I feel like I'm about to open a can of worms, but why not. This is a
continuation of my response to Joseph L. Brown in the SMF
Construction Process thread. I've been working on the logistical
issues for quite a while, and thought that I might as well wrap it
up. It might do me some good to sequence everything. Be warned this
is a long post :)

Here's how I would like to see things develop in the space
industrialization process.

1.) Launch a LEO worker housing station. We're situated near the
space hotels which preceded us and lowered launch costs sufficiently
to make industrialization possible. Besides, all of our construction
activity is a tourist draw. All I'm really going to say about
economics in this post is that a number of utilities have committed
to significant SPS purchase/lease contracts, investors have
committed capital on the basis of the utility contracts, and we've
been able to raise significant funds in the bond markets based on
our new equity and committed cash flow. There, nice and vague. As
for the hotels they've actually invested in our endeavor because
right now they have to supply their hotels completely from earth and
they like the future they see of orbital supply for their hotels.

2.) Build a pressurized assembly bay attached to the LEO station.

3.) Assemble a number of orbital transfer vehicles.

4.) Assemble vehicles for landing on the lunar surface. These are
made of copper, barium, vanadium, molybdenum, cobalt, nickel,
chromium, Zirconium, Niobium, etc (metals not found on moon). These
landing vehicles stay on the moon and in the future are broken down
for their metals. Surely, the craziest spacecraft ever fabricated.

5.) Launch to the moon the following microwave powered robots:
. . . a.) excavator/grader
. . . b.) cast basalt paver
. . . c.) brickmaker
. . . d.) beneficiation machine
. . . e.) handyman robot with grapplers, lifters, hands
. . . f.) metal extruder to make rebar
. . . and fuel cell powered heater and radiator
. . . and communications equipment for tele-operation.

6.) Assemble space-vehicle with mining equipment for NEO expedition.

7.) Launch mining equipemnt on Hohmann orbit to NEO.

8.) Using the LEO station as a base, assemble a LEO rotating tether.
Initial mass of 170.5 tons and it can launch cargo of 5,500 lbs.

9.) At the same time as LEO tether is being constructed, build a Mid-
Earth orbit tether with an initial mass of 757 tons. Without this
station, the LEO tether will only be able to launch to the moon
twice per year. This MEO station can redirect the payload to the
moon throughout the year.

10.) Concurrent to the LEO tether and the MEO tether, build a
Lunavator in LEO orbit. This will have an intial mass of 46 tons.

11.) Assemble a fast transfer vehicle for transporting personnel to
the NEO.

12.) Launch crew to NEO to set up previously sent equipment to
commence refining of Ammonia and Methane ices.

13.) Crew completes tasks at NEO, which the geologists have
classfied as an extinct comet core, and they leave the automated
mining equipment in place, send the mining vehicle back on a hohmann
orbit with LO2/LH2 propulsion and then departs on fast orbit to LEO
station with LO2/LH2 mined from NEO.

14.) Complete the 3 tether stations and commence moving them into
their respective orbits.
. a.) The LEO orbit is at 484 km with a period of 94.2857 minutes.
. b.) The MEO orbit is at 18,732 km with a period of 660 minutes.
. c.) The Lunavator with its center of gravity in an orbit of 246.2
km above the lunar surface and has a period of 132 minutes.

These three orbits will allow a coordination of launches and
captures so that a window opens every 11 hours. During every 11
hour period the lunavator will complete 5 orbits. The MEO tether
will complete 1 orbit. The LEO tether will complete 7 orbits.

15.) Commence launching of "construction shack" worker housing
sections.

