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Re: Empty-world / full-world
gbaikie — (archived)

<<snip>
"And that's only fuel. There's a kind of myopia about resources in general by which most conversations on the subject reduce to sources of energy, but it takes many other kinds of raw material to run a planet."

True, perhaps most important is fertizer- which we currently get from crude oil.
<snip>

'Even in Robinson's alternative Earth, where fusion power and nanotech are givens, classical economic growth is limited by finite resources and expanding population. As Fort says (p. 65), "We can't make soil out of electricity." '

Well, I should point out that Lunar regolith has been proven to be an excellent soil for growing plants. And I know of no current definitive reason why Mars shouldn't have good soil. (And don't forget about all those space rocks and the other planets).

'Tom says:
One of the main reasons I've been pushing space exploitation all my life is precisely to get beyond terrestrial resource limits.
Fox says:
Since you know the physics and the math, Tom, I'll just remind you of the biggest problem with that approach with three letters: ROI.'

Nope, it's not ROI. It's mainly due to govt interference, govt not doing things which would open up this space frontier, and NASA not doing enough space exploration intended to open up the space frontier. NASA has to date spent less than 100 million in order to explore the moon to determine if there are minable deposits of water (and that effort required space volunteers dragging NASA kicking and screaming).

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