocket to be the same as that of the asteroid.

Assuming you do land on the asteroid as it passes thru the same point in the sun’s gravity well as Earth is in and spend only a week setting up, exploring for the richest ore to reduce refining costs and delays and then mining (a very optimistic assumption as doing that on Earth always takes more than a year) then when you launch for the return trip to Earth, you are at very different place in the sun’s gravity potential well, and will need fuel to get back to even just cross Earth’s orbit (even with the speed of the asteroid. i.e. changing only the potential energy) Compared to this fuel requirement, we can neglect the tiny amount of fuel needed to pull away from the weak gravity field of the asteroid; however, note this “return to the 1AU point” fuel also had to be lifted off earth during the original launch from Earth.

After pulling away from the asteroid with your “pay load mass” you again need to make a huge expenditure of more fuel to change your velocity (speed back to ~107,000 km/h around the sun) and make the direction of it to be along the Earth’s orbital path in the Earth’s orbital plain. All this fuel also was in the original rocket you launched from Earth and greatly increasing the size and cost of the launch rocket.

It is this fuel, lifted off from Earth, for these necessary (regardless of any advances of “capitalism” like your Fred example had) velocity changes that makes the asteroid mission rocket returning a few pounds of matter to only near Earth orbit dozens, if not 100s, of times larger and more costly than Apollo’s rockets were. That is what dreamers of “mining asteroids” usually fail to understand. (If they concern themselves with any of the physics, it is usually only with the relatively unimportant energy and fuel requirement to climb away from earth’s gravity.)

Those velocity change requirements are why there is nothing on or in an asteroid worth* returning to even only a near earth orbit. (Near Earth orbit objects also are travelling around the sun at 107,000 km/h and in the exact same direction as Earth is.) Returning mass to Earth’s surface instead of just leaving it in near Earth orbit is only a relatively minor increase original launch rocket’s fuel lift off mass requirement compared to these “velocity change” fuel requirements, especially if one dips in and out of the atmosphere to lose speed wrt Earth's surface where the landing site is.

None of these “asteroid velocity change” requirements were needed to make a round trip to the moon. That is why it is dozens, if not 100s of times cheaper to return mass from the moon.

* I.e. Nothing which is not much more cheaply available on Earth.
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The part of your post I made bold is totally uncalled for and without any foundation in fact. I should not be blamed for understanding this problem better than you do. I have been fortunate to get a good education, especially in classical physics, but do NOT think myself any better than others who did not. There are many valuable things others can do that I cannot. For example, paint wonderful pictures, write good poetry, heal the sick, compose beautiful music, etc. whereas I cannot do any of this, not even play the piano, crudely.

 

No, you were responding to an earlier post of mine than that:

You simply got hung up in the past and forgot the future.

You cannot plan for the future without calculating in the certain result of technical progress available in that future. Your analogy used past and current technology to poo-poo that which you are not privy to.

My thoughts left wiggle room for such advancement, without committing to details. For all we know the future will answer many problematic questions that vex us today.

Seeing a treasure trove of life sustaining resources in the asteroids, which at a future date, with advancing space-based technology, may rival Earth as the main center of human civilization, is not an unreasonable assumption, given factors one cannot predict otherwise.

The Earth's moon has a minimal gravity well, and will no doubt be addressed (in the future) for it's resources. The surface dust there is thick and gritty, making equipment maintenance difficult. There is minimum water sources. It will not be cheap to extract any materials from that environ.