An Event of Possible Interest to UK Spacesettlers

On Aug 9, 2012, at 9:02 AM, Combs, Mike wrote:

> > Naturally most of us in this group want to live in O'Neill type
> habitats but until human economics improves somewhat we may have to
> settle for the Moon or Mars.
>
> This seems to assume that building permanent human settlements on
> the moon or Mars will be cheaper than in orbital space. This is a
> near-universally-held assumption throughout the space community, but
> I always question it when I see it.
>
> The costs of getting back and forth between where we presently sit
> and a high Earth orbit will certainly be less than for getting back
> and forth between here and the lunar or Martian surface. This is
> going to strongly affect labor and maintenance costs.
>
> The cost of energy in high orbit will be much less than on the lunar
> or Martian surface (and less than present Earth surface costs,
> too). That's going to strongly affect manufacturing costs.
>
> I suppose the entire debate hinges on the costs for getting raw
> materials to the construction site.
>
Which are very low if you are building next to a NEO.