Monetary systems, brand death, and repatriation of profits

victoriatangoman wrote:

> Now, if habitats become bastions of the corporations, there'll be
> three economies. The export economy, i.e. SPS energy beamed to
> earth. The replacement economy, i.e. selling propellant and oxidizer
> in LEO - this economy would really be a subset of the export economy
> because we're not fully exporting to earth, we're servicing them
> when they come to our territory, thereby replacing the fuel that
> they would have to bring with them, but by doing this we're
> transferring wealth from their society to ours. And lastly, there
> would be our domestic economy.
>
> So how do the corporations make their money? They earn it
> domestically (for them that means earth-bound) from our energy
> exports and from a postive balance of payments by supplying us with
> more costly imports compared to our less efficient export of habitat
> manufactured products. After-all who on earth will care a whit for
> our hemp fiber clothes.

I think by the time that there are significant people upstairs
there will need to have been dramatic reduction in the cost of
launch.

The costs to launch are not going to be unreasonable, long
term: skyhooks, (maybe space elevators), and/or conventional
rockets, anyway the costs are going to come down; way down.

Below $500/lb appears very possible soon, below $200/lb quite
possible according to cost models I've run- lower than that
is probably doable also.

Last time I checked in 2001 we are at $1200/lb; my theory
shows halving of costs every 5 years (right now the theory
is probably off a little, the Iridium debacle has had a very
chilling effect on the Space Industry, and the cost, but I am
confident it will sort itself out before 2006.)

Therefore tourism, people going into space to mine asteroids-
once you get to LEO, I personally believe you are much closer
than half way to anywhere. Space hotels are going to be needed-
that probably implies space construction, and maybe prospecting.

And other exports- platinum metal, gold, iron; these are fairly
trivial if man can reach a suitable NEO- returning material to
earth is pretty trivial in comparison to getting there. (I
don't buy O'Neills swiss banker argument at all- rolling
downhill is pretty cheap, so you do it for anything there is
a market for on earth.

Also, building stuff on orbit means you use 100% latest tech.
That means that the unit costs to build something are going to
hopefully start off lower than on earth; that in turn means you
can turn return on investment from day 1. Investors like that.

Delivery is fun too. Pick an empty spot a few tens of km across
anywhere on earth. We deliver! 30 minutes? [ok, ok a bit
longer in practice, but in that case free pizza thrown in as
well, atleast it should be hot when it arrives! ;-) ]

> Looing forward to your thoughts on these issues.

It's an interesting theory you have; the combination of a
lot of people in space and high launch costs, I can't get
that point though.

--
- Ian Woollard (ian.woollard@...)

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding
technological civilization?"
- Gerard O'Neill