Proposition: The first habitat, not space station, in space MUST
have a population of 250,000 people in order to function as an
economically self-supporting nation.

What do you think? And why?

If the requirement for 250,000 people had been imposed on previous
colonization efforts, we would all still live in Africa. This requirement
is unrealistic, unhistorical, and would make future colonization's
impossible. Jay Huebner

Proposition: The first habitat, not space station, in space MUST
have a population of 250,000 people in order to function as an
economically self-supporting nation.

What do you think? And why?

Why?

> If the requirement for 250,000 people had been imposed on previous
> colonization efforts, we would all still live in Africa. This
requirement

Why? Because we came from Africa and the first groups which left were much
smaller than 250,000. In fact there probably were not 250,000 humans when
the first successful groups left.

Why?

> If the requirement for 250,000 people had been imposed on previous
> colonization efforts, we would all still live in Africa. This
requirement

I see that you're trying to provide an answer to my proposition by
way of analogy, but the linkage of prehistoric Africa escapes me.
Would you care to elaborate your argument?

> Why? Because we came from Africa and the first groups which left
were much
> smaller than 250,000. In fact there probably were not 250,000
humans when
> the first successful groups left.
>
> Why?
>
> > If the requirement for 250,000 people had been imposed on
previous
> > colonization efforts, we would all still live in Africa. This
> requirement
> > is unrealistic, unhistorical, and would make future
colonization's

Hi Victoria,

250,000 people is a huge number. I don't think I completely
understand what you are proposing here. Are you saying that 250,000
is a habitat minimum? That's sort of what it sounds like.

"Self-sustaining" is the key word here. You mean a habitat large
enough to provide all material needs for 250,000 people, and that is
a huge number. We probably won't be able to build habitats of that
size for a few hundred years at the rate we are going.

On earth, the amount of farmland needed to provide year-round food
for 1 person is around 2 acres. 500,000 acres for just farmland in a
habitat is a lot of space, and that doesn't include housing,
recreation, or employment. I don't think we'll know the answer until
we get there.

Let's start with getting the ISS up to 5, and go from there.

> I see that you're trying to provide an answer to my proposition by
> way of analogy, but the linkage of prehistoric Africa escapes me.
> Would you care to elaborate your argument?
>
> > Why? Because we came from Africa and the first groups which left
> were much
> > smaller than 250,000. In fact there probably were not 250,000
> humans when
> > the first successful groups left.
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > > If the requirement for 250,000 people had been imposed on
> previous
> > > colonization efforts, we would all still live in Africa. This
> > requirement
> > > is unrealistic, unhistorical, and would make future
> colonization's
> > > impossible. Jay Huebner
> > >
> > > Proposition: The first habitat, not space station, in space
MUST

The more the merrier I say!! As long as I'm one of the
250,000 and I have a nice view from my cubicle-like
dwelling. (Will work for air, water, etc.)

The only way to get lots of people in space is... get
lots of people in space!

Cheers,
Brook

> Proposition: The first habitat, not space station,
> in space MUST
> have a population of 250,000 people in order to
> function as an
> economically self-supporting nation.
>
> What do you think? And why?
>

9-11: A tribute to the more than 3,000 lives lost

> 250,000 people is a huge number. I don't think I completely
> understand what you are proposing here. Are you saying that
250,000
> is a habitat minimum? That's sort of what it sounds like.

I'm not stating it as a fact, just as a "thinking outside the box"
type of argument to see where it leads us. The conventional wisdom
is small, bootstrapping efforts but if we follow that line of
reasoning, how do we ever achieve habitation while maintaining a
positive or neutral balance of payments, or for that matter, survive
without massive, budget busting subsidies?
>
> "Self-sustaining" is the key word here. You mean a habitat large
> enough to provide all material needs for 250,000 people, and that
> is a huge number.

Yes it is a huge number, and yes, self-sustaining is the key. I can
see a few years of subsidies from earth, perhaps a decade, but, and
pardon my momentary lapse into the ludicrous, but I can't really see
the mission controller saying "And we have lift-off of STS mission
number 256, transporting toothbrushes and toilet paper to the 1,000
hardy pioneers in orbit. STS mission 257, scheduled for next week is
on schedule for delivery of the essential shoes, pillows, razor
blades, pharmaceuticals, band-aids, watches and other personal items
for our band of pioneers."

> We probably won't be able to build habitats of that
> size for a few hundred years at the rate we are going.

Well, we're not going at a rate that I can even measure. :)

>
> On earth, the amount of farmland needed to provide year-round food
> for 1 person is around 2 acres. 500,000 acres for just farmland in
a
> habitat is a lot of space, and that doesn't include housing,
> recreation, or employment. I don't think we'll know the answer
until
> we get there.

Yes, what you state maybe true. But as I think through the whole
process of establishing a habitat, I'm finding I'm becoming more
comfortable with the idea of critical mass of population. The
numbers are definitely open to debate.

I've privately reached a conclusion in which I think habitats will
never be economically self-sustainable while small in size. The
alternative for all that industry in space will be either earth
launched or tele-robotically operated facilities from earth. No
cities in space, because incrementally, at each decision step, the
cheaper alternative will be to not send people into orbit,
therefore, more and more events will happen in space, but not
necessarily include more and more people.

So, my thinking came around to posing the question of an all-or-
nothing scenario.

>
> Let's start with getting the ISS up to 5, and go from there.

As the ISS has cost something like $90 billion so far, and people
are already yiping about the subsidy, do you really see that as a
part of the boot-strapping process?

