From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of ralph buttigieg

> Mike it doesn't matter if the mass is a billion tons,
> a million tons, or even 100,000 tons. Its still way
> beyound anything we have tried to construct in Space.

True, but an important point is that we don't start out with space
habitats and then use them to set up the infrastructure for space
construction. We set up the infrastructure for space construction, use
it profitably to construct SPS and whatever other orbital assets are
desired, and only much later build space habitats. Zubrin's error is in
insisting that High Frontier involves the former, when O'Neill, at any
point beyond 1975 or so, would have readily agreed that the latter is
what will happen. What we need to get started is a very modest mining
camp on the moon, a mass catcher, and orbital ore refineries and
manufacturing facilities. Now granted, the latter two will doubtless
mass a good deal more than the ISS. But they won't be nearly as big as
the terrestrial facilities we tend to think of. O'Neill put a good deal
of thought into very small systems which were capable of
self-replication, given a steady supply of raw material.

> The great advantage of the Zubrin style Mars colonies
> is that you start small and grow them from local resources.

But it would be the same with orbital facilities. The only difference
is that in this case the "local resources" are as distant as the moon or
perhaps a chunk of a NEO which has been towed into HEO. The only
argument the Mars advocates can make is that ore transportation costs
from the lunar surface to HEO are so tremendous as to vastly outweigh
the additional expenses and difficulties of operating at the far more
distant location of Mars (not to mention the many disadvantages of
planetary locations which O'Neill explained to us). I don't buy into
that argument, myself. I think it simply fails to accept the enormous
costs savings which might be achievable with horizontal EM launch of
dumb payload raw material off an airless surface.

> Forget about energy from Space too. At least in the near
> future. There are so many ways to liberate energy from matter,
> that I just can't see how Solar Power Satellites or the even
> more fanciful lunar He3 can compete. I mean hell, they can
> turn smoke fumes into fuel!

There are experts who would disagree. It is possible SPS never happened
because there are too many alternate ways of getting energy here on
Earth. But I think it's equally possible that SPS never happened
because there was a sudden resumption in the flow of inexpensive oil
from the Middle East, and so the impetus for finding alternatives died.
But in the present era, our concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and
about the economic strengthening of radical Islamic regimes who wish us
ill might provide reasons for coming back to the SPS concept.

> Set your goal towards something smaller and
> more acheviable. Such as a commercial Space Station. I know
> Bigalow is working on one.

We can both agree that a small commercial space station would be a good
first step.

Regards,

Mike Combs

> True, but an important point is that we don't start out with space
> habitats and then use them to set up the infrastructure for space
> construction. We set up the infrastructure for space construction,
> use it profitably to construct SPS and whatever other orbital assets
> are desired, and only much later build space habitats.

Who knows what will happen. The price tags are in the low-ten-
billions range, right? The ultra-rich have fortunes in the same
range: if one of them wants to get their name in the history books,
they might set up the colony. Military budgets for one year or one
war are higher by an order of magnitude: if a country decided it
wanted a decisive presence in space, they might. In either case, the
non-economic motivations for a human presence outweigh any economic
advantages of infrastructure first.

To make it work, you need to start out with multiple products and services.
Just SPS, then just this, and then, later on we'll work the habitats.

It would be more attractive if you have a bigger, more promising package
combining a variety of potentially profitable products and services and
offering to multiple markets - governmental, military, industrial, retail,
etc, etc.

-- Private transportation in space. Your own spacecraft.
-- SPS
-- Tourism - orbit the moon
-- Tourist facilities (space hotels)

We have to start thinking big and get everyone in on it - mainstream, and
special interests.

By the way, there's no need to borrow a dime for this.

The customer covers the tab. Period.

But don't EVER count on one product. That seldom works.

George
http://www.cygo.com/

On 1/30/06, Dan Wylie-Sears wrote:

You don't need to put things off for later. You need a workforce. You pay
the workforce.

Rather, as I pointed out, the customers pays it.

George
http://www.cygo.com/

On 1/30/06, cygonaut wrote:

Asteroid mining alone isn't going to work -- obviously.

George
http://www.cygo.com/

On 1/30/06, cygonaut wrote:

> Asteroid mining alone isn't going to work -- obviously.

I don't think that's obvious. Drop a load of metal or basalt-fiber,
or a structure too large for standard railway cars, anywhere in the
world with the same shipping cost (downhill all the way). Provide
platinum for all the catalytic converters and fuel cells on earth.
Sell propellant and components to governments for interplanetary
research missions. Sounds like paying work to me, with a well-
diversified line of end products.

> > -- Private transportation in space. Your own spacecraft.
> > -- SPS
> > -- Tourism - orbit the moon
> > -- Tourist facilities (space hotels)

If your private spacecraft has no other destinations, that makes it
tourism. So you're down to tourism and SPS.

> > By the way, there's no need to borrow a dime for this.
> > The customer covers the tab. Period.

Businesses borrow. The customer doesn't pay until they get their
goods, they don't get the goods until the goods are made, and the
goods don't get made until the capital is in place. Or if the
customer does pay before the business is up and running, then you're
borrowing from the customer.