MEOW

Well, if you keep bombarding lead with neutrons, and doing
separations, and bombarding it with more neutrons, you can turn it
into gold. "Not all that much" is obviously a relative term: if you
could transmute lead into gold for free on the moon, with today's
launch costs I think you would be losing money. So let's apply the
same argument.

The cost of current-technology transmutation drives up the market
price and profitability of transmuted gold. If transmutation costs
come down, then the price of products and services made with
transmuted gold will also come down, and so will profitability.

Makes sense?

No. There are demand curves for the underlying goods and services.
Bringing the cost down either makes the difference between a cost
curve that's always above the demand curve, or leaves more room
between the cost curve and the demand curve. That room may or may
not constitute profit. What makes the difference there is the shape
of the cost curve: a cost curve where there are still economies of
scale being realized at the scale of the whole market is conducive
to monopoly and profit; otherwise, profit is just the pay for
capital and risk-bearing, which sell at the going rate.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "John Frazer"
>
> Xenophile wrote
> > This site argues that CATS is not needed to make use
> >of space resources.
> > http://www.permanent.com/ep-cheap.htm
>
> I fail to find holes in his arguments
>
> ~~~~~~~~~Quote~~~~~~~~~~~~
> the cost of space resources utilization is not all that much using
> today's launch costs... The actual launch costs of the equipment
to go
> out and mine an asteroid will not be the main cost item in the
project