>
> > I see that you're trying to provide an answer to my proposition
by
> > way of analogy, but the linkage of prehistoric Africa escapes
me.
> > Would you care to elaborate your argument?
> >
> > > Why? Because we came from Africa and the first groups which
left
> > were much
> > > smaller than 250,000. In fact there probably were not 250,000
> > humans when
> > > the first successful groups left.
> > >
> > > Why?
> > >
> > > > If the requirement for 250,000 people had been imposed on
> > previous
> > > > colonization efforts, we would all still live in Africa.
This
> > > requirement
> > > > is unrealistic, unhistorical, and would make future
> > colonization's
> > > > impossible. Jay Huebner
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Proposition: The first habitat, not space station, in space
> MUST
> > > > have a population of 250,000 people in order to function as
an

> Proposition: The first habitat, not space station, in space MUST
> have a population of 250,000 people in order to function as an
> economically self-supporting nation.
There are self-supporting nation-states much smaller than that on Earth. Monaco has a population of the same order of magnitude as Dr. O'Neill's proposed Island One. This does not mean that Monaco could survive in modern ease without strong economic ties with the rest of the world; that would require a population of the same order of magnitude as that of the USA. Communist Albania and North Korea are examples of what happens when countries sever most of the economic ties with the reast of the world - though they were/are in addition hampered by an inefficient economic system ---but I see no reason to build an early space colony that could comfortably survive and thrive even if the Earth blew up. Rather one that would produce items of value for the Earth economy, and with part of the profits import such items from Earth as could not be produced in space until much later in the growth of the space community.

> What do you think? And why?
How much of the economic activity in the developed nations is luxuries, such as fifty brands of cellphones, six hundred brands of shoes and boob jobs?

In an early space habitat there would be ore refining, production of parts for powersats or whatever paydirt were being produced, and the construction of this paydirt. There would also be construction of additional habitats. There would be food production and processing. There would be maintenance of the habitat, and waste management. There would be administration. There would be doctors, dentists and teachers. There would be dock workers to handle incoming and outgoing traffic. There would be distribution of eg. food within the colony. Production of soap, not to forget.
All these work functions would require workers, and all of them would be essential. Some could be covered by the same personnel. The electrician who installed the wires in your house when the habitat was first built, and who now busies himself with the powersats, can also take time out to fix or add to the electric wires in your house: construction and maintenance done by the same bloke. Doctors and nurses could haul goods at the spacedocks, ready to rush to the hospital when injured people came in. Or do paperwork in administration if they were too snobbish to haul crates, but what then would they be doing among pioneers and frontierspeople?
But what else would be needed, and how much would it be needed? Certainly there would be no need to manufacture TV sets in space, just to grab an example. At that time thin and low-mass TV sets will be even more available than they are now. In comparison to the mass of a family, it would be cheap to transport one from Earth to their house in space, and if some families could not live without a telly in every room and three in the garden, they would have no business being frontierspeople.
What about all the small plastic items that we use? From toothbrushes to tupperware? Certainly producing those in space would require a basic plastics manufacturing industry, perhaps based on methane ice and other carbon compounds found in carbonaceous chondritic type asteroids or dead comets. But would it not be feasible in the early days to import such things from Earth? The plastic items in my kitchen and bathroom are certainly of lower total mass than I am. And apart from brushes, they last. A colonist could bring a few hundred grams worth of toothbrushes along, and they would last until his next holiday back on Earth.
Computers? Could not computer cabinets be produced fairly easily in space, since metal-working industry would already be fairly well developed? Then the electronic components could be imported from Earth. Home computer builders often choose the various components and insert them in a home-built cabinet, perhaps one made of wood, or not an enclosed cabinet at all.
Bicycles? Bike frames produced in space, and the rest, of lower total mass than the frame, imported from Earth? When your bike needs repair, it is generally the low mass items that need be replaced. And motor vehicles, even electric ones, would be unneeded for personal transportation in an Island One-size colony; such mechanical transportation as would be needed to take groceries from the ag-areas to the shops and similar tasks could be built at the same time as the colony was.
Surgical instruments? Relatively low mass, compared to the rest of the items needed in a society.
Every newest fad such as the latest type of cellphone and the latest fashion? Again, while these form a noticeable part of the economy in the rich world, driven in part by the skills of the advertising industry, people who need these have no place in an early space settlement.
Clothing in general? In an early space habitat, with probably a subtropical climate, few clothes would be needed to keep people warm. Certainly a pioneering type could live in ease with two pairs of shorts and ten sets of underwear and a pair of sandals and perhaps a jersey or a jacket against cool evenings. Nothing that the colonists couldn't bring with them themselves on the way up, and if produced to last, could last for several years.
If some of your furniture breaks and cannot be repaired, or if you're tired of chairs and tables made of alu? No plastic or timber in an early space habitat, but a section of the ag-areas could be set aside for bamboo.
For that matter, houses could be built of bamboo, in a climate that's warm and without extremes of weather.

Jon L. Beck.

> Yes it is a huge number, and yes, self-sustaining is the key. I can
> see a few years of subsidies from earth, perhaps a decade, but, and
> pardon my momentary lapse into the ludicrous, but I can't really see
> the mission controller saying "And we have lift-off of STS mission
> number 256, transporting toothbrushes and toilet paper to the 1,000
> hardy pioneers in orbit. STS mission 257, scheduled for next week is
> on schedule for delivery of the essential shoes, pillows, razor
> blades, pharmaceuticals, band-aids, watches and other personal items
> for our band of pioneers."
If you substitute the Space Shuttle with a radically cheaper launcher, perhaps a tenth or a fiftieth the price per pound to orbit, then I can --- except that there would be no mission controller on national or international TV at every launch. It would be just import-export. Similarly the sailing of a ship to Greenland with consumables from Denmark is not well attended by the media, though especially in the more isolated towns and villages the arrival of one is of considerable interest to the locals. Of course the transportation of these consumables would, even with a radically cheaper launcher than the STS, be radically more expensive than transportation of similar consumables to Greenland. But if the colonists were building items of great value to the Earth, they would be able to afford it, even if a toothbrush were a hundred times the retail price on Earth because of transportation.

