That's the point - you essentially "import" so much water than you can, for example, waste it on ridiculous quantites of meat produced in not exactly optimal manner.
And sure, it's not the only reason why those factories are there; quite small one actually. But a little here, a little there...
But you can't just consume the whole amount of fresh water in given place..."it needs to flow", mostly normally, to remain in usable state.
If it's so cheap and vialble (hey, if so nice in what's essentially energy convertion, why we care about semiconductor solar cells or, heck, even wind turbines?) - then where and why is it hiding our of sight?
And I see you also think mass production beyond certain limits also doesn't require fantasy technology... (at least while not destroying the place further in the process)
It's waste of time, for any fault shown you bring something new from the fringes and refuse to get brought down to Earth.
For any shortage your answer is - more nukes! (or any other pet project of the month, it seems, looking at one other post in this discussion - thought there's some progress, at least its not insanely more rampant industrialisation this time) More, MORE, MOAR!!! Anybody sensible can see a problem with that approach.
If you're wasteful, first and foremost you limit the waste. In the process you might discover that resources saved and some new (but not from fantasy land) tech approach can just give you sustainability.
You're not quoting anything near the whole amount of water that US consumes. All the mass consumer goods you import mean, essentially, huge imports of water.
And there must be some externalities, otherwise...why those genius inventors are not implementing it and getting rich?!
It's like people who say for few decades "we can put an automated factory on the Moon in a decade, it will be self sufficient and..." - well then why they haven't done so on Earth?!
"Height" doesn't translate as directly as you would think...
Saturn V had 119 tons to LEO and 45 tons to the Moon. The heaviest Japanese rocket right now, without further modifications, has 19t to LEO and...8t to GTO (so even less to GEO, quite possibly a rather noticeably smaller proportion of total payload than what you can get with "simple" escape trajectory)
Plus - you're in no real hurry when you do a robotic mission to the Moon; lower energy transfer paths become available.
...it's not like we import water from 3rd world countries to plant our gardens...
But of course you do. Not for gardens, sure (though...what you import means you can use more "for gardens") - but TFA is specifically about industrial activities which, essentially, import that water to your place in the form of products. There are plenty more examples than just Intel.
Something as simple as 1kg of beef consumes thousands liters of water until it gets to shelf in your grocery store.
How much of it was used and continues being used for building and maintanance of infrastructure? Plus lakes associated with dams have some of their own, however small, problems with maintaining water quality.
By overextending "industrial" agriculture and industry in general (building and powering huge network of desalination plants would be a part of that!), you contaminate ever more sources of water of adequate quality that would be otherwise easily available.
You can have "connections" only if you (or your family, etc.) are worth anything for people in position to keep connections with you. Simply by membership in the Party you can, at best, be a lowly clerk.
And in the process you're nearly the most wasteful place on Earth, claiming almost 3 times more resources per capita than the most "lean" places with comparable standard of living.
"A whole lot of water" locally, the amoutn being quite miniscule in larger picture. Unless you built more of them...and more...but from where will come the resources for that?
Oh yeah, desalination, it's like the world can't wait to see even more heavy industrial processes consuming lots of power.
What the humanity is now doing is essentially a slow, not readily apparent scorched earth strategy. Once the balance gets tipped sufficiently you'll see average life expectancy plummeting.
maybe those numbers include agricultural production - some of its kinds are incredibly wasteful (needing also clea water at various stages)
A kilogram of meat (which is generally overconsumed easily by humans, falling into old evolutionary adaptation of "if there's unspoiled meat around, frakking eat it!", from the times it was scarce) needs something like...thousands of liters in the whole process, from farming to packaging.
Or maybe there some longer cycle of...cycles;) With the Sun now manifesting a shift of this ubercycle, which will give "short" cycle of different lenght.
If I'm clueless, so is Nokia for thinking they themselves manufacture all their phones (well, they are aware of Chinese made copies...maybe there are some "from" Samsung too)
What they currently have can put close to 20 ton payload into LEO; that should be comfortably sufficient for robotic "base", in few shots.
(and it's in the league of SpaceX anyway; especially if Japan modifies (only) their heaviest launcher even more - it is already a modification of one which could put half the above payload into LEO)
Launch vehicle for robots isn't particularly unique compared to...those used for everything else (in fact, "everything else" was always robots in case of JAXA, those we call "satellites" or "probes")
Even from TFS, it's clear that at least large part of them will be "vehicles", just with arms added. Probably attached to a "torso" of vaguedly human proportions, with cameras of top.
No, it isn't pointless, not for teleoperation - and Moon is just close enough to at least consider it with skilled human operators.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the point - you essentially "import" so much water than you can, for example, waste it on ridiculous quantites of meat produced in not exactly optimal manner.
And sure, it's not the only reason why those factories are there; quite small one actually. But a little here, a little there...
But you can't just consume the whole amount of fresh water in given place..."it needs to flow", mostly normally, to remain in usable state.
