For a long time we have tied the development of Space Habitats to
Solar Power Satelites (SPS) under the assumption that at some point
in the future that earth surface energy cost will justify the cost
of developing SPS and therefore Space Habitats. I don't belive that
this will be true for the next hundred years. Several recent articles
have pointed out that there are alternative that are much easier
to get financing for than a SPS will ever be. Wind power seems poised
to become a major player. is an
interesting report that I found online after reading a "Science News"
article "Power Harvests". This web site also contains an interesting
set of maps showing current projects
and the amount of wind power available per state.
Pebble Bed nuclear reactors look like a low cost, relatively safe
approach for generating electricity below 2 cents / Kwh. I have
seen several articles on this technology. The one in front of me
is from the August issue of Popular Science.

What this means to me is that there are non SPS approaches to electric
generation that will delay the need for SPS for many many years.
I believe that we need to decouple Space Habitats from SPSs and
market the goal of Space Colonization independent of any possible
financial reason for a habitat's existence.

Mitchell James
mejames@...
http://www.InnerTransit.net (Email distribution for multilevel organizations)
http://www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)

We should drop colonization and keep SPS.

We need to find new, economically justifiable reasons for being in space in
the first place. SPS is one such idea. Other ideas are orbital antenna
farms, space tourism, efficiency gains via usage of extraterrestial
resources (e.g., orbital transfer vehicles propelled by something that has
not been lifted from Earth), etc.

Colonization will follow later, after the space economy has grown. Right
now the entire value of the space economy is between $50 and $100 billion
per year. Perhaps when that reaches $1 trillion per year we can start
thinking about colonization. But I don't think that there will be major
ongoing investments in colonization, neither from governmental nor private
sectors, until it is shown that tremendous amounts of money can be made in
space. Or, to put it another way, the only "colonies" that I can foresee
being created in the near future would be those narrowly focused on some
money-making venture (e.g., a mining 'colony' company town, or quarters for
the SPS construction facility crew, or quarters for the space hotel staff).

We should drop the phrases "Island One" and "Island Three" from our
vocabulary. They're too far out into the future to be believable. SPS
is much more believable: it is a narrowly-focused, nearer-term venture
with economic potential.

The Zubrinites can't promise near-term $, whereas we can. That should be
our selling point. The Mars folks have a seemingly much more romantic
place to go (Mars) than we do (orbiting colonies), or at least that's how I
think the public perceives it. We won't win the romance game. But
practicality can be our selling point.

Ron Menich

Mitchell James
ssi_list@...
07/26/01 05:29
PM
Please respond
to ssi_list

For a long time we have tied the development of Space Habitats to
Solar Power Satelites (SPS) under the assumption that at some point
in the future that earth surface energy cost will justify the cost
of developing SPS and therefore Space Habitats. I don't belive that
this will be true for the next hundred years. Several recent articles
have pointed out that there are alternative that are much easier
to get financing for than a SPS will ever be. Wind power seems poised
to become a major player. is an
interesting report that I found online after reading a "Science News"
article "Power Harvests". This web site also contains an interesting
set of maps showing current projects
and the amount of wind power available per state.
Pebble Bed nuclear reactors look like a low cost, relatively safe
approach for generating electricity below 2 cents / Kwh. I have
seen several articles on this technology. The one in front of me
is from the August issue of Popular Science.

What this means to me is that there are non SPS approaches to electric
generation that will delay the need for SPS for many many years.
I believe that we need to decouple Space Habitats from SPSs and
market the goal of Space Colonization independent of any possible
financial reason for a habitat's existence.

Mitchell James
mejames@...
http://www.InnerTransit.net (Email distribution for multilevel
organizations)
http://www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)

[snikt]
> What this means to me is that there are non SPS approaches to electric
> generation that will delay the need for SPS for many many years.
> I believe that we need to decouple Space Habitats from SPSs and
> market the goal of Space Colonization independent of any possible
> financial reason for a habitat's existence.
>

I think that the SPS idea is already kind of decoupled from space
colonization for many people. For instance, Al Globus from the Space
Settlers list thinks (and I agree with him) that the most immediate venue
for space occupation (if not colonization properly said) is space tourism.
In a later phase, one can think of asteroid mining - Lewis says that
precious ores that are not-so-rare in asteroids could be sold on Earth in a
profitable way.

