-Original Message-From:
Gail Roberta [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]Date: Wednesday,
April 18, 2001 5:05 PMSubject: World Space Week
I joined the National Space Society (NSS) a few weeks ago, and I just got
their latest newsletter. One item particulary interested me, and may interest
more of the rest of us on this site. It is that NSS is co-sponsoring World
Space Week in Oct. The plan is to have as many local groups as possible
develop and conduct some kind of event in their own community highlighting the
continuing efforts to explore space.
I know this is a specific discussion site, but I wonder if we could make a
contribution to this effort and perhaps gain some recognition for the work this
group is doing on getting to Europa and exploring it. I would be willing (BIG
RISK!) to at least help with the coordination of whatever our group decides to
do, so let me know (a) if you think it's worthwhile, and (b) what you think we
could do.
I am already researching one idea. The area where I live is one of the
largest gold mining areas in the US. We all know that gold is used in many
electronic applications on many different space vehicles, plus the use on space
suit faceplates. But how many know just how that gold gets from the refinery to
the application? Where do the contractors get their gold? Could be in
interesting topic. Also, we have been discussing what the water under the
Europan ice might contain. Might one of the elements be gold? Some of you can
probably answer this one off the top of your head (Bruce?), but I don't
know.
Anyhow, I have contacted NSS about my idea and have been assured that I
will hear from the person coordinating World Space Week very soon. I have also
put out a couple feelers to the local gold mines (two of the largest in the US),
so I may have something interesting to report in a few days.
Watch the skies!
Gail Leatherwood
___
Well, I have no reason to believe that there's any more gold on the ocean
floor of Europa than anywhere else -- the place in the Solar System where we
really may find worthwhile supplies of various metals is the Asteroid
Belt. But I still think it will be a LOT more expensive to mine asteroids
for such metals than it's worth -- we're nowhere remotely near exhausting
Earth's supply of them. The one worthwhile resource that I think might be
available in space in the reasonably near future is energy -- that is, if either
solar power satellites or fusion reactors fueled by lunar helium-3 ever become
practical. And where Europa is concerned, I repeat: its most useful
resource would probably be biologically alien Europan life itself, if it
exists.
As for the National Space Society: I remain cpnvinced that they're much too
thoughtlessly enthusiastic about immediate and major manned exploration and
exploitation of space. There will obviously be a good many uses for humans
on-site in space, but not nearly as many as O'Neill's spiritual children seem to
think. (There's a good short letter in this week's Aviation Week, by the
way, about the proper priorities for NASA: shut down the Station, encourage the
development of lower-cost launch vehicles -- although, to a great extent,
that should be done by private companies, with some technological assistance
from NASA -- and build a far cheaper man-tended but not permanently manned
vibration-free station to run all the worthwhile microgravity
experiments on the Station, rather like the Industrial Space facility that NASA
cancelled.)
One more sour comment: I don't think we need to watch the
skies. To quote Arthur C. Clarke: when the Little Green Men finally
do show up, we'll know it. They won't spend fifty years flying around
looking for a parking place. And since we haven't found so much as a
fossilized piece of alien Saran Wrap so far, one is forced to the conclusion
that alien visitors to Earth are either incredibly rare or awfully tidy.
Bruce Moomaw
