economics of bootstrapping (was New Book on Space Colonies)

> Your comments above are snide. If you had read the post, and if you
> haven't then go back and read that last paragraph, you'll see that I
> wrote this: "I should note that I don't include satellite based
> business proposals as space-based, just those that propose to
> conduct their activity in orbit."

Oops, I missed that in your post (it was quite long...) My
apologies, though I don't quite understand why you don't
consider satellite-based ventures to be "space based".

SpaceDev is in a different category though, and seems to be
doing ok.

> These businesses conduct their
> economic activity on Earth and they are not bootstrapping in any
> fashion. (Look at the title of the post for a hint of its content.)

I'm afraid with the volume of posts I'd been skimming, and missed
this point. So the business plans in question are for an operation
whose customers are already in space, not something that sells
directly to Earth? I'm not sure what you mean by "bootstrapping" -
but I think I saw something by Andrew Case here on that so
I'll refrain from further comment until I've had a chance to
read more carefully.

Arthur