Gaia Selene

I'll start by shooting a hole in one thing I said:

"Once a NEO colony became established, it would be easier to
support, because everything needed would be right there in
abundance."

Aren't plastics made from petroleum? Would there be little or no
plastic at a NEO space city?

Baby steps:

The basic idea is that when you first set up shop at a NEO asteroid,
you start with the ability to manufacture a few basic types of
things, and everything else you need, you must carry with you from
Earth. (obviously) The thing that makes this work is if the things
that are hardest to make are generally small(like electronics and
medical supplies), and the most massive things must all be easy to
make(like structural steel and aluminum). It's best if all the
massive things needed are designed to use a minimal set of materials
and construction techniques.

Some items probably wouldn't fit into this scheme. Some things
might be a little bit complicated to make, and a little bit heavy.
(electric motors? Batteries?) Initially, use of these items would
be minimized as much as possible, but inevitably many would have to
be shipped from Earth, probably comprising a decent chunk of the
initial cost. As the complex matured, these would be added to the
manufacturing capability as soon as possible, in a carefully
prioritized order. Eventually only the smallest and most
complicated items would be sent from Earth.

My guess/hope is that the amount of materials needed from Earth is
in tons/year and not megatons/year, which reduces the amount of
returned goods needed for financial break even.

What would be the initial set of manufacturing capabilities? Does
anyone know what an asteroid ore gathering robot looks like? How
small can you make one? How do you make a solar-powered, space
blast furnace? You can't really answer the question "How much will
it cost?" until these questions are answered. But still, the
foundation for a good economy is ample energy and resources.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
>
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "flymuffins"
> wrote:
>
> > Yes, there would be some trade needed with Earth initially. but
not
> > on the order to support a cislunar infrastructure.
>
> Would you be so kind as to spell this out in baby steps for me,
for I
> don't understand how this could work. Honest request.
>
> > Just enough
> > goods to trade for the cpus needed for the next batch of mining
> > bots. Or something like that. And a couple SPS to repay the
> > initial equipment.
>
> Considering that powerplants are priced at $1/watt, a 10 GW SPS
would
> fetch you about $10 Billion. Let's say you have 10% profit, so a
> couple of SPS would net you about $2 Billion. Is that enough to
fund
> your pioneer drive? How much KE will be required to pilot the SPS
from
> the orbit of the NEO to LEO and to circularize it? How much will
that
> cost?
>
> Where will the microscopes in your doctors offices come from? How
> about tongue depressers, band-aids, guaze, hypo needles, examining
> table, stethoscope, etc.
>
> If the cpus come from Earth, will the LCD monitors be made at the
NEO?
> How about the hard drives, memory chips, motherboards, etc?
>
> How many people do you need to make a LCD factory pay its way?
>
> > But like colonies in the Americas, most goods
> > would be consumed locally.
>
> You mean like North Korea today?
>
> > In summary, it would definitely be far from Earth and yield hard
> > living at first, but the tight integration of resources, energy
and