Lunar Solar Power Stations vs. The O'Neill Proposal

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ian Woollard

> Startup costs for Earth launched SPS is about $3-10 billion,
> and from what I've seen payback is about 3 years or so.
>
> Startup costs for lunar power is about $100+ billion.

Do you happen to have on hand the startup costs for GEO SPS derived from
lunar resources? I remember that O'Neill compared it to the costs for
the Alaska Oil pipeline, and I would think that would put it closer to
the lower numbers than to the higher one.

One of the things Criswell quoted back from the GD-Convair study (and
apparently what he uses for his comparisons) which didn't quite sound
right to me is that in a comparison of Earth-launched SPS vs.
lunar-derived SPS, costs were pretty much the same for the first 30
satellites, and that beyond that there was a slight price advantage for
the lunar resources option. I would rather have expected that use of
lunar resources would have made the first 30 satellites more expensive,
but beyond that point would achieve major cost reductions.

Regards,

Mike Combs