16.) Meanwhile on the moon . . .
. . . Communication equipment automatically deployed so tele-
operation can commence for the robots.
. . . Blankets of solar cells are rolled out.
. . . Handyman builds microwave tower to beam power to roving robots.
. . . Excavator robot starts leveling terrain
. . . Paver starts paving roads to aid travel and reduce effects of
moon dust.
. . . Brickmaker makes bricks for shelter for the robots during the
lunar night.
. . . Excavator covers shelter with regolith.
. . . Handyman moves fuel cell heater into shelter.
. . . Beneficiator seperates regolith into heaps of ilmenite,
olivine, pyroxene, and plagioglase minerals.
. . . Beneficiator seperates minerals into heaps of CaO, SiO2, FeO,
Al2O3, MgO, TiO2, Cr2O3, MnO, Na2O, etc.
. . . Metal refinery produces steel rebar and oxygen via
carbothermal process rather than often quoted hydrogen reduction
process.
. . . Brickmaker makes bricks from smelted slag.
. . . The paver - excavator - brickmaker make a sheltered landing
pad for future arrival of moon miners, and to offer protection to
escape vehicle(s) from thermal shock.

17.) After a number of sections of the construction shack have been
assembled the workers from the LEO housing station move over to the
shack. More workers move into the newly opened shack. It is still
not rotating and in zero-g

18.) The LEO housing station is attached to a Lunar Landing chassis
and via an Orbital Transfer Vehicle is sent to the moon. This will
now be a lunar shelter.

19.) Moon miners are sent to inhabit the lunar shelter.

19.) The 3 tether systems are now in their respective orbits.

20.) Equipment is sent to the moon via the tethers. This includes
more solar blankets, more refinery robots, and fabrication units to
shape steel into pressure vessels to contain the Liquid O2 and other
trace gases. We are being very careful not to discharge the gases we
extract from the lunar regolith because we don't want to pollute the
lunar vacuum!

21.) All those bricks made of slag and basalt are now used to match
the mass of the cargo that was landed on the moon. These bricks are
sent back to the three tethers in order to balance the mass sent to
the moon. Further, by increasing the shipments from the moon, and
increasing the ballast in each of the tethers, the payload capacity
increases. After 67 days, 146 launches, the lunar base has received
479 tons of cargo, and now the payload capacity of the tether system
has increased to 8,415 lbs. After 115 days and 250 launches, the
mass first launched to build the three tethers has now been sent to
the moon without the use of any propellant, and the lunar base has
received 990 tons of material and now the payload capacity of the
tether system has increased to 11,714 lbs. After 177 days and 385
launches, the lunar base has received 1,894 tons of material and now
the payload capacity of the tether system has increased to 17,923
lbs. After 362 days and 790 launches, the lunar base has received
9,396 tons of material and now the payload capacity of the tether
system has increased to 64,193 lbs.

22.) The moon miners are now using some newly delivered robots to
build forms for the construction of permanent facilities. The
accumulated rebar is now shaped and assembled and placed into the
forms. Also sent via the tethers are precious sintered tungsten
bricks. Imagine launching this dense metal (19,250 kg/m3) into orbit
(probably one of the strangest launches into space) and then
dedicating a number of tether launches to it. These bricks (with a
melting temperature of 3,422 C) will be the liners for a solar
furnace that will replace the small refining robots.

23.) The methane and ammonia from the NEO is now sent down to the
lunar surface. There it is combined with lunar oxygen to make water,
CO2 to add to the capacity of steel making via the carbothermal
process and the nitrogen is stored for future use.

24.) The stockpiled CaO, SiO2 and Al2O3 are mixed into a cement
along with iron fibers which inhibit cracking, the newly constituted
water is added and then aggragate is mixed in to form a concrete
which is poured into the forms. The base starts to grow. An example
of a concrete base would be one which is 210 ft in diameter and
about 50 ft high, would use about 250 tons of steel, 12,200 tons of
concrete, 1,500 tons of cement, 490 tons of water, of which 55 tons
of hydrogen would have to be imported via the methane and ammonia.
This example gives a workable ratio from which base sizes can be
increased or decreased.

25.) LO2 is sent via tethers from the moon back down to the LEO
station. Also empty pressure vessels are sent to LEO.