Jon L. Beck.

There is absolutely no need for a space colony to be
self sufficient.

No nation on Earth is self sufficient, so why impose
this fictious requirement on a space nation ?

Every nation exports and imports.

The only requirement is that over the long term the
VALUE of the exports should more or less balance the
value of the imports, in terms of their domestic
currency.

Even this is not an absolute requirement, the USA has
been running a huge balance of trade defecit for
decades, and somehow it seems to remain more less a
viable economy.

Charles R.

I suppose the point is the cost of 'shipping" in relation to its use /
value.
Is a roll of TP worth the hundred or so dollars that shipping would cost or
would you find some other 'self sufficient" way of doing the same job?
Perhaps adapt a more aboriginal deficating position that naturally
eliminates the need for TP? As silly and simple as that sounds, it reflect
adjustment in lifestyles to deal with new realities...ways of becoming self
sufficient where one can. A/C environment and minimum streneous labor cuts
down on perspiration meaning less body bacteria growth and less smell (with
less deoderant, showers (water-soap-shampoo) and less changes of clothing
and bed-linen. Perhaps a daily UV "light-bath" to kill bacteria with
appropriate goggles like in "Andromeda Strain" movie.

This would free up shipping modules for items that are indispensible and
can't be done without or ultra luxury items, like spices in days of old.

By having large numbers of people involved you get some efficiencies in
volume, and by 'mortgaging" their lifes work, or even multi generations life
work you can have the monies NOW to create the living space. thinking of
250,000 people you get a pretty LARGE bundle of money.

Assuming a skilled labor position does 10 x what it costs in production. A
skilled labor can earn $1million easy enough over a lifestime of work
perhaps even $2 million. Multiply that by 10 and that gets you $20 million
worth of production, multiply by 250,000 and you get $5-trillion big ones.
Yes a long term project to be sure, but not without precident.

Think of Japanese mortgages for home in Tokyo. The amortizatin term can be
as long as 50 years or more because of the large upfront cost of homes
there. Essentially two generation mortgages.Even as long as 100 years are
granted. In essence people are paying rent since they could never
individually pay off the note, but the sense of ownership and stability and
community exists just the same. This conscept could be applied for a space
station community.

In the 1700 and 1800 a good slave could go for as much as $10k.... TEN
THOUSAND dollars ! I hate to think what that would be worth in today's
dollars. This money was paid because of the work/ utility of the production
over decades (and even through to the next generations following if the
"stock" was good) The offspring was free and its production could be counted
against initial investment.

Something to think about.

$64 question (or $5 trillion question) is how do you collect from colonist
once they give you the finger from the high ground and decide to break away,
much like the colonist in every other venture has, from India to America. In
the colonies, factories were not sophisticated enough to create finished
goods, (and laws where in place forbidding the transfer of the information
on making factories to the colonies). This meant the colonies always had to
send back raw goods to recieve the necessary items for living. Of course
once the colonies felt the trade was not equitable, they looked for better
trade partners or looked to manufacture on their own, becoming self
sufficent.

just a little thought...

so essentially if you can find 250,000 space colonist, get them to mortgage
their lifes production upfront for setting up a space community, you should
have enough money to do it.

Imagine that the first 2-years or so of a colonist labor/skill goes as
volunteer work or sweat equity to creating the space station /
community...this reducing the cost of the station to the cost of raw
materials and NO labor costs (or taxes :-) . That would stretch by 5-fold
the available dollars easily.

Presently a standard home is roughly 20 % materials and the rest labor /
professional costs ( example: real estate commision 7 % , bankers get 5%,
surveyor, title agent, inspector, lawyer get 5%.... there is 17% of the
house already and thats just professional services...not the first nail in a
board ! )

So figuring $5 trillion with a multiplier of "5" from the stretched money
thats $25-trillion. Pretty hefty bankroll. Add a few corporate sponsorships
to purchase community production you may be able to add another $50 billion.
(heck XM radio service has got about a billion in so far with only 60k
subscribers or so...)

just some number thoughts to mess with the mind....

(of course we haven't mentioned the ultimate money-maker, the protection
racket from the high ground...;-) pay tribute to Spacers or an astroid may
accidently "fall" to the Earth, hehe. Coomunication satellites start having
accidents. No more MTV! consider it an "insurance" premium.

Any other creative ideas?

The thing is to find 250,000 skilled people willing to become permanent
Spacers.

Any takers?

>
> > 250,000 people is a huge number. I don't think I completely
> > understand what you are proposing here. Are you saying that
>250,000
> > is a habitat minimum? That's sort of what it sounds like.
>
>I'm not stating it as a fact, just as a "thinking outside the box"
>type of argument to see where it leads us. The conventional wisdom
>is small, bootstrapping efforts but if we follow that line of
>reasoning, how do we ever achieve habitation while maintaining a
>positive or neutral balance of payments, or for that matter, survive
>without massive, budget busting subsidies?

I am certainly one that believes "bootstrapping efforts" are the way to go,
but conversely, under your theory, how do we go from what we have now to a
self-sufficient colony of 250,000? That would require trillions and
trillions of dollars in a considerably shorter span of time (than
"bootstrapping efforts"). As improbable as you think the "bootstrapping
efforts" are, surely you don't see that as even remotely possible, right? I
mean, while theoretically possible it is virtually impossible. And if we
both agree that it is impossible, what's the point?

Also, could you elaborate on why you do NOT believe that bootstrapping
efforts will ever "achieve habitation?" What do you mean "while maintaining
a positive or neutral balance of payments?" Are you suggesting that the
best industry in space can hope for is breaking even? That there is no
profit in space-based industry? I don't think that's what you're saying, so
could you elaborate? Are you suggesting that space-based industry will not
lead to habitation? It might be best to start another thread and give this
subject it's due.

