Re: Questions about "The High Frontier"
- From: Monte Davis <monte.davis@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:27:21 GMT
Troy <tac_aeon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Money is being generated by space infrastructure every day. Satellite
TV, weather forecasting and GPS. Even National Geographic specials of
Mars. Earth is the ultimate market...
You gloss over a very big distinction.
*DATA* gathered in, sent from, or transmitted via space has been
generating wealth for 40+ years... because
1) A single commsat, weather sat, navsat, etc can serve many users (so
its costs are widely spread)
2) Once it's in orbit, it needs no resupply and nothing material has
to come back to earth
3) Moore's Law has steadily increased function & reliability per kg,
and thus value per launch dollar
But the minute you start talking about space resources *other* than
data, one or more of those advantages is weakened:
For anything manned, you're talking about resupply if it lasts very
long, and (presumably) safe re-entry even for a short orbital jaunt,
with all the mass ratio penalty associated with the latter. Nor can
habitable volumes and life support equipment be expected to shrink the
way satellite circuitry has.
Even for supposedly ultra-high-value lunar He3, and for beamed power
from SPsats, you're talking about very large amounts of equipment in
place before the first dollars of return start flowing. O'Neill was
surely right that use of in situ resources would help a lot, but High
Frontier fans have spent 30+ years grossly underestimating the mass
and complexity of the "seed" needed to get lunar mining and
manufacturing going... just as the Zubrinistas do for a
self-sustaining Mars colony, and asteroid miners do for their
operations.
I'm not saying thse things won't or can't happen; I think they will.
I'm saying that until we have much cheaper accessto space, it's
rhetorical flimflam to slide (as you do) from "space *DATA* makes
money now" to "other space resources can make money Real Soon Now."
As for the "Statue of Liberty" argument -- that a lot of people will
pay a lot simply to visit space -- we shall see. I agree that there
will be money in that; whether it will be *enough* money to drive down
launch costs quickly is an open question.
.
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