Re: Business and commerce in space.
- From: "Mike Combs" <mikecombs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:44:10 -0500
"kT" <cosmic@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0b490241-2d1c-4676-8091-d9ed0786cf9f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Actually, the bodies that you are talking about are much deeper in the
solar system. As far as I know there is no confirmed extinct comets
with any significant water content in the inner solar system, as you
say, they are 'theorized'.
Maybe. I know that even common CC type asteroids can be up to 20% water by
weight. A significant fraction of NEAs are of the CC type.
Ceres has a confirmed pristine OCEAN of
water ice.
Pristine? I don't see why anybody would expect it to be pristine.
Furthermore, any low water content material will have to be processed
in low or zero gravity, which is problematic, whereas Ceres has a
great very low housekeeping gravity. What happens on Ceres stays on
Ceres.
You've heard of centrifugal force, yes? There's no reason to pass up
asteroids with much lower round-trip delta V's just for < 3% gravity. A
pretty modest centrifuge could do much better than that.
Being sold to what customers where?
To costumers in orbit about Ceres, for starters, in other words, me.
In other words, you're begging the question. Not in the more-recent misuse
of the phrase, but in the sense of it's orginal meaning: Assuming the
existence of the thing you're trying to establish as part of the proof to
establish it.
You're talking logistics. What you're being asked is: What's your
business
plan?
Build an RLV test bed that doubles as a space colonization enabler. It
appears that will require a second generation SSME, but we've already
got 14 SSMEs in hand to start that process immediately.
No, we're not asking you about your spaceship design. We're asking how the
first Ceres colonist will balance their trade. And with what export to
which market?
Don't get me wrong. In the long run, I'm sure the Belt will be the major
locus of economic activity in the Solar System. But the process has to
start with business proposals which serve existing markets. Right now the
only customer in existence is the Earth. Therefore, it's only logical to
assume the process will start out much closer to Earth, and will only move
as far out as the Belt when the space economy has grown to the point that
Earth is no longer the only significant trading partner.
--
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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