> > "Self-sustaining" is the key word here. You mean a habitat large
> > enough to provide all material needs for 250,000 people, and that
> > is a huge number.
>
>Yes it is a huge number, and yes, self-sustaining is the key. I can
>see a few years of subsidies from earth, perhaps a decade, but, and
>pardon my momentary lapse into the ludicrous, but I can't really see
>the mission controller saying "And we have lift-off of STS mission
>number 256, transporting toothbrushes and toilet paper to the 1,000
>hardy pioneers in orbit. STS mission 257, scheduled for next week is
>on schedule for delivery of the essential shoes, pillows, razor
>blades, pharmaceuticals, band-aids, watches and other personal items
>for our band of pioneers."

While you make a valid point, I don't see any of this as prohibitive. I can
easily see our "band of pioneers" ordering those items "online". Yes, they
may have to pay $5 for a toothbrush or a roll of toilet paper. And by the
time we have "pioneers" in need of such items, we should also have better
(read: cheaper) space transportation systems to deliver the goods. But at
some point the in-space market will demand access to cheaper goods and the
industry to develop these goods will be created.

>I've privately reached a conclusion in which I think habitats will
>never be economically self-sustainable while small in size.

I agree with you 100%. I, too, do not believe small habitats can be
self-sustainable. But nor do I believe they have to be.

>The
>alternative for all that industry in space will be either earth
>launched or tele-robotically operated facilities from earth.

I believe that is how each step should start, but I do not hold the
contention that the facility wouldn't or shouldn't develop into a manned
facility. I believe at some point this will make fiscal sense.

>No cities in space, because incrementally, at each decision step, the
>cheaper alternative will be to not send people into orbit,

That is the cheaper alternative, but again, men and women should follow.
And I believe will (certainly can).

Jack

I hardly see trade and self-sufficiency as mutually exclusive. Of course there is trade. Let's not lock onto such a literal definition of self-sufficiency.

Jack

There is absolutely no need for a space colony to be
self sufficient.

No nation on Earth is self sufficient, so why impose
this fictious requirement on a space nation ?

Every nation exports and imports.

The only requirement is that over the long term the
VALUE of the exports should more or less balance the
value of the imports, in terms of their domestic
currency.

Even this is not an absolute requirement, the USA has
been running a huge balance of trade defecit for
decades, and somehow it seems to remain more less a
viable economy.

Charles R.

(Sorry folks, been lurking for a while. Been busy with Burningman
prep.)

Some quick comments along your thought lines. The parallels to
frontier living are apt. You want a good example of a small, self
supporting economic population/condition? Picture an old west silver
mining town. Population... less than 500! Probably less than 250!!
Could get away with less than 100!!!
One of the interesting things that happen with frontier living is
the innovation to fill a lack of imported items (Zubrin has been
crusading the thought that we need to go to Mars just to keep up our
frontier style innovation). Mainly, you're toothbrush analogy. Bamboo
(that you recommended and I have thought of as well independantly)
and Goat Hair (goats'n'rabbits where the recommendation for milk and
meat from both O'Neil and the Stanford study) could make a reasonably
good abrasive toothbrush.
Side note related to bamboo, do a little research on "Hemp"
(similar to the plant that produces marijuana but different in some
important ways) and you'd be amazed at how usefull that plant is!
TV Sets (also used as computer monitors) could also be fashioned on
site will very little in the way of additional infrastructure. Find
an old TV set in a second hand store (one of those wood-cabeneted
monstrosities), open the back and be surprized at how much it ISN'T
complex. Just about everything in a TV would be needed for repair and
maintainance of automated equipment (ie, wire, coils, resistors,
capacitors, ect.). So what if it's bulkier. A high mass item made on
site is cheaper than a low mass item needing to be shipped out. All
you need extra is a bit of phospher (likely to be found as an
impurity in your mining or a residue in your refining) and someone
who could blow glass (vacuume is cheap and silicon is EVERYWHERE).
Resolution an issue, NOT. We went to the Moon with monochrome
TERMINALS.
Bicycles? Why would you need rubber tires on a flat concrete
street? You could probably get away with cloth strips as a cushion.
Otherwise, someone will come up with an innovative shock-absorber
that could be made in-situ. Rubber tires where first used because
most roads back then where not paved and where needed for a smoother
ride. BUT, that didn't stop people from riding them with bare metal
rims before then.
Back to the frontier town analogy. I also agree about people
wearing many hats. In the old west, the barber was also the
surgeon/doctor (that's what that red stripe on the barber's pole is
symbolic of, bloody gauze). A small colony won't need a fulltime
doctor. I agree that the doctor had better be able to lift boxes, or
at least have some veterenarian skills for the farm.
Just some thoughts.

king_rodent (putting the eek in geek)