The problem with embracing a space colonization goal without any economic
benefit, for pure idealistic reasons, is that idealism does not make money,
and that is what people will ultimately need to go to space. It is a kind of
egg-and-chicken problem.

Even though, I do not discard a space colonization wave triggered by pure
idealism. We must remember that many wildfires of religion - Islamism,
Christianity, etc - and ideologies - Communism, Nazism, etc - played a major
role in Human history for better or worse, and in many cases they were
ultimately idealistic movements with few or no connections to economical
benefits. Sometimes, a simple idea can have more impact than all the money
in the world.

That may explain, for example, why people are *so* hyped about colonizing
Mars and Zubrin has legions of followers with Congress lobby and stuff. It
is the typical case of an idea with romanticism and grandeur, that makes
basically *any* kind of people - even ignorant people who barely understand
the Solar System configuration - dream with a new world, a new land, and
keep dreaming; and this idea is spread by a very charismatic leader, who can
convince almost anyone to follow him. On the other hand, O'Neil ideas are
basically dead among the great public, because the idea of living in
spinning cans seems alien and unacceptable to most people, and can only been
preferred through the use of reason - and people do not use reason often...

> Mitchell James
> mejames@...
> http://www.InnerTransit.net (Email distribution for multilevel
organizations)
> http://www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)
[snikt]

Lucio Coelho

>
> For a long time we have tied the development of Space Habitats to
> Solar Power Satelites (SPS) under the assumption that at some point
> in the future that earth surface energy cost will justify the cost
> of developing SPS and therefore Space Habitats. I don't belive that
> this will be true for the next hundred years. Several recent articles

I do not believe that statement is accurate, so the rest of the argument
is questionable.

SPS will always be more expensive than terrestrial energy, at least in
terms of short term retail cost.
Where SPS scores is the lowest long term clean up cost of any system.

If we believe that global warming is a problem, and that nuclear cleanup
cost is prohibitive, then we are left with renewables.

Terrestrial renewables do not have the capacity to supply more than 10%
of Earth's needs.

That leaves SPS.

> have pointed out that there are alternative that are much easier
> to get financing for than a SPS will ever be. Wind power seems poised
> to become a major player. is an

No, not a major player, only a few per cent of the world's energy needs
can be supplied by wind power. It is limited to some isolated
geographical areas. Terrestrial renewables have capacity limitations.
Except for solar terrestrial, which has a lot of hidden costs (
especially storage and transmission),
and whose total cost is abnout the same as large scale SPS.

> interesting report that I found online after reading a "Science News"
> article "Power Harvests". This web site also contains an interesting
> set of maps showing current projects
> and the amount of wind power available per state.

How does the available wind power compare to the power consumed by each
respective state ?
A few per cent.

> Pebble Bed nuclear reactors look like a low cost, relatively safe
> approach for generating electricity below 2 cents / Kwh. I have
> seen several articles on this technology. The one in front of me
> is from the August issue of Popular Science.
>

What is the end of life cleanup and disposal cost ? What is the fuel ?
Uranium is a limited resource. Fast-bred Plutonium has proliferation
problems.

> What this means to me is that there are non SPS approaches to electric
> generation that will delay the need for SPS for many many years.

For the next couple of centuries the energy production of the world will
continue to be based primarily on fossil fuiels for about 90% of its
requirements.

If global warming is not a problem, then that is the way it will
continue,
SPS will never compete with cheap fossil fuels.

However, if global warming is recognized as a serious problem, then
alternatives to fossils fuels all have serious problems, to the extent
that SPS becomes competitive.

> I believe that we need to decouple Space Habitats from SPSs and
> market the goal of Space Colonization independent of any possible
> financial reason for a habitat's existence.
>

I am not convinced, I have seen nothing new in your post.

Without a credible commercial justification there is little point in
designing hypothetical habitats, except for pure entertainment purposes.

> Without a credible commercial justification there is little point in
> designing hypothetical habitats, except for pure entertainment purposes.

Tourism matches all criteria! Except, it needs real habitats,

not hypothetical ones.