What if.......?

Greetings all,

I leave town for a few days and look what happens, all this activity,
so much to answer, so few keystrokes ;-)

Looking over posts of the two weeks I have seen a lot of really good
threads and some very diverse opinions. So in the interest of
stirring the pot I propose to throw a few meaty ideas out to see if I
can get a bite, so don't disappoint me, please! Now like everybody
else, I will preface my comments with the unfortunate fact that all
that follows is predicated on a drastic drop in the cost of launching
a kilogram into orbit. Without cheap access to orbit it will be a
long time before any of these things happen, also my comments are very
general and I know that they will change with circumstance.

Okay, to start, a while ago I discussed with Mike what I thought was
the problem that some, not all of the people pushing the idea of
orbital habitats have with looking at reality, they seem to believe
that life in a habitat is going to be some kind of paradise on Earth
or rather above Earth. That all the troubles and problems that plague
us down here will magically disappear as soon as they move into their
new habitat. They might get the advantages of a large city while
having a back yard that looks out over a rustic idle but there is no
way it will be Shangri-La. This is not to say that many of the people
thinking about and more importantly working towards a real habitat are
not competent and realistic, just that the other kind make for better
news stories by some ignorant, malicious or lazy reporters. My point,
just that somebody emphasising the utopian and glossing over the
difficulties is an easy target for the people or groups that don't
want habitats or in some cases any kind of presence in space.

A lot of the posts have been asking just why we want to have habitats,
this is a pretty fundamental question and is one of those questions
that really has no real answer, no matter how many reasons we can come
up with I will guarantee that there is as many others that we won't
think of, as well as uses that will only become obvious after we have
a working habitat in place and people confronting the day to day
issues and taking advantage of the opportunities that arise. On the
other side of the coin for every reason you can come up with to go to
space, somebody will have one not to do it. But I'm preaching to the
choir, aren't I?

If you'll just indulge me for a moment and let me put forward a few
hypothetical options, I'd like to know what you think, although let's
face it this message has already be written and sent so you don't
really have a choice 8>).

First the question(s).

What do you do in space, what use is a habitat(s) and do we want/need
a space based civilisation?

This is to a large extent a question of cost with a large dash of
politics and ideology. Over the years I've given this subject a LOT
of thought and without going into a huge amount detail I think that
what you basically have is a sliding scale with two main variables,
the cost of the actual launch, that is the cost of fuel and the amount
of fuel needed to get each kilo of mass into orbit. And then you have
the cost of the infrastructure, the cost to build the launch vehicle,
the launch site, any ground crew and other turnaround costs. I know
that they seem to be part of the same thing but launch costs benefit
just the fuel supplier and rocket builder, while infrastructure costs
can be offset with the money flowing into the surrounding population
and the possibility of political support to keep local voters happy.
With the current space shuttle the costs are so high that the idea of
a large habitat with a population of around that of a large town is
simply ludicrous, this is the high end of the scale and at this end
the answer to the question is simple, "What habitat?". As we slide
down the scale asking what is the use of a habitat will give you a
much broader range of answers. If we manage to get the costs down to
where Mike is aiming for in the near future of a ten fold reduction of
current costs, say down to around $1000/Kg then you are looking at
limited possibilities, tourism and power satellites being the most
obvious. Then as the cost drops you will find more things becoming
economical but let's consider a real science fiction option, if the
costs dropped down to just a few dollars a kilo or even less than a
dollar a kilo then the question becomes what is it you wouldn't do in
orbit.

Down at the bottom of the cost scale you could move entire industries
into orbit, not just the things in the list that Larry posted but
anything that is dangerous or dirty or maybe even illigal (I'm not
promoting, just pondering). And here is where you run into trouble.
Just suppose for a moment that you could do it, you had just
invented/discovered a way to put whatever you want into orbit at a
cost of less than a dollar a kilo. What do think is going to happen?
At first there will be a lot of noise and excitement, people like us
(well me at lest) will start to pack our bags and you will get offers
of funding from everywhere. You put together a consortium, draw your
plans for a modest habitat/work platform (to fund further work), find
a launch site, gather your workforce and begin to build your city in
the sky. Then people will start to think about and understand just
what could, I must stress COULD, not would happen. The worlds
military would start to think about having somebody standing above
them with the ability to hit them almost without effort, the airlines
would understand that if you can get to orbit in ten minutes you can
go from Sydney to New York in thirty, the mining industry would
understand that you could undercut them on price and that the green
groups would be screaming why hasn't it happened already, one half of
the anti-technology loonies will be sharpening their knives and
waiting for a chance, the other half will be stirring up the all of
the others I mentioned and telling them about how evil you are,
because if they don't stop you now then they will never have the
1800's again and the current space industry will be thinking about how
you killed their golden goose. Did I miss anybody? Probably but you
get the idea, now without wanting to sound like a conspiracy nut I
think anybody wanting to build a habitat is going to have problems
that have nothing to do with launch costs or building a better rocket.
The launch costs are going to be smaller than the legal costs.

Some of the forum have been talking about the best way to build a
habitat and it seems that everybody wants to build it from scratch.
There are a lot of large and not so large lumps of metal out there,
why not start with them and reshape to suit. Instead of building your
habitat and coating the outside with slag from your asteroid mining
operation, why not hollow out and reshape the outside of a largeish
lump of metal and as you mine, you make your habitat bigger. You may
have to reinforce the shell to handle the strain but that should be
possible.

And for my last thought before heading off to steal a little sleep,
one very good way to pay for your habitat besides tourism, mining and
power generation, how about this, if you can get launch costs down to
where a habitat is possible then you go into the freight and transport
business. It should be cost effective to ship people and most
non-bulk goods by way of sub-orbital shuttle and maybe even bulk
goods, if the cost is low enough. Talk about fast delivery, you could
post a letter or parcel here in Australia and have it arrive in Europe
or the US the day before it was posted.

Please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors, it's late (here)
and I was up early.

Darren Brown.