Earth-Moon Network = Maturing Space Industries

[Trying again - now that I've registered for spacesettlers...]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, Jack Reynolds wrote:
> [...]
> Would a space station in orbit around the Earth (let's say LEO) make an
> asteroid mining project more feasible? More practical? Less expensive, for
> example? I strongly believe that an appropriate industrial infrastructure
> in space would go a long way to facilitating such projects. But potential
> industries in space are not limited to asteroid mining. What shape should
> this infrastructure take to support full-scale, space-based industries?
> What, in your opinions, should the physical elements of this infrastructure
> be? Are the four elements I enumerated below sufficient? Should they be in
> a different (chronological) order? Is there a better or different location
> for a station not listed below? Etc.
> [...]

The mix of full-scale space-based industries will probably look a
lot like the mix of Earth-based industries, with a few modifications for
the environment. So the best place to start is to look at what
the distribution of industries is by type in the US - the US Census
publishes a lot of statistics on this at:

http://www.census.gov/mcd/

and the 1997 economic census:

http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/econ97.html

There's a NAICS classification scheme to separate industries into
logical groups; similar groupings would likely apply in space.
For the 1997 data here are some high-level numbers:

Manufacturing by Subsector
Includes only establishments with payroll.

NAICS Description Estab- Value of Annual payroll Paid
lishments Shipments ($1,000) ($1,000) employees
31-33 Manufacturing 363,753 3,842,061,405 572,101,070 16,888,016
311 Food mfg 26,361 423,978,723 38,532,086 1,471,050
312 Beverage & 2,729 97,124,576 6,746,774 175,996
tobacco product mfg
313 Textile mills 4,706 58,804,269 10,099,969 393,914
314 Textile product 7,906 31,107,992 5,120,015 236,170
mills
315 Apparel mfg 17,065 68,428,564 12,748,228 719,269
316 Leather & allied 1,870 10,899,471 1,835,675 84,822
product mfg
321 Wood product mfg 17,411 89,211,563 14,401,357 574,426
322 Paper mfg 5,896 150,635,435 22,271,191 576,920
323 Printing & related 42,916 97,944,985 26,109,332 838,240
support activities
324 Petroleum & coal 2,155 176,217,259 5,554,842 107,878
products mfg
325 Chemical mfg 13,513 419,617,444 39,887,185 884,321
326 Plastics & rubber 16,876 160,317,732 30,028,561 1,029,976
products mfg
327 Nonmetallic mineral 16,385 87,010,210 16,271,427 504,443
product mfg
331 Primary metal mfg 5,095 170,188,704 24,069,436 611,714
332 Fabricated metal 62,501 243,254,492 57,040,954 1,774,874
product mfg
333 Machinery mfg 30,665 270,357,157 53,059,543 1,421,820
334 Computer & elect- 17,465 438,209,195 72,717,428 1,698,529
ronic product mfg
335 Electrical equip- 6,946 111,809,707 18,978,904 594,914
ment, appliance, &
component mfg
336 Transportation 12,980 571,979,634 79,649,337 1,848,558
equipment mfg
337 Furniture & 20,758 63,939,540 14,977,736 604,845
related product mfg
339 Miscellaneous mfg 31,554 101,024,753 22,001,090 735,337

You can sort that by value of shipments (Transportation, Computer &
electronics, food, chemicals, machinery, fab. metal, etc.) or by
payroll (Transportation, Computer & electronics, fab. metal, machinery,
chemicals, food, etc.) to get a rough idea of the most important
manufacturing industries to our sort of economy.

At a higher level we can compare the totals for manufacturing with
some numbers for the original extraction and services industries:
NAICS Description Estab- Value of Annual payroll Paid
lishments Shipments ($1,000) ($1,000) employees
11 Agriculture, ?
forestry, fisheries
21 mining 25,000 173,985,314 20,798,257 509,006
22 utilities 15,513 411,713,327 36,594,684 702,703
23 construction 656,434 858,581,046 174,184,604 5,664,840
31-33 mfg 363,753 3,842,061,405 572,101,070 16,888,016
42 wholesale trade 453,470 4,059,657,778 214,915,405 5,796,557
44-45 retail trade 1,118,447 2,460,886,012 237,195,503 13,991,103
48-49 transportation 178,025 318,245,044 82,346,182 2,920,777
and warehousing
51 information 114,475 623,213,854 129,481,577 3,066,167
52 finance 395,203 2,197,771,283 264,551,401 5,835,214
53 real estate, 288,273 240,917,556 41,590,766 1,702,420
rentals, leasing
54 prof. services 621,129 595,250,649 231,398,791 5,361,210
55 management 47,319 92,473,059 154,177,673 2,617,527
56 travel, security, 276,393 295,936,350 137,336,983 7,347,366
waste, other
administrative services
61 education 40,936 20,439,028 6,364,527 321,073
62 health care 194,420 551,540,258 378,205,694 13,561,579
71 Arts and recreation 99,099 104,715,028 32,787,273 1,587,660
72 hotels and rests. 545,068 350,399,194 97,007,396 9,451,226
81 other services 519,715 265,897,685 65,520,112 3,256,178
92 public administration ?

For the most part services will follow people; since they
make up such a large component of the economy, any
assumptions about a space economy need to first address
realistically how many people we expect up there.
Thousands? Millions? Billions? Some of them will be
there because of opportunities in industry, manufacturing,
or scientific laboratories, etc, but I suspect in the
near future most of the people in space will be there NOT for
their jobs, but just because they want to be. Tourists,
retirees, telecommuters, libertarian refugees etc.
If this number is substantial then a good portion of space
industry will be devoted to the services these people living
in space need: general manufacturing, health care, wholesale and
retail trade, finance and insurance, professional services,
construction, information, etc.

The difference between Earth and space industry will primarily
be the cost of mass transport (anything really heavy must be
manufactured in space, not transported up from Earth) and the cost
of labor (much higher in space than on Earth), so anything
light and labor-intensive will be made on Earth and transported
to space (most of the computer and electronics industry, financial
services, etc.) and anything heavy and capable of a high degree of
automation (mining, heavy manufacturing) will be done in space.
Heavy-mass/high-labor and light-mass/light-labor products will
probably be distributed about the same as they are now.

The transportation and energy businesses, in particular,
being on the heavy-mass/light-labor side, will definitely be heavily
weighted in space industry. All those people out there will want
to get around; more importantly they will want a steady and reliable
supply of all the amenities of life. Whether the actual material
comes from the Moon or asteroids, you're going to need a lot of
"trucking" capacity to get it to where it's needed. A more
detailed look at the distribution of industries will no doubt
inspire more concrete estimates of what to expect for a mature space
industry.

The particular sequence of projects Jack mentions are somewhat
irrelevant - we don't want just 1 or two "establishments",
but thousands. I do agree that it will be in Earth-Moon space
that space industry really gets going (as opposed to those who
somehow think we'll be able to create a complex self-sustaining
civilization on Mars with less than 10 settlers...)
The logical first steps are "hotels" for tourists
to stay, and for retirees to retire to, probably in LEO at first.
Industry and manufacturing will naturally follow the people.
Of course we need "Cheap Access To Space" first...

Arthur Smith (apsmith@...)