>
> > Proposition: The first habitat, not space station, in space MUST
> > have a population of 250,000 people in order to function as an
> > economically self-supporting nation.
> There are self-supporting nation-states much smaller than that
on Earth. Monaco has a population of the same order of magnitude as
Dr. O'Neill's proposed Island One. This does not mean that Monaco
could survive in modern ease without strong economic ties with the
rest of the world; that would require a population of the same order
of magnitude as that of the USA. Communist Albania and North Korea
are examples of what happens when countries sever most of the
economic ties with the reast of the world - though they were/are in
addition hampered by an inefficient economic system ---but I see no
reason to build an early space colony that could comfortably survive
and thrive even if the Earth blew up. Rather one that would produce
items of value for the Earth economy, and with part of the profits
import such items from Earth as could not be produced in space until
much later in the growth of the space community.
>
> > What do you think? And why?
> How much of the economic activity in the developed nations is
luxuries, such as fifty brands of cellphones, six hundred brands of
shoes and boob jobs?
>
> In an early space habitat there would be ore refining,
production of parts for powersats or whatever paydirt were being
produced, and the construction of this paydirt. There would also be
construction of additional habitats. There would be food production
and processing. There would be maintenance of the habitat, and waste
management. There would be administration. There would be doctors,
dentists and teachers. There would be dock workers to handle
incoming and outgoing traffic. There would be distribution of eg.
food within the colony. Production of soap, not to forget.
> All these work functions would require workers, and all of them
would be essential. Some could be covered by the same personnel.
The electrician who installed the wires in your house when the
habitat was first built, and who now busies himself with the
powersats, can also take time out to fix or add to the electric wires
in your house: construction and maintenance done by the same bloke.
Doctors and nurses could haul goods at the spacedocks, ready to rush
to the hospital when injured people came in. Or do paperwork in
administration if they were too snobbish to haul crates, but what
then would they be doing among pioneers and frontierspeople?
> But what else would be needed, and how much would it be needed?
Certainly there would be no need to manufacture TV sets in space,
just to grab an example. At that time thin and low-mass TV sets will
be even more available than they are now. In comparison to the mass
of a family, it would be cheap to transport one from Earth to their
house in space, and if some families could not live without a telly
in every room and three in the garden, they would have no business
being frontierspeople.
> What about all the small plastic items that we use? From
toothbrushes to tupperware? Certainly producing those in space would
require a basic plastics manufacturing industry, perhaps based on
methane ice and other carbon compounds found in carbonaceous
chondritic type asteroids or dead comets. But would it not be
feasible in the early days to import such things from Earth? The
plastic items in my kitchen and bathroom are certainly of lower total
mass than I am. And apart from brushes, they last. A colonist could
bring a few hundred grams worth of toothbrushes along, and they would
last until his next holiday back on Earth.
> Computers? Could not computer cabinets be produced fairly
easily in space, since metal-working industry would already be fairly
well developed? Then the electronic components could be imported
from Earth. Home computer builders often choose the various
components and insert them in a home-built cabinet, perhaps one made
of wood, or not an enclosed cabinet at all.
> Bicycles? Bike frames produced in space, and the rest, of lower
total mass than the frame, imported from Earth? When your bike needs
repair, it is generally the low mass items that need be replaced.
And motor vehicles, even electric ones, would be unneeded for
personal transportation in an Island One-size colony; such mechanical
transportation as would be needed to take groceries from the ag-areas
to the shops and similar tasks could be built at the same time as the
colony was.
> Surgical instruments? Relatively low mass, compared to the rest
of the items needed in a society.
> Every newest fad such as the latest type of cellphone and the
latest fashion? Again, while these form a noticeable part of the
economy in the rich world, driven in part by the skills of the
advertising industry, people who need these have no place in an early
space settlement.
> Clothing in general? In an early space habitat, with probably a
subtropical climate, few clothes would be needed to keep people
warm. Certainly a pioneering type could live in ease with two pairs
of shorts and ten sets of underwear and a pair of sandals and perhaps
a jersey or a jacket against cool evenings. Nothing that the
colonists couldn't bring with them themselves on the way up, and if
produced to last, could last for several years.
> If some of your furniture breaks and cannot be repaired, or if
you're tired of chairs and tables made of alu? No plastic or timber
in an early space habitat, but a section of the ag-areas could be set
aside for bamboo.
> For that matter, houses could be built of bamboo, in a climate
that's warm and without extremes of weather.

> One of the interesting things that happen with frontier living is
> the innovation to fill a lack of imported items (Zubrin has been
> crusading the thought that we need to go to Mars just to keep up our
> frontier style innovation). Mainly, you're toothbrush analogy. Bamboo
> (that you recommended and I have thought of as well independantly)
> and Goat Hair (goats'n'rabbits where the recommendation for milk and
> meat from both O'Neil and the Stanford study) could make a reasonably
> good abrasive toothbrush.
Bidets instead of toilet paper? Only experience can tell, of course, but a well-designed colony would likely have plenty of energy to recycle and purify water, and heat it. You could shower with very little or no soap, just rub yourself vigorously under the hot water for some time, perhaps with a bar of something resembling pumice, or a heavy-duty goat hair brush. Soap and shampoo could be for Sundays, even if you showered twice per day every day. Soap could be $50 per bar, and half an hour of hot shower a few cents... as for wiping after shitting, I remember I once had the screaming shits so bad that I was compelled to stick my backside into the shower every time I had been to the toilet, every fifteen minutes for half a day. This experience tells me that if bidets were as cheap as toilet paper, they might be superiour.

> Side note related to bamboo, do a little research on "Hemp"
> (similar to the plant that produces marijuana but different in some
> important ways) and you'd be amazed at how usefull that plant is!
Different in that it contains so little THC that you would need to smoke a few acres of it to get high. I have read about how useful it is for fibers. It could form the basis of clothes making industry, before cotton or sheep were introduced. I suppose you could build houses with bamboo frames and woven hemp for walls. I also suppose you could have common kitchens, where ten families shared an outdoor kitchen with a hemp-sheet screen above, to reduce the need to manufacture or import kitchen facilities such as stoves. Similarly shared toilets and showers.

> Bicycles? Why would you need rubber tires on a flat concrete
> street?
[...]
Some of the streets would likely be dirt roads in an early colony. In a Bernal sphere many of the roads would be steep, so I suspect mountain bikes would be preferred. Also because all distances would be short.

I suspect that an early space habitat could be an interesting mixture of high and low technology. Goat hair toothbrushes, Third World village type houses, hemp clothing except for the Sunday sets brought from Earth, all foot and bicycle transportation within the habitat --- and plenty of electricity and heating for cooking and washing, and a computer terminal in every house.

