Guest: Erasmo Acosta; Topics: Space settlement, space resources, O'Neill 1G orbiting space settlement, lunar and Mars settlement, the Fermi Paradox, are we alone and much more.
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We welcomed for the first time Erasmo Acosta to The Space Show. Erasmo is a retired software engineer who has turned his focus to space settlement and resource usage, advocating a rotating 1G very large orbital space settlement on the order of an O'Neill cylinder. Please note that at the request of the guest, I have posted multiple links to papers written by our guest plus additional papers by other authors strongly recommended by our guests. I suggest you download and read these papers as they will be useful in understanding the positions and advocacy expressed by Erasmo. Furthermore, once again I am repeating the key words and tags as they do a good job of summarizing our discussion. I will highlight some of the additional points made by our guest in this program review.
Tags/Kew Words: Erasmo Acosta, colonizing space, space resources, ISRU, space settlements, O/Neill space settlements, the O'Neill cylinder, advance technology, software engineer to space, Fermi Paradox, 1G is essential, O'Neill free space settlement economic independence, capitalism, human behavior, rotating space stations, the Erasmo timeline, Erasmo's financing plan for the O/Neill cylinder, inner solar system unlimited resources, the role of the planet Mercury, asteroid mining, the influence of science fiction on space settlement, artificial gravity, searching for life in the solar system, faster than light travel, Fermi Paradox paper by Dr. Hart, lunar settlement bias, SpaceX Starship
Early in the discussion once our guest put forth the basics of his position regarding an O'Neill orbiting 1G huge settlement as compared to having a settlement on the Moon or Mars. When we were well into our discussion, I asked him how the program he was advocating would be financed. At first he was reluctant to talk financing as he wanted to leave politics out of the discussion. While I certainly agree with leaving politics out of these discussions, understanding how the guests suggests his plan could be financed is key to understanding all of his proposed plan and ideas. In response to my financing question, Erasmo talked financing possibilities for the government and the private sector. At one point he suggested a billionaire might get interested in doing this and pave the way by financing the project or a big part of it. Our guest then talked about venture investors operating without the profit motive might be interested. In addition, he said that while he did not see government doing it there might end up being some sort of hybrid public private partnership for such a project. How do you think such a project could be financed? Let us know by posting your thoughts on our blog.
Our guest did not shy away from controversy which resulted in multiple listener phone calls and emails. Many were spirited discussions as well as discussions on various elements and facts regarding artificial gravity, settlement, ISRU, mining the asteroids, the Moon, Mars and mining in free space. Also, the planet Mercury!
But later we turned our attention to The Fermi Paradox and the issue of our being alone. Erasmo had much to say on this top and has written two papers on the subject, both of which are available to you on our blog as I have the URLs for each of them posted. Additionally, Erasmo referenced a 1974 paper on The Fermi Paradox by Michael Hart and that paper is also linked on the blog. Please let us know your thoughts on what our guest had to say about being alone in the solar system and how he sees The Fermi Paradox. Please post your response on the blog for this show.
Another topic I found interesting was what our guest had to say about the impact of science fiction on the space settlement effort. He said science fiction usually gets it wrong, talked about sleeper ships and referenced the science being done by Dr. David Sinclair (a fairly recent Space Show guest). Regarding space resources, Dr. Doug, one of the callers, talked about a lunar bias for settlement because of its ready resources. Don't miss the Dr. Doug-Erasmo discussion which came near the end of the program.
In summary, this was a most interesting discussion and Erasmo had much to say regarding his work and ideas. He is interested in returning to focus more on The Fermi Paradox and the search for ET. Make sure you hear his closing comments for this program.
Please post your comments/questions for our guest on our blog. You can reach Erasmo Acosta through me.
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