Two spheres

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Joe" wrote:
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 23:42:37 -0000
> From: "George Perkins"
> Subject: Two spheres
>
> > We have clearly two fields of influence. One are the fruits,
> > altruistic, must-do-it now, government dependent type space
obsessed
> > freaks. The other are serious mainstream business investors.
>
> Given. Every field of human endeavor attracts fruits; but space
> advocacy seems to attract very noticeable ones.
>

Ah, but space development is most likely to attract serious business
investors, unlike the Mars and moon enthusiasts. That's where you
have the best chance of making it.. and where settlers have the best
chance of thriving instead of just surviving.

> > The former are brain tunneling themselves towards moon and Mars.
> > They depend on philanthropists and government leaders to get to
> > their Paradisiacal vision of scruffing on hazardous terrain in a
> > rocksucking world.
>
> > The later has no preference except to make a good profit.
>
> Okay, I'll give you the latter; but I think the fruits come in too
many
> flavors to be so easily summed up. remember Roton? Also, don't
dismiss
> everyone eager to head to Luna or Mars as a fruit; some of them do
have
> pretty clever ideas.
>

Remember the first attempts at air flight? LOL!

But this is space. It already has a head start. There's nothing
super new here. We've walked and we're walking more - we're really
far ahead of the moon/Mars idiots.

> > To attract the investors we've got to have a good thing.. some
great
> > money-making highly profitable opportunity.
>
> > Sitting in space isn't good enough. We have to have something
that
> > will sell.
>
> Also given; incidentally, has anyone here been keeping up with the
> metallic glass research? They seem like a really cool family of
> materials that are just utterly impossible to manufacture under the
> influence of gravity. I've heard pundits say that materials from
space
> can never be a paying proposition, with certain very low mass and
high
> value items as potential exceptions (He-3, for example), but the
metal
> glasses give me hope. Whether or not platinum family metals will
sell
> on Terra at reasonable prices may yet depend on demand for platinum
> being created - by, for example, a hydrogen fuel cell based energy
> economy.

Good.

Yes, the liquid metal looks very good to me. I like it.

He-3 would be easier and more profitable extracted from asteroids
than the moon.

Platinum Group Metals have a bright future. Earth miner can't
realisticly compete with space miners and the picture only gets more
exciting when Platinum prices plummet. Imagine Platinum batteries
at your local store, for example. At the start we make a killing
and hold tight to the product.

No problem.

>
> > Economically, space is much more cost effective than choking on a
> > big rock. The positive flip side to a positive cheap existence
is
> > dynamite products and services.
>
> Agreed - if you are talking about planetary sized bodies. For me
the
> critical consideration is the Delta-V from the surface of the body
to
> its C3=0 orbit. To me, then, Luna makes a certain amount of
sense; as
> do Phobos, Diemos, Vesta, Ceres, & etc.
>

You need to study up on your Delta-V's, friend.

http://www.cygo.com/asteroidway.shtml

> > Ideally, stuff already in HUGE demand on earth that we can make
and
> > sell or carry-out or perform better than earth yet sell at a
lower
> > price and/or afford a better profit potential for any
participating
> > wholesalers and distributors.
>
> > A good, highly appealing, product mix is naaded.. not just one
> > product. Most new businesses never succeed with just one
product.
>
> Absolutely! A 'Killer App' for space manufacturing (like you
allude to
> in your first paragraph above) would be GREAT, but even in the
absence
> of such an advantage, space should offer a wide variety of goods
and
> services. Some will fail. Others, we can hope, will succeed.
>

Agreed.

So we start with say 20-100 products and as we go along we add more
and get more experimental with our R&D.