Re: [OT] Bureau of Relocation

>From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
>Reply-To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>To: <gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
>Subject: Re: [OT] Bureau of Relocation
>Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 19:20:31 -0400
>
> >Economics will drive it to cheapness as much as technology.	If
>it were
> >merely a matter of technology, every town in the world with
>enough open
> >space would have an international airport.
>
>Technical details will drive the economics.

Actually, it's a two way street.  Economics drives technology,
technology 
fuels the economy.

> >Eventually, nothing.  But we're talking about the colonization
>period of
> >space travel - wwe're not talking about going between two
>established
> >places, we're talking about going to somewhere remote and as
>yet
> >uninhabited.  Travel of that sort is much more expensive,
>relative to
> >technology level, than travel between two markets.
>
>True but irrelevant.  The question is not "is it more expensive"
>but "is it acceptably priced."

Irrelevant only if you haven't beenpaying attention to my arguement the 
whole time, but only focusing on the statement about the expense of
space 
travel.  My point was, in initial stages, the cost of being a colonist
will 
be, for individuals and many groups, prohibitively expensive, unless
they 
have the backing of financial supporters who are, in turn going to need
some 
inducement to give that backing.

>I just sent two engineers to
>California for a six hour visit to the client's office, cost
>about $5000 in air fare and so forth.	It would have been a heck
>of a lot cheaper to send send us the contract and source data by
>fax/e-mail, but the client was willing to pay to see our
>engineers in person, and they found the price acceptable.  I
>wouldn't pay $40K for each trip if I expected to commute, but if
>it's a one time, one way trip, then yeah, I can manage that.
>
>

Last time I checked, California was inhabited (my address happens to be 
there, that's evidence enough for me).	A commercial business trip is 
nowhere near being the same thing as a colonization effort.  Did you
have to 
send men ahead of your engineers to build an airport for them to land
at?

As for your $40K trip, WHY would you go on it? And HOW did it come to
cost 
only $40K, instead of $100M?  As I have stated, commercial space travel
and 
immigration are ruled by a different set of dynamics.

Brian Bilderback
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