• HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    It’s really not. Solid state devices don’t care one whit about gravity or any lack thereof. And do you have ANY idea how many small things we have today to make our lives better that are all offshoots of the original space race? Velcro. Memory foam. Just to name two of them.

    I swear, some people just refuse to see the forest because of all the trees in the way.

    There are multiple trillions of dollars worth of materials in the asteroid belt.

    Also, solar works best when there’s no atmosphere between the emitter and the collector. Not to mention there are orbital vectors available that would keep the collectors in full sunlight permanently.

    No massive battery farm needed. No need to go dig up all that material and continue destroying the environment here by doing so.

    Why are there so many luddites using technology like the Internet these days???

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      The extremes of space and the engineering of components goes far beyond just gravity. While there is no doubt that new technology would be developed this is not the government doing it. You really think they are going to give this technology away for free like the US government did? Highly unlikely.

      It is not about refusing to see the forest because harvesting asteroids, then returning them to our planet for use on the ground is bonkers level aspirations. It would make more sense to keep them in space for manufacturing, but we are very far away from any sort of space building platform that could process raw materials into a finished product.

      Energy from the sun is indeed abundant in space, but the costs of sending materials up will remain prohibitive until we no longer need rockets. That type of technology is still very far away although some proposals like a launch rail cannon, space elevator, or ablative laser propulsion could eventually solve this issue.

      You also are missing just how fast technology is moving. Current AI centers expect to swap out hardware every three years or so. Who will be up in space swapping out the hardware of possibly millions of satellites. This is another added cost because realistically they will just have to keep launching.

      You last comment completely misunderstands who the luddites where and what they wanted. They were against technology taking away livelihood not the technology itself. Your comment completely ignores this reality and paints luddites as something entirely different.