Re: food from space

On Apr 24, 3:23 pm, "Mike Combs"
<mikeco...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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Nothing grows in deserts.  To make use of deserts requires a massive
engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
from asteroidal feedstock.

and

  I said
at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth.

As tremendous a booster of orbital habitats as I am, that's the part I have
a hard time accepting.


haha.. I logged in and fewer than 10 people looked at my stuff. A
month ago more than 1000 looked at my stuff. Don't know what
happened, but I guess today every person i'm talking to is 100x more
valuable to me! Thanks! lol.

So, respectfully I ask Why? Have you really looke at the numbers?

Look at the value of land on Earth and how it varies per unit area
with varying use. Different uses have different values. If those
values in space are greater than on Earth, there is no compelling
reason to do it in space is there?. If these values are less than on
Earth, there is a compelling reason.

So, let's look at