Re: Business and commerce in space.

"Martha Adams" <mhada@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eQ4Pj.5099$i45.3565@xxxxxxxxxxx

Why Ceres? Would you place your first settlement there?

I think the attraction to Ceres is a kind of planetary chauvinism. Sort of
like: "It's the biggest of the asteroids, therefore it's more like a planet
and less like some little rock floating in space". But if anybody embraces
asteroids, it should be for embracing the concept that smaller bodies are
better than larger ones for having shallower gravity wells (reducing import
and export costs).

Would
there be an already-established business network among settlements
more near Terra?

A sensible question. The near-Earth asteroids make more sense for
exploitation than Main Belt bodies in the near-term. And even though the
moon lacks certain elements available in asteroids, it will have the
advantage of closeness to the initial market.

Some people try to answer the question of where the first space settlements
will go by asking what place has the greatest availability of materials
needed for life-support, and then calculate that this would be the surface
of Mars. But the first space settlements will spring up wherever the
initial business opportunities lie. Distance to the market is of primary
importance (though in this case it's more a matter of delta-V than linear
distance), and at the start of the process the only market in existence will
be Earth.


--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole
prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all
human beings... It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that
any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.

Ronald Reagan at Westminster Abbey, 1982


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