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> If economic growth is defined simply in terms of tons of refined resources pulled out of the ground, then yes, of course economic growth has a limit. Triviall
by vimy 5y ago
> If economic growth is defined simply in terms of tons of refined resources pulled out of the ground, then yes, of course economic growth has a limit. Trivially so.
Once we master mining in space we will have limitless resources. I think this decade we’ll see the first attempts.
- gameswithgo 5y agoThere is no known engineering path to get there, where you come back with more resources than you spent. Not even if SpaceX Starship works as well as we hope.
- njarboe 5y agoMaybe not with Starship, but with the invention of fusion powered rockets you will be able to. Once fusion powered rockets seem possible and huge profits are able to be foretasted, lots of capital and people will be thrown at fusion tech. This is already starting to happen.
- mcculley 5y agoWhy would the resources need to come back here? Once humanity is able to get out onto large space stations, the economy will be there as well.
- scottiebarnes 5y agoWe're still limited by the constraints of our capabilities.
- ben_w 5y agoSpace isn’t limitless, it’s just very big. While it currently looks like the human population will plateau, there is no guarantee of this; if it returns to exponential growth, and if we are limited to the speed of light, then we get exponential demand increasing with polynomial supply. How much this matters to you depends on if you prefer Total Human Product or Product Per Capita. But if you care about GDP (i.e. of a nation not of humanity as a whole or average per person), the maximum size of any plausible zone of control for any government is likely to be in the order of a solar system or less, based on the historical precedents of communication lag between empire capitals and outer colonies — exponential growth makes this happen faster than you might otherwise expect.
- andai 5y agoMostly void, partially stars...
- tremon 5y agoLimitless resources in theory, but in practice the limits will be set by logistics and therefore planning. It is of little comfort knowing there's a wheat shipment 5 light-minutes out when there's a famine right now.
- Arrath 5y agoNear limitless chances to really badly screw up, too. If all it takes is one rock hopper to miss the orbital refineries and foundries with a nice hunk of nickel and iron, with an inhabited planet as the backstop..
- stonemetal12 5y agoThere are still limits, they are crazy high limits, but still limits. Add enough Mass to the planet and you break the rocket equation (by break I mean fuel required to achieve orbit is grater than the mass of the planet), or we get crushed by the added gravity.