26.) The empty pressure vessels are attached to the NEO ship and
sent via hohmann orbit to the NEO. This time there is no mining
machinary sent along so the quantity of pressure vessels sent for
Liquid Methane and Liquid Ammonia is increased dramatically.

27.) Meanwhile, back in the LEO neighborhood, construction is
progressing on the construction shack. That first shipment of NEO
ices has been powering all of the orbital transfer vehicles when
used with lunar oxygen. By this stage we've been bleeding a lot of
money but now we begin to earn some revenue. All of that Liquid
Ammonia, Liquid Methane and Liquid Oxygen are very valuable. As hard
as we try we can't sell any LO2/LH2 to any space user other than the
ISS. Not yet anyway. We're the biggest user because we like the high
specific impulse they impart, but all the existing spacecraft up
there with us aren't designed for those fuels. So we launch some
refining equipment into orbit so that we can refine some fuel and
start refueling satellites. We need to make some Nitrogen Tetroxide
(N2O4), Hydrazine (N2H4) and for the ISS and some Russian satellites
we make Unisymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) ((CH3)2NNH2)

Nitrogen Tetroxide and Hydrazine
2NH3 + 2O2 --> N2O4 + 3H2
2NH3 --> N2H4 + H2
4H2 + 2O2 --> 4H2O

Unisymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine
2CH4 + 2NH3 --> (CH3)2NNH2 + 3H2
3H2 + 1.5O2 --> 3H2O

We store our surplus water as frozen ice in a big plastic bag shaded
by a sun screen and then break it apart when we need LO2/LH2.

28.) Meanwhile, back on the moon more equipment has arrived. The
first part of the base has been completed, sealed, and sheltered.
The residual nitrogen from the ammonia has been released into the
base to act as a fire retardant and to incrase atmospheric pressure.
The moon miners move from their temporary quarters into the concrete
base. The limiting factor to the growth of the base has been no
steady supply of electrical power. But the tethers have been
delivering new refining and manufacturing equipment. Now the base is
making mirrors and tracking systems. These mirrors are mounted to
track the sun and to concentrate the solar energy on a solar tower
and the steel making/oxygen making process is moved from a DC
electrical process to a solar thermal process. This results in the
existing solar cell electricity being able to supply more power to
the electrolysis process which powers the new base during the lunar
night.

During the lunar day, the moon miners work very long hours to refine
the materials, make steel rebar, pressure vessels, steel mirrors,
support structures, etc.

During the night, their schedule relaxes a bit and they concentrate
their efforts on construction activities inside the new base.

29.) The first mirrors we make for the solar furnace our made of
steel and polished with our excess Al2O3 stockpile which is a good
abrasive. Once we have enough crude mirrors in place to concentrate
the solar energy into our new tungsten brick furnace we've opened a
whole new world of manufacturing on the moon.

Now we rip apart those landers that brought the first robots. We
dump the parts into the furnace and turn up the heat to 3,400 C and
melt and/or vaporize almost everything. We actually vaporize a
number of the metals and as we crank up the temperature we extract
melted Yttrium at 1,526 C and finally, melted Zirconium at 2,128 C.

We take the Yttrium and melt it with our lunar SiO2 to make glass
that is extremely shock resistant and has a very low expansion
ratio. Perfect for the lunar day/night temperature change. We take
the vanadium and use it to alloy our steels. The chromium and nickel
can be used to make stainless steel. Cobalt is used to make other
types of hardened steels.

30.) The lunar steel mill has expanded and can now fabricate pipes
and girders. All of the surrounding area has now been paved with
cast basalt tiles and lunar dust is restricted to the areas near the
refinery. By now the refinery robot is pretty much kaput because of
degradation of the electrodes but that's OK because it's served its
purpose.

Meanwhile, we've received some very small electrolytic cells for our
refining operation. After we dump lunar anorthosite into our solar
furnace we extract the melted quench and process it. We use some
sulfuric acid we received from the tether, run it through our newly
made stainless steel pipes, and later use the carbon from our
carbothermal steel process and carbon extracted from the NEO
methane. We electrolysize it and get aluminum. Now we vaporize the
aluminum to make the reflecting surface for our Yttrium glass
mirrors. This increases our furnace efficiency and we continue to
process some more aluminum for our base wiring.

