Monday, May 12, 2014

5% commitment

I have an appointment with a trust attorney tomorrow afternoon. Since it will only cost me 5% of my monthly income I guess I can't claim to be 100% committed, can I?

It will be pretty interesting to see his reaction to me declaring I'd like to finance a mars colony. I suppose I'll have to come to that point rather gradually?

I asked his secretary to google Zubrin and land patents. If he reads that article before we meet I can start by explaining why that will not work. Then I will explain why Mars One is a suicide mission. How the space settlement initiative has it's heart in the right place but will never get anywhere. Why Elon's $500k ticket will fail. Why the Outer Space Treaty is a good thing for private commercial ventures. Why the moon treaty reveals how international lawyers would like to rid us of private property.

Then I can talk about terms, conditions and administration of a trust holding billions of dollars in assets.

I may even throw in Jefferson and Madison and John Locke.

Hey, I can fit that into an hour... doncha think?

So where are your comments that I really should be committed?

5 comments:

C J said...

Best of luck tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to your posts on the maters listed.

As you know, I have my qualms about Mars One. Two, really; I don't see enough upmass in their proposal to found viable colony. And outpost, yes, but not a colony. My largest objection, though, is the lack of an ascent/return capability, which amongst other things would deprive them of their largest early cash flow potential; tourism. It also would remove the "one way suicide mission" issue that's hurting them in the press.

I do see their motives; if we assume that building a return capacity is going to cost a billion, that's a billion that can be cut (and they probably can't afford it anyway).

But what if there's a way to get an ascent/return capability for under 25 million, which includes both hardware and R&D, and most importantly, does not add any mass requirements to Mars surface. Worth doing? I think it would be, because even one space tourist pays for it, and then some.

Think it's impossible to do this with the Mars One concept equipment list? So did I, until I figured out how to do it thanks to one of your posts. It's the one about making fuel from sea water. That actually provided the key.

I'll have a detailed post, math and all, up in a day or so, outlining exactly how to do it.

ken_anthony said...

I look forward to it. I've been going over and over in my mind how I will present things today. I printed out Rand's homesteading pdf to provide the lawyer with some background.

Anything we conceive has to take into account transportation costs and still leave profits.

ken_anthony said...

Rescheduled for tomorrow.

ken_anthony said...

Don't have time to post about...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/eric-cantors-tea-party-opponent-in-va-primary-may-be-picking-up-momentum/2014/05/13/1a2d92d0-d9d7-11e3-b745-87d39690c5c0_story.html

But the fact that our republican 'leaders' are so willing to bash tea party members is very revealing to me.

C J said...

Yes, it seems to me that many in the GOP "establishment" think the tea party, not the democrats, is the enemy.

As I've said before, the Republican party is in a position where it must take drastic measures in order to snatch defeat from the looming jaws of victory this November, and it looks to me like they're fighting hard to do just that.