Jon L. Beck.

I very much enjoyed reading your responses, and King Rodent's as
well later in the thread. You both presented a lot of thought
provoking rebuttals.

Let me continue the dialogue with my comments below.

>Rather one that would produce items of value for the Earth economy,
and with part of the profits import such items from Earth as could
not be produced in space until much later in the growth of the space
community.

Makes a lot of sense. I agree completely. I just wanted to have a
simple proposition without a lot of conditionals that would be
confusing.

The complication will be the hugely distorting effect of shipping
costs. Consider the figures I present below.

We've seen numbers of $10,000/lb launch costs delivered into LEO via
the shuttle. I've also seen a report stating total launch cost per
shuttle mission is $500,000,000. Further, the size of the launch bay
is 40 feet with a diameter of 15 feet, and the shuttle has a cargo
capacity of 40 tons

I will grant that launch costs will be lowered in the future. I feel
it is a generous concession to state that launch costs will be only
$1,000/lb on future shuttle missions or on ELVs. Consider the
following: the shuttle, packed to the rafters with cargo, can hold
7,071 ft^3. Total launch cost $50,000,000/7,071 ft^3 = $7,070.71 per
ft^3. So, if future launches are conducted at all like FedEX and UPS
shipments, they'll factor in both volume and weight by some
formula. Now I just threw out an example of toothbrushes and toilet
paper as inane examples of daily goods we use in our lives. I never
meant to confine the argement to specifically those items. Look
around you in your life. Modern living is fairly complicated and we
use a variety of items in order to function in our modern
societies. I'll continue to use toothbrushes and toilet paper as
proxies for daily use items. But feel free to substitute in
replacement import items.

Now back to the calculations. If we can fit 288 toothbrushes into a
cubic foot, then just the transport cost to LEO would be $24.55.
Double or triple that to get the cargo to L5 or some other habitat
orbit. Consider toilet paper rolls, a roll of toilet paper, 4
inches in diameter and 4 inches in height, will cost $261.80 to LEO,
based on 27 rolls per ft^3, and perhaps up to $785.40 to an L5 orbit.

As you both correctly pointed out, substitutions will be sought. I
also contend that domestic industries will develop to replace the
importation of these items.

But at the end of the day, even with the profit generated from the
orbital services and products, will our pioneers be able to afford
the importation of items that are not substitutable nor domestically
economical to reproduce? My contention is that a small population
will not have the economic critical mass to be able to afford those
importations.

>
> > What do you think? And why?
> How much of the economic activity in the developed nations is
luxuries, such as fifty brands of cellphones, six hundred brands of
shoes and boob jobs?
>
> All these work functions would require workers, and all of them
would be essential. Some could be covered by the same personnel.
The electrician who installed the wires in your house when the
habitat was first built, and who now busies himself with the
powersats, can also take time out to fix or add to the electric
wires in your house: construction and maintenance done by the same
bloke. Doctors and nurses could haul goods at the spacedocks, ready
to rush to the hospital when injured people came in. Or do
paperwork in administration if they were too snobbish to haul
crates, but what then would they be doing among pioneers and
frontierspeople?

Yes. I really like the idea of job sharing and the way you framed
the scenario makes a lot of sense. I can't speak for the authors of
the study who identified a 250,000 population figure to replicate
society's functions, and I've lost the reference, but even if they
did allow for job sharing, I wonder by how much we could reduce that
figure. Sure a doctor could haul cargo, or fill out forms, but is a
cargo hauler or form filler a specific task that requires an expert
be sent to the habitat. Maybe a more appropriate scenario for the
job-sharing solution would be the radiation oncologist, when he's
not busy, working as a biological waste remediation engineer, and
the pediatric nurse working as an air quality engineer. I hope you
see my point and my assumptions. They are that it might be difficult
to see all of the benefits of job sharing if the jobs all require
very specific skill sets.

I look around me at the society in which I live. There are all sorts
of skilled people who are necessary, and even discounting those
involved in replication of services, luxeries, and skills that won't
be needed in orbit, I'm still left marveling at what skills are
required for a society to function.

Also consider that we'll probably require all sorts of new skill
sets that wouldn't be of any use to the flatlander :) societies.
Let's not take for granted how complicated things might be. As
further examples, if we do eat meat in the habitats, do we have meat
inspectors or not? Will we have to have engineers to monitor and
create our weather? How about all of the environmental controls,
teachers for our kids, food processing technicians (or will we drink
unpasteurized milk, raw potatoes instead of french fries and potato
chips, wheat kernals instead of flour, etc) administrators, orbital
debris remediation engineers, orbital mechanics specialists,
engineers who know how to refine aluminum in zero-g may not be adept
at all of the nuances involved with titanium or glass, or hemp
fibers. Look at the staffing of a chemical refinery, or a steel
mill. There are lots of specialist functions involved beyond just
the manual labor. I hope you see what I'm getting at. So, yes, I do
expect job sharing to reduce the number of people required, but my
unsupported position is that it won't be by a significant factor.

> What about all the small plastic items that we use? From
toothbrushes to tupperware? Certainly producing those in space
would require a basic plastics manufacturing industry, perhaps based
on methane ice and other carbon compounds found in carbonaceous
chondritic type asteroids or dead comets. But would it not be
feasible in the early days to import such things from Earth? The
plastic items in my kitchen and bathroom are certainly of lower
total mass than I am. And apart from brushes, they last. A
colonist could bring a few hundred grams worth of toothbrushes
along, and they would last until his next holiday back on Earth.

