automated refineries Forum: Spacesettlers
Thread: automated refineries
# 2890 byaglobus@... on May 23, 2002, 3:25 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Vacations to Europe or Hawaii were once only available to the very
rich. Today, most middle class families can afford them and a very
large fraction of the US population has gone to one, the other, or both
(including myself). Space tourism can get started with the very rich
(according to one poll 7% of all wealthy people in the US are willing to
pay $20 million for a two week vacation in space). As the market is
developed, costs should come down and such vacations will eventually be
within reach of a large fraction of the population (we hope).
> how likely is it that you're going to get millions
> excited about spending hundreds of thousands to millions to go on a
> vacation to L5?
The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html