Space development investment ( StarBound)

> I tend to agree with Ron Menich on this one. Life in the first habitat
> may not be quite slave labor but it is not going to be fun. Maybe by
> the tenth things will smooth out. Look around your house. How many
> different types of toothpaste are in the bathroom? How many specialized
> cosmetics are on your wife's side of the bathroom?

None of these are high mass items. They will cost many times the normal
earth cost, but that's it.

And it may well be possible to take the essential ingredients with you
into space and make toothpaste from things you have when you get there.

e.g. toothpasts needs fluoride, take that in powder form and mix it
with cooking oil perhaps.

> How many different
> meals can you fix with a sack of flour?

Meals? None. But they are important ingredients to bread, pasta and noodles.

> How do you make a pair of shoes
> without leather?

Polymers. Cotton too if you can get it.

> The first colonists are going to have to avoid
> anything they cannot make themselves.

Yes, but these things won't be unavailable. These are not rocket science to make.
Good ones are difficult to make, adequate ones aren't hard.

> They will be lucky to have
> toothpaste and toothbrushes because there is going to be alot of
> priorities on the manufacturing system besides consumer goods. Anything
> brought up from Earth puts the colony deeper into debt. And then there
> are problems with how will the colony actually feel. Will it be dusty
> and dirty without a cleansing rain?

It's not difficult to make it rain. 'Rain' is important for crops anyway. It
may well be easier to make it rain in the whole habitat than only one or
two places. And don't forget that recondensing the water will be done
by the environmental system for you.

> The people who have been in
> Biosphere II look like they have been on a starvation diet when they
> come out. The humidity in Biosphere II is very high. What sort of mold
> and mildew will the first habitat have? We will try to engineer out
> some of these things but there are sure to be many other problems that
> could make life miserable.

A zero gravity, cold spot tends to collect water quite easily. Astronauts
in MIR found that out. Huge puddles caused solely by condensation...

Humidity is controllable by controlling temperature and the amount of
water in circulation. Biosphere II had poorer control of temperature
than you will have in space.

> Mitchell James

civilization?"