Yes, I think that producing them in space will be required. As for
the tupperware, while low in mass it would take a lot of volume to
import. I don't think it makes sense. I'm also not assuming that
holidays back to earth will be all that affordable. A major
assumption of mine that runs through all of the responses to this
topic is that transport costs will always be expensive, even if they
drop by more than a factor of 10. And while I've been leery of
analogies to earth-based frontiers applying to orbital frontiers,
I'll risk using one myself. IMHO, habitat settlers will be buying a
one way immigration ticket just like in the days of old. Very few
people came to the new country in the 1700-1900 period and then went
back to Europe for vacations. It would have bankrupted them.
Tourists willing to spend quite a bit for a once in a lifetime
vacation to the habitat will probably be plenty, but habitat
citizens going on regular earth-side vacations would have to be
earning significant salaries to have that amount of disposable
income.

>

> Some quick comments along your thought lines. The parallels to
> frontier living are apt. You want a good example of a small, self
> supporting economic population/condition? Picture an old west
silver
> mining town. Population... less than 500! Probably less than 250!!
> Could get away with less than 100!!!

I'm having trouble accepting the analogy of a western mining town
and an orbital habitat, which is the epitomy of technological
sophistication and will require a diverse amount of skills sets in
order to function.

> All you need extra is a bit of phospher (likely to be found as an
> impurity in your mining or a residue in your refining) and someone
> who could blow glass (vacuume is cheap and silicon is EVERYWHERE).
> Resolution an issue, NOT. We went to the Moon with monochrome
> TERMINALS.

While I agree with you that many electronic compenents will used in
orbital manufacturing, I don't agree that it'll be as simple as you
imply. If I gave you a clump of phospher and someone who indeed
could blow a vacuum tube for you, then what. Would you rub the clump
of phospher onto the glass? I lot of our manufacturing process, for
a wide diversity of goods, are very complicated. The same with
plastic industries and pharmaceuticals. Just because we have some
microbiological laboratory equipment, and the pahermaceutical
formulas for the drugs we require, doesn't mean we'll be able to
cook up a batch of thousands of different drugs for the myriad of
drug needs our pioneers may require. Same with plastics. The process
to make nylon is much different from that required to make gore-tex
and tupperware. And let's not neglect issues like stamping molds, or
will we have to whittle out our tupperware containers from blocks of
plastics :))) I don't think that we'll be able to jury-rig our
technological requirements as simply as the blacksmith shoed a
horse, or fixed the metal rim on a wagon wheel in the days of old.
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have a clue how to fix the exhaust
problems of an orbital transfer vehicle, and if I tried I'd probably
end up causing millions of dollars of damage, whereas with no
knowledge of blacksmithing and wagon wheel repairing, I'd venture
the opinion that I'd stand a good chance of doing a passable job,
and if I made mistakes, those mistakes wouldn't be catostrophic.

Speaking to the broader issue of substitution effect and import
displacement by development of domestic capacity, I think these two
issues would tend to favor a larger habitat population over a
smaller one, simply because the cost of amortization on all of the
equipment and personnel will be an easier pill to swallow.

Just as with the high per unit costs of earth importation due to the
cost of launching to LEO and beyond, these orbital factories won't
be economically viable if they serve a population of 10,000. The
critical mass of skill sets in the population and the concurrent
critical mass of economic purchasing power may allow a diverse set
of economic players to establish themselves in orbit and while
earning profitable returns on their investments, they'll also
substantially reduce the cost of their goods to the orbital
consumers. Thus the economic value that the habitat pioneers create
by exporting to earth, will allow for a growing domestic economy.

>
> There is absolutely no need for a space colony to be
> self sufficient.
>
> No nation on Earth is self sufficient, so why impose
> this fictious requirement on a space nation ?
>
> Every nation exports and imports.
>
> The only requirement is that over the long term the
> VALUE of the exports should more or less balance the
> value of the imports, in terms of their domestic
> currency.
>
> Even this is not an absolute requirement, the USA has
> been running a huge balance of trade defecit for
> decades, and somehow it seems to remain more less a
> viable economy.
>
> Charles R.

Good point. My response would be that in this case, applying the
standards of earth based societies to an orbital society may not
best decribe the dynamics at play.

I argue that a different set of standards will apply because of
unique factors that distinguish an orbital society from earth based
societies.

On earth, bulk shipping, national competivive advantages by way of
location, climate, natural resources, educational facilities, tax
structure etc, allow for vigorous international trade. Thus each
nation can find an optimum balance of domestic industry and service,
and the import and export of such products and services. The
transaction costs of the import and export components of the
national economies are factored into their cost in the marketplace.
Thus, the shipping costs, customs duties, economic displacement of
local competitors and other factors still allow for competitive
pricing.

My contention is that we live in a world where many of us would not
forego the accouterments of daily life. And while our band of space
pioneers will be willing to accept many sacrifices to further the
noble goal of establishing a beachhead in orbit, I wonder how deep
their sacrifices will be.

As I stated in an earlier response, the shipping costs in supplying
imports to our habitat dwellers will be enormous. Consider the
$25.00 to $75.00 shipping cost for a single toothbrush. Or, using
the same criteria from my earlier post, a roll of toilet paper, 4
inches in diameter and 4 inches in height, will cost $261.80 to LEO,
based on 27 rolls per ft^3, and perhaps up to $785.40 to an L5 orbit.

Our pioneers will have to create an exorbinant amount of value in
their services and products that are exportable to earth in order to
be able to import goods from earth.

So, in a nutshell, the reason that I believe a different standard
will apply is that transportation costs will have a hugely
distorting influence that will hinder trade in a vast number of
items.

Perhaps, I misstated my proposition in that it allows for NO trade.
I do believe trade will occur, but only in situations where the
value of the goods can justify the shipping costs involved.