31.) At LEO, a new mining ship is being assembled, and its equipment
will be for mining of metals rather than ices. This is a much more
technologically ambitious venture than the ice mining mission. Newly
arrived from the moon is a shipment of aluminum bars that will be
taken aboard. The ship is launched on a hohmann orbit.

32.) Time for a crew change. The new crew comes in three parts. The
first ones arrive and land in the new sub-selene landing bay to
protect the landing craft. The 2nd part of the new crew arrives in
lunar orbit, and act as a safety vehicle for the 3rd part of the
crew who are the first to test the tether system as a means of
transporting personnel. Their crew vehicle has limited propulsive
capacity, but everything works fine, and they are placed on the
lunar surface by the lunavator. The existing crew takes off for LEO
and their lander will be serviced there. The 2nd crew lands in the
other sub-selence landing bay. The two landers have the capacity to
remove all personnel in an emergency.

Some of the new crew members are agricultural specialists and
they're going to start work on making soil from the dead lunar
regolith. A group of construction personnel start work on expanding
the lunar base to include an agricultural area and will incorporate
glass light tunnels so bring sunlight into the growing areas. The
other half of the construction crew will start on digging a trench
in which the mass driver will be situated. They lay the concrete
footings, retaining walls, start building the payload processing
area and other facilities. The refining crew commence work on the
steel girders, pipes, pressure vessels, specialized tubing, etc.
They continue to make small amounts of aluminum, and make more
mirrors. They also have a few specialists for this tour of duty who
will use the copper, barium and Yttrium stocks from the landers to
make YBCO wire (YBa2Cu3O7) - which, when cooled to liquid nitrogen
temperatures (-196 C) (lunar night - 113 C) YBCO becomes a
superconductor that carries a large amount of current in a magnetic
field with no loss of energy. This wire will be essential for the
operation of the mass driver.

Now we use the very robust lunavator to lift into lunar orbit the
unused lunar housing shelter. An orbital transfer vehicle is sent
over from LEO to move the shelter to L1. The OTV comes back to lunar
orbit, picks up some LO2 to use with the LH2 that is supplied from
the LEO stockpile. Once refueled it takes regolith to the L1 station
and begins the shielding operation.

Once the shielding is in place, some workers are brought over from
the construction shack assembly jobsite and will be based out of the
L1 shelter.

Now all of that accumulated steel girders and pipes are taken to the
lunavator and are lifted into lunar orbit. There the OTV takes them
to L1 where construction begins on a SPS that will power the lunar
base. Just like the first mirrors the lunar base built were crude,
so too will be this SPS. It'll be made primarily of steel because
the base's aluminum smelting capacity is limited.

Meanwhile, down at the lunar base, the titanium oxide residue from
the ilmenite is being fed into the solar furnace to produce even
more oxygen and the titanium is made into refractory bricks for
additional solar furnaces (which won't be able to take as much heat
as the smaller tungsten brick furnace.) These new furnaces will
increase the production of aluminum but the base is still limited in
this matter because of the heavy electrical demand of the
electrolytic cells.

The agricultural specialists are combining our excess oxygen with
the nitrogen processed from the NEO Ammonia, to form nitrates, and
taking the trace elements of KREEP that were in the regolith we've
processed so far and are extracting the Phosphorus and Potassium, as
well as some calcium, magnesium, sulfur and adding just a trace of
iron. Then they add the bacteria they've brought from earth and they
make the first soil that the moon has ever had.

Some of the first vehicles are now transported to the moon via the
tethers. These are essentially cargo transport and crew transport
vehicles.