If it's so cheap and vialble (hey, if so nice in what's essentially energy convertion, why we care about semiconductor solar cells or, heck, even wind turbines?) - then where and why is it hiding our of sight?
And I see you also think mass production beyond certain limits also doesn't require fantasy technology... (at least while not destroying the place further in the process)
It's waste of time, for any fault shown you bring something new from the fringes and refuse to get brought down to Earth.
For any shortage your answer is - more nukes! (or any other pet project of the month, it seems, looking at one other post in this discussion - thought there's some progress, at least its not insanely more rampant industrialisation this time) More, MORE, MOAR!!!
Anybody sensible can see a problem with that approach.
If you're wasteful, first and foremost you limit the waste. In the process you might discover that resources saved and some new (but not from fantasy land) tech approach can just give you sustainability.
You're not quoting anything near the whole amount of water that US consumes. All the mass consumer goods you import mean, essentially, huge imports of water.
And there must be some externalities, otherwise...why those genius inventors are not implementing it and getting rich?!
It's like people who say for few decades "we can put an automated factory on the Moon in a decade, it will be self sufficient and..." - well then why they haven't done so on Earth?!
"Height" doesn't translate as directly as you would think...
Saturn V had 119 tons to LEO and 45 tons to the Moon. The heaviest Japanese rocket right now, without further modifications, has 19t to LEO and...8t to GTO (so even less to GEO, quite possibly a rather noticeably smaller proportion of total payload than what you can get with "simple" escape trajectory)
Plus - you're in no real hurry when you do a robotic mission to the Moon; lower energy transfer paths become available.
...it's not like we import water from 3rd world countries to plant our gardens...
But of course you do. Not for gardens, sure (though...what you import means you can use more "for gardens") - but TFA is specifically about industrial activities which, essentially, import that water to your place in the form of products. There are plenty more examples than just Intel.
Something as simple as 1kg of beef consumes thousands liters of water until it gets to shelf in your grocery store.
How much of it was used and continues being used for building and maintanance of infrastructure?
Plus lakes associated with dams have some of their own, however small, problems with maintaining water quality.
By overextending "industrial" agriculture and industry in general (building and powering huge network of desalination plants would be a part of that!), you contaminate ever more sources of water of adequate quality that would be otherwise easily available.
There are also many countries in the EU among the "almost 3 times leaner, plenty nice standard" group.
It wasn't a debate. You simply preach your pet vision of the saviour of humanity that will usher is into paradise on Earth.
Well, forgive me for being a little more pragmatic...
You can have "connections" only if you (or your family, etc.) are worth anything for people in position to keep connections with you. Simply by membership in the Party you can, at best, be a lowly clerk.
And in the process you're nearly the most wasteful place on Earth, claiming almost 3 times more resources per capita than the most "lean" places with comparable standard of living.
"A whole lot of water" locally, the amoutn being quite miniscule in larger picture. Unless you built more of them...and more...but from where will come the resources for that?
Oh yeah, desalination, it's like the world can't wait to see even more heavy industrial processes consuming lots of power.
What the humanity is now doing is essentially a slow, not readily apparent scorched earth strategy. Once the balance gets tipped sufficiently you'll see average life expectancy plummeting.
You know what determines your worth in China? Capital.
maybe those numbers include agricultural production - some of its kinds are incredibly wasteful (needing also clea water at various stages)
A kilogram of meat (which is generally overconsumed easily by humans, falling into old evolutionary adaptation of "if there's unspoiled meat around, frakking eat it!", from the times it was scarce) needs something like...thousands of liters in the whole process, from farming to packaging.
It's cycles all the way...up?
Or maybe there some longer cycle of...cycles ;) With the Sun now manifesting a shift of this ubercycle, which will give "short" cycle of different lenght.
Yeah, if only I was talking about H-IIA.
You managed to miss H-IIB...
If I'm clueless, so is Nokia for thinking they themselves manufacture all their phones (well, they are aware of Chinese made copies...maybe there are some "from" Samsung too)
What they currently have can put close to 20 ton payload into LEO; that should be comfortably sufficient for robotic "base", in few shots.
(and it's in the league of SpaceX anyway; especially if Japan modifies (only) their heaviest launcher even more - it is already a modification of one which could put half the above payload into LEO)
Launch vehicle for robots isn't particularly unique compared to...those used for everything else (in fact, "everything else" was always robots in case of JAXA, those we call "satellites" or "probes")
It's news to somebody how big of a money sink Shuttle is?... O_o
Even from TFS, it's clear that at least large part of them will be "vehicles", just with arms added. Probably attached to a "torso" of vaguedly human proportions, with cameras of top.
No, it isn't pointless, not for teleoperation - and Moon is just close enough to at least consider it with skilled human operators.
They one of the big suppliers of parts, sure; but that doesn't make them the largest handset maker.