To me, that allows for high value, low mass and low volume items to
be traded and a whole assortment of services and intellectual
capital which side-step the shipping cost issue. But as a percentage
of the habitat "domestic" (that needed for the citizens to live
their lives) economy, I will still contend that import/export will
be miniscule. Yes, I do believe that there will be significant
profit earned in power generation, orbital services, orbital
construction, orbital manufacturing for earth export, research
services, etc, but not sufficient to provide for the even greater
expenses, in shipping from earth, those materials that will be
necessary to maintain a living environment for our pioneers.

If my argument, thus far, is at all convincing to you, I would hope
that it supports the position that self-sufficiency should be a goal
to ameleorate the punishing and distorting effect of shipping costs
which no earth society faces.

I hope I have made a valid case why the standards of earth based
trade are not directly applicable to a orbital habitat.

As for the issue of the US trade imbalance and how the US manages to
survive, now we're treading into very familiar territory for me.
While not a scientist or engineer, I've happily deferred to those on
the list who can bring their expertise to bear, but having earned my
livelihood in the finance sector with stops in academnia I feel I
can add something to this point, specifically that I can't see the
special case that is the US trade imbalnce being applicable to other
nations. The US trade imbalance is mitigated against by the desire
of many foreign economic players to hold US dollars as a store of
value, so those dollars THUS FAR haven't been redeemed or exchanged.
Every currency in the world can't be an equal storehouse of value.
If that was the case, the US wouldn't be able to sustain yearly
trade deficits. The same reasoning will apply to orbital habitats.

This is something I posted on this list over a year ago - I don't
recall it getting much response, but thought it worth posting
again as an alternate scenario to the "instant 250,000 person colony"
proposal... The real problem with starting with something huge
is that you will be doing it while launch costs are still
high; if you can grow things gradually, you can bring launch costs
down gradually, and greatly reduce the overall cost and increase
the economic return of the project, and the prospects for
continued and increasing growth.

Arthur

Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 17:58:58 -0400

>
> Obviously the original O'Neill idea was a roadmap in itself, but it
> has become apparent over the years that funding for such a large and
> complex project is unlikely to say the least. Would the SSI consider
> a scaled down plan along the lines of the original O'Neill plan as a
> roadmap? Gerard O'Neill himself realised his original plan would be
> too ambitious.

But was it? Perhaps we've just become too timid? We have a
chicken-and-egg problem right now in that the costs for launch to NEO
are far higher than they should be, because the size of the market is
too small; the market is however limited because the cost of launch is
so high. I think what we really need is a realistic future roadmap for
size of market and cost to orbit that can demonstrate where we could be
with constant steady improvement, as has happened in the semiconductor
industry (perhaps not quite as fast).
For example, let's play with the following two assumptions of
not-outrageous improvement rates, starting with this year:

(1) Cost to LEO per kg drop by 30% every year
(2) Yearly dollars for launch increasing 30% per year => Total mass
launched increasing 86%/year

At those rates, we should expect to be getting total mass launched to
grow from about 300 tons a year right now, to 150,000 tons in 2011, 75
million tons by 2021, and 35 billion tons by 2031. At 5 tons per person
(approximate overhead for current systems) the 100 million person mark
comes at about 0.5 billion tons, or around the year 2025.

1000 tons in LEO should be enough to get us a bare-bones lunar base of
100 tons or so, enough for a crew of perhaps 5. If that costs us $2
billion right now, it'll be just $100 million in 2009. But what market
will the other 42 thousand tons in LEO serve? A few thousand tourists at
$1 million each, and some SPS stations make most economic sense. Perhaps
also a start on some asteroid and Mars missions.

By 2020 following the 86% growth rates our lunar settlements could have
2500 people; we'd be able to handle hundreds of thousands of space
tourists at about $10,000/trip and we should have capacity for perhaps
an O'Neill-type colony of 10,000 people. A manned Mars mission to
establish a base there should be easy in this environment.

By 2030 we could have lunar settlements totalling over a million people,
5 million people in O'Neill "islands", a thousand people starting to
settle Mars, and manned expeditions to the main asteroid belt and outer
planets. And perhaps a billion tourists coming out every year, at $200
per trip to LEO, with millions going to the Moon or the L5 colonies at
$2000 per trip.

I don't see these numbers as way off base. There must be thousands of
millionaires who would pay $1 million to vacation at an orbiting hotel.
Hundreds of millions of people who would pay $1000 for the experience,
once it was a proven tourist destination. And the SPS market is pretty
clear... The only question is can we actually continually improve the
launch costs, given such a planned growth in capacity, to reach those
cost levels? 30 years of improvement at 30% per year means cutting
launch costs by a factor of almost 50,000. Perhaps that's out of range,
but the 20-year factor of about 1000 has been bandied about before...

So, does something like that work as a roadmap? How do we get everybody
else on board?

Arthur Smith (apsmith@...

> We've seen numbers of $10,000/lb launch costs delivered into LEO via
> the shuttle. I've also seen a report stating total launch cost per
> shuttle mission is $500,000,000. Further, the size of the launch bay
> is 40 feet with a diameter of 15 feet, and the shuttle has a cargo
> capacity of 40 tons
The cargo capacity is more like 25 tons. It was supposed to be 29500 kg, at a launch cost of $10 or 20 million in nineteen seventies' money.

> Now back to the calculations. If we can fit 288 toothbrushes into a
> cubic foot, then just the transport cost to LEO would be $24.55.
> Double or triple that to get the cargo to L5 or some other habitat
> orbit.
If the haul from LEO to HEO is done by ships propelled by mass-drivers fuelled by slag from ore processing, rather than by upper stages brought up (and fuelled) from Earth, I should not expect double or triple price to HEO. Perhaps $24.55 to LEO and 24.57 to HEO. But I look at it in this way: a human masses fifty to one hundred kg - perhaps for reasons of launch costs only the slim and trim people need apply. If each person is permitted to bring with him luggage with a mass of the same order of magnitude as himself, how much underwear and how many toothbrushes will that allow?

Jon L. Beck.