33.) Meanwhile, down in the LEO neighborhood, the first crew ship
that went to the Ice NEO is now on the Kessel run, oops, the LEO-L1
supply run, and a new and improved ship has been assembled in orbit.
This will take the crew to the newly targeted NEO where they despin
the asteroid and will set up the mining equipment. The ship boasts a
solar electric ion drive.

34.) Much of the work on the construction shack living quarters is
finished. Now work begins on cracking the stored water and stored
ammonia to free up oxygen and nitrogen, respectively. These two
gases will form the bulk of the station atmosphere. The residual
hydrogen from this opertation will be used as the fuel in the solar
thermal crew ship that now departs to rendevous with the previously
sent mining equipment.

35.) In LEO work commences on the Space Manufacturing Facility, its
refineries and fabrication units. Meanwhile, inside the station,
specialists are bringing the systems up to operational status,
agriculturalists are making soil with newly arrived lunar chemicals.

36.) A glass making factory to be incorporated into the SMF is
diverted, via a OTV, to the L1 station, where it is supplied with
silicon from the lunar surface, also delivered by a OTV. This
material is made into glass and the small quantity of lunar aluminum
that the base has refined is sent up to L1 to be vaporized onto the
glass. The glass is formed into parabolic troughs and aluminum
piping is laid though the focal point and directed towards a series
of sterling engines, which will soon be installed. The antenna
components are launched from LEO to the lunavator, where they are
released into lunar orbit to be picked up by an OTV to be taken to
L1 to be assembled and incorporated into the SPS.

37.) Meanwhile, the supporting foundations and steel lattice are
already in place for the lunar rectenna farm, and now the rectenna
components are arriving via the tethers. The components are
assembled and the rectenna is ready to receive microwave
transmissions from the L1 SPS.

38.) Way, way out at the NEO, the crew has arrived and a number of
different activities are under way. One group is despinning the
asteroid. Another group is vaporizing the aluminum bars into a
spinning solar disk taking shape as a parabola. They are forming a
very small (600 ft diameter) solar thermal SPS that will provide
about 50MW of power to the mining operation when it commences.

39.) The sterling engines arrive at the L1 SPS and are attached. At
the same time, some of the excess LO2, which we're accumulating a
lot of, is being combined with H2 to form Hydrogen Peroxide (h2O2),
and this is shipped to the L1 SPS and is used with Hydrazine (ISp
285) to restore the orbit of the SPS and the L1 worker housing
station. The rockets are simpler of design, the fuel/oxidizer is
hypergolic resulting in ignition on contact, neither is cryogenic,
though the Hydrogen Peroxide deteriorates 1% a year.

The transmitter antenna is oversized for the the commencement of
operations because the SPS will have capacity added to it over time.
This results in weak microwave signals being sent to the rectenna,
but that's OK. At least the lunar base has broken the tyranny of the
lunar night.

With power now coming into the base during the night, productivity
doubles. At L1 work commences on a 2nd SPS, that will also be of
initial minimal capacity and this SPS, when completed will be
transported to join the station and the SMF in their 2:1 resonant
orbit between the moon and the earth.

40.) More shipments of liquid methane and liquid ammonia have
arrived at LEO, and the empty prssure vessels are sent back to the
NEO.

41.) The mass driver semiconductors, switches, capacitors and other
electronic components are arriving at the lunar base. So too are the
Liquid Nitrogen refrigeration units. All the concrete foundations
are in place, the steel lattice work is complete, so too with the
YBCO wiring. The inner and outer coils are wound, the mass driver is
sheltered and shielded, the radiators are functioning, the liquid
nitrogen piping is installed, and the loading station has been
built. Now the electronics are being installed and the control
mechanisms are being brought into the base.

Meanwhile, the lunar crew hop into their vehicles and start erecting
powerline transmission towers (very short ones, though) downrange of
the mass driver. They are stringing aluminum wires to supply 2
downrange radar and course correction stations. There a particle
beam will be fired in a controlled manner against the payload to
correct its course. The first station is only a few miles downrange
and the second is 100 miles downrange. The accountants determined
that it would be cheaper to string aluminum wires and erect the
towers than it would be to ship the microwave electronics and erect
the repeater towers for 100 miles, so that's what the lunar crew
did. This was the furthest that they had been from the base. The
crew rescue vehicle was launch ready for the entire time the crew
was out in the field.

