Jeff Greason ISDC 2011 Keynote Address - A Settlement Strategy for NASA (42 min.)

Previous

Note:

There was a previous post of this video, but I can't seem to locate it.  I'm putting it up again because it is a good model for what is needed.  Greason lays it out: set a goal, decide on strategy and tactics, and then execute the plan.  Our current situation is that we have a goal, but we can't decide upon strategy because we don't know if we can do it.  Basically, what Greason is saying is that we need to think about it and then make the decision and stick with it.  That while keeping in mind that we can do this, and we must do this.

Greason mentions declining budgets.  This is an unavoidable fact, but not an insurmountable one.  The reason to go to 3554 Amun is to find funds for this very goal of settlement.  If some object to NASA trying to make a profit, and that is somehow impure and ignoble, then arrange matters so that they don't look that way.  But the money has to be raised somehow, and this is a way for the space program to earn its keep while keeping to its objectives

He mentions paradigms.  The Boots and Flogs paradigm.  The Base Paradigm.  These don't work.  I suggest the Hoover Dam paradigm.  Or the Interstate Highway System paradigm.  Make every project self-liquidating.  The proceeds that resulted from the construction of the Hoover Dam more than paid for its construction.  Gasoline taxes pay for highway construction.  In terms of space colonization, you could even use tricks like this.  Whatever it takes, we need to do that for achieving our objectives in space. 

Greason mentions "existence proof" in order to show that it can be done.  Let's have some existence proofs.  I'm doing one with this series.  If it can be done on Earth, why not in space?  If you can build dams that people use on Earth, why not some facility in space?  If you can build an interstate highway system, why not some facility in space that many people will use?  The caveat is that enough people will want to use it so that it becomes a popular facility.  It would be a failure to build something out there and nobody shows up.

You have to get people to want to go out there.  I suggest building facilities for a mine on an asteroid that is rich in platinum, like 3554 Amun.  Build facilities there that will encourage private organizations or individuals to want to use them.  Their use could be taxed and those taxes will pay off the costs of construction of those facilities.  Besides, everybody likes money, wouldn't you say?  Make some people want to get rich by mining that asteroid.  This will draw them out there.  If they go out there, maybe they'll stay and then we will have settlement.






Next