If we build it, what surprises will we find.

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Ravenart@a... wrote:
> Personally, I think this topic is making moutains out of
molehills. However,
> as I see it, the banks are too conservative for such a high-risk
venture
> (which is not really that risky at all).

Having spent years in the banking, finance and VC industry I can
tell you that banks are working exactly as they should. They're
looking after their depositor's money. They're not in the business
of taking on risk. The reward of fixed interest payments is
sufficient for banks considering the level of risk they are taking
on most loans. The proper place to get capital for risk ventures is
the capital market. Go to a VC, but be aware that they have a
plethora of competing proposals and right now space ventures don't
offer the reward that most terrestrial ventures can offer.

Now if you put together a capital pool funded by like minded
individuals who are completely willing to risk the entirety of their
investment, and if that capial pool is sufficient to actually get
something commerical working in orbit, then your group may be the
one to ignite the space industrialization trend. All it takes is a
capital pool of sufficient size to fund a project that is too risky
for most investors. So, of course you're not applying standard
financial risk analysis to the project. Your criteria is different.
If you're willing to lose the whole few billion, or more precisely
the $100,000 that each of you has put up, then you'll might win the
crap shoot.

What's needed is to create our own
> banks. One of the ideas I have suggested at National Space
Society last year
> is a need for Near Earth Deveoplement Bank made up of people with
assests who
> are willing to study business plans and to make loans or grants to
worthwhile
> plans.

I don't think there are too many private financial institutions that
make grants to business's. That's usually the purvue of Big
Government that most Libertarians are against.

You probably won't find loans for these ventures either. It'll be a
situation of "put your money where your mouth is" where believers
will put up the money to fund the plan and be willing to lose it as
well as expecting to profit handsomely when it hits the motherlode.

I do believe that colonies can be independant of earth for a simple
> reason that it's cheaper to draw on reasources from space than
from earth.

Yes, if those resources are needed in space and, and this is a big
AND, if you have the infrastructure in space to transport and
process those resources. For instance, there's lots of silicon on
the moon and on asteroids, but that doesn't make it any easier to
get a Pentium Chip.

> Also, the really expensive part of colonization come at the very
beginning
> with sharp learning curve. But once the structure is up and
running, then
> the costs will fall fast.

Absolutely agree with you on this observation. 100%

But the politics and conservative nature of banks
> are the reason why I'm learning to start business and creating
assets in the
> markets we have now. If you want to go into space, you need to
create a
> postive cashflow today and to set up network of alike minded
businessmen so
> that when the window for exploitation of space open you'll be
ready to seize
> the chanch.

You're absolutely right, and doing the smartest thing to position
yourself. More power to you. Good thinking.

>
> Now as for the future, the way I see it is that once you have 10
million to
> one billion people living and working in space, you wll have an
economy that
> is so robust because everything will be new and different in a
radical
> eniveroment and the resource will be almost entirely space-based
that it will
> cause a major depression on earth with real estate, earth-based
engery
> stocks, and major industrial stocks to collapse because their
resources are
> no longer in heavy demand.

I agree with the first part of your statement where there will be a
new robust economy for the habitats. But the fact that there will be
an economic collapse on earth I can't agree with. If I want a house
in Hawaii or New York, or Paris, the prices of that real estate
won't be effected by habitat real estate prices. Energy stocks I can
see actually increasing, because if SPS hold true to their promise,
the cost of energy distribution will decrease, and the costs of
generation will approach zero, as well as reducing the requirements
for the whole transportation network for feeding natural gas, coal,
oil, etc into the power generation plants. With the reduced cost of
energy, there'll probably be more demand and the industries will be
leaner therefore the strongest company will fluorish. I don't
understand why the industrial stock prices would collapse with a
robust Habitat economy in place. How will the goods manufactured in
space be transported to terrestrial markets? That'll be such a huge
cost compared to the efficiencies gained from space-based
manufacturing, that space based products that have terrestrial
manufactured counterparts will never be able to compete on price.

The socialitic nature of states with welfare, too
> many laws and regulation, and heavy pork projects will make it far
worse.

Maybe, but which of the laws are redundant? The ones you don't like
or the ones that you see a need for? How about the guy who disagrees
with you on the value of some law or another. Don't get me wrong -
I happen to think that the whole politico-economic system is
corrupt, pretty much the world over, but a technological society is
a complex society, and the price of living with the benefits of our
technical society is putting up the complexities

Welfare states. Big problem. But what are you going to do? Let
people starve. You could, just be aware of the consequences. People
won't willingly starve. They'll do whatever it takes to survive. No
welfare state will lead to the costs of keeping those people alive
being shifted from the tax payers, to the individual who is mugged,
robbed, embezzled, and the companies that are the victims of
shoplifting, robbery, etc, and their insurance companies, and those
costs will get passed on to you, just in the form of higher prices,
which won't be as easy to identify as looking at a state budget and
finding the costs of the welfare department. It's all a matter of
policy choices. We could do away with welfare states. And as an
aside, there aren't any full employment economies anywhere. So it's
not as simple as saying everyone should have a job. And to tell you
the truth, I seriously doubt that everybody on welfare is
employable. Some people, nobody will want to hire. Evenutally, in
order to survive, they turn to crime, end up in prison, and there's
no way that's going to be cheaper than welfare. And do you think
they'll be more employable when they get out of prison.

It
> will not be the end of the world but it will certainly mean the
end of big
> government as the depression will force the people to vote with
their feet
> into space, provide that the space economy is far freer with
governments
> basically next to zero.

If the earth actually falls into a depression, do you think people
will actually have the money to pay for a ticket to the habitats at,
let's be generous, a cost of $500 per pound.

No, the Habitats will flourish because they'll attract the brightest
minds, and most adventurous spirits - the ones who are attracted to
the idea of the frontier, of building a new world, a new society and
they'll have to be of use to us, so they'll have skills and talents
that we require.

It's unlikely that there'll be too many people in need of welfare in
the Habitats. So the whole migration to space will be a mild
Eugenics movement.

My question to you: Do you think that there will be free migration,
so that anyone who wants to go will be able to or do you think that
there will be a selection process, where specific people are hired
or invited or selected from a group that applies to immigrate?

After15 to 50 years of shake out, the earth economy
> will be rebuild on a far different foundation that give people
more freedom
> and almost nonexisted government much like the 19th century
America but
> without Lincoln's government.
>
> Carl Mullin

On the contrary, those living in Habitats are going to have to
depend on each other more so than any society on the face of the
earth. Keeping that Habitat functioning is going to require a very
technical society and a lot of interdependence of skills. That'll
entail government. You'll have laws curtailing your freedom that are
unheard of on someplace on earth. Right now I can go and take a
jackhammer and drill right through my driveway, and no government
will stop me. Now if you were suicidal, and living in a habitat, do
you think your government will allow you to drill through the
pressure hull. I know it's an outlandish example, but I'm sure we
could come up with a plethora of examples if we set out mind to it.

On a more humourous note, after I'm firmly established in my
Habitat, and we're living our nice happy lives, I'd love to watch
from afar as a group of Libertarians got together, bought a Habitat,
and tried to live with no governing body. As long as they didn't
come too close to us, it would be interesting to watch how they'd
try to govern a 21st or 22nd century society with a "living off the
land" "Don't Thread on me" political philosophy of the 18th and 19th
centuries. The simplicity of those days is long gone.