At the lunar base, the flat-rolling machine that was making the
pressure vessels has been diverted to the task of making thick steel
plates. These plates are lifted via the lunavator into lunar orbit
and are welded together by robots and by a crew sent from LEO via a
OTV. The orbit of this nascent mass catcher needs to be corrected
every few days because a lunar orbit is unstable. The mass catcher
is in the shape of a cone with a radius of 50 ft and a depth of 300
ft. It's capacity is over 785,714 ft^3 and it has a surface area of
55,650 ft^2. It is made of 1" thick steel plate and has a mass of
1,138 tons. At 85% capacity, the mass catcher will be a storehouse
for 57,101 tons of lunar regolith.

But a part of the steel production is geared to thin steel sheets.
The lunar base sends these sheets up the lunavator where it is met
by an OTV. These sheets are assembled into an enclosing radiation
shield container that will be larger than then station so as to be
able to surround the station.

42.) All of the components of the SMF have been integrated. The LEO
crews commence work on attaching rocket engines to the station and
to cracking the frozen water sitting in all of those bags in the
shade. The remainder of the crew goes back to earth for shore leave.
Every available tank is filled with LO2/LH2. These tanks are
attached to the station and then the engines are fired and the task
of moving the station from LEO to its final orbit begins.

43.) At the metal NEO, the geologists have confirmed its
classification as "E" class and it they've identified a number of
different minerals that the SMF will be able to process. And Eureka!
they've found the platinum that every asteroid lover has predicted
they would. They're going to mine it and send it back to the SMF,
where it'll be encased in a titanium heat shield and crash landed
into the Russian tundra where it'll be "mined." Of course, the crew
will commence setting up the mining and elementary beneficiation
operations before they embark on their journey back to station.

44.) The lunar crew once again expand the base to allow for a
mechanical bay. The hoists and other vehicle maintenance equipment
arrives and is installed. Then comes the major excavating and
hauling equipment. Also, sent up is a fiberglass bag making plant.
Into the bags will go the regolith payload that the mass driver wil
launch.

45.) Things have been busy in lunar orbit and L1. The mass catcher
is finished and the OTV sets up to haul it to L2. At L1, the 2nd SPS
is completed. It too has the standard size transmitter array but it
looks completely different from the L1 SPS. The radiator, while a
permanent fixture, is only temporarily attached, so to with the
transmitter antenna. The power production is much lower than for the
L1 SPS. This SPS will power the SMF. It is of sufficient size to
power the basic industrial processes at the SMF and the resulting
products of the SMF will be used to expand the power capacity of the
SPS.

46.) The mass catcher arrives at L2. The first material is fired
from the mass driver and the system is tested out. Both down range
control stations are tweaked and then things fall into line and
lunar material starts hammering into the mass catcher.

The accumulated slag from the lunar refining operations is the first
material to be launched with the mass driver. It takes many weeks
for this material to be fired up to the mass catcher.

The radiation shield in completed in lunar orbit and transported to
the station orbit.

47.) The station arrives at its orbit and its orbit is finalized. A
small crew arrives on a OTV and they are the watchtenders and live
in a small, heavily shielded section of the station. The shielded
sections have been brought to the station by an OTV from lunar
resources.

The crew fires the engines to start the station rotating. Once the
targeted rotation is reached, the engines are stopped. The crew
detaches the rocket engines and tanks and brings them back to LEO.

48.) The radiation shield arrives at the station and is situated to
protect the station.

49.) The mass catcher arrives at the station and the crew starts to
remove the slag and fill the radiation shield with it.

50.) The lunar crew is receiving excavators, dump trucks, stationary
excavating equipment to commence mining a larger volume of regolith.

51.) At LEO, the rocket engines and tanks are attached to the SMF
and its journey to join the station commences.

52.) The SMF SPS is moved to the station orbit.

53.) The mass catcher is emptied and the radiation shield is filled.
The station is now safe. The call goes out and the workers are
launched into orbit and then transfer to OTVs for the journey to the
station.

54.) The SPS arrives at the station orbit, so too does the SMF. The
crew starts to run their system checks and integrate the SPS into
the operation.

55.) The mass catcher is at L2 and getting filled with the
accumulated beneficiated minerals accumulated over the years of
lunar build-up.

56.) The mass catcher arrives at station and the SMF gets its first
taste of lunar minerals.

In time steel, aluminum, glass, etc. starts rolling out.

The first task is to build more pressure vessels to start containing
all of the gases.

The next task is to expand onto the back of the SPS. This will be
the "Space Warehouse" where material not needed immediately will be
accumulated. Where slag that is formed into gigantic concrete blocks
will be deposited, where the atmospheric gases for the future
habitat will be stored.

Next, work commences on another mass catcher so that one can always
be on station.

That is followed by expanding upon the capacity of the station SPS
and its radiator.

Finally, with the station's infrastructure in a solid state, work
commences on earth's first SPS.

Simultaneously, work commences on expanding the industrial capacity
of the SMF.

57.) At L1, work restarts on the SPS and lunar steel is sent up the
lunavator. This is done to add electrical capacity for more mass
drivers and for larger payloads.

58.) Work commences on a second mass driver and to adding to the
base size, but the refining and manufacturing capacity will not be
added to now that the SMF is functioning.

59.) After a few years, the SPS concept is proving very popular on
earth and the backlog of orders is growing.

The decision is made that work should begin on the Habitat so that
even more resources can eventually be directed to constructing SPSs
and establishing new industrial processes and besides, the workers
living in the cramped quarters of the station want to bring their
families into space with them and earth is having less and less hold
on these workers.

60.) And what really clinches the deal, is that the platinum has
been delivered, excavated and is hitting the market. Yowsa, all that
cash is pouring in. We've got to spend it on something - - - might
as well build a Habitat that'll be considered one of the wonders of
the world, except it won't be part of the world, it'll be its own
world.

That's it. You'll have noticed that I didn't really address the
economics. That's a whole other thread. Besides that wasn't the
point I wanted to look into - this was an investigation into the
logistics of the endeavor.

Now I put it to you. How is your vision different and why? Can you
suggest steps that can be cut? Can you suggest different strategies?
That's what I'm curious about. If you've actually read this far into
this post, my congratulations to you - you shown perserverence.
That's a good thing for us sapce settlers to have :)

On Wednesday, October 2, 2002, at 01:17 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> Here's how I would like to see things develop in the space
> industrialization process.
>
> 1.) Launch a LEO worker housing station. We're situated near the
> space hotels which preceded us and lowered launch costs sufficiently
> to make industrialization possible.

There's another possible step before going to SPS and large scale
colonies: low-g retirement homes. Basically, some old folks (I'm 50 and
getting there fast myself) have lots of money and have trouble with
gravity (walkers, wheel chairs, falls that break hips). Unlike the
tourist hotels, you probably want some acceleration (but not much) and
require first class medical facilities. However, at the right price the
market is huge.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr. Tito
going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

--- In spacesettlers, Al Globus wrote:

On Wednesday, October 2, 2002, at 01:17 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> Here's how I would like to see things develop in the space
> industrialization process.

I like this. I would, though, like to suggest a quick way to
whittle this down to 59 steps.

> 1.) Launch a LEO worker housing station. We're situated near the
> space hotels which preceded us and lowered launch costs
> sufficiently to make industrialization possible.

If the space hotels are there, and we are near them, then why can't
the workers live there? Lots cheaper than building a dedicated
housing unit. They could stay at-cost: the hotels charge just
enough to neither make nor lose money.

Xenophile (who hopes we start soon, as he isn't getting any younger)