Some Economic Activies

Well clearly it would be to their advantage to quickly become self
sufficient in food production, and in the manufacture of the necessities and
luxuries of their life there. Anything they can't produce will have to come
up out of that gravity well, at enormous cost. The list of these would
depend on their technology, but would almost certainly include electronics
of all kinds, from light bulbs to computer workstations; household goods
like appliances, furniture, and clothing (if they choose to adopt the custom
of wearing any; we've had that discussion before); pharmaceuticals and other
medical supplies. Since they're already out of Earth's gravity themselves,
they would want to manufacture to sell those things that other adverturers
in space will need: atmospheric gases, water, food, propellant, topsoil,
plus asteroid mining equipment, solar panels, radiation shielding, anything
that people coming up from earth to do business or explore in space will
need, because for them too, whatever they have to bring up the gravity well
will cost a bundle. Heck even President Bush figured that much out.

After that, you'd have to know the markets of the time. If certain elements
or chemicals are readily available in space but not on earth (platinum?
deuterium? gold?), these would certainly be worth the trouble to seek out
and refine. The economy of the first orbital colonies would resemble the
economies of the European colonies throughout the world 300 years ago: they
would be long on raw materials and short on manufactured goods, and the
first colonists to develop the skills or bring up the equipment to
manufacture something that no one else i nthe colony has been able to will
have a temporary monopoly, and could make a fortune.

>From: "babbler36"
>Reply-To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
>To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [spacesettlers] Some Economic Activies
>Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:18:37 -0000
>
>What type of economic acticies should the first space colonies engage
>in? I think the singluar idea of SPS is rather poor, and I think that
>in order for the space settlement project to get off the ground, we
>must find more economic activies for the settlers to do.
>
>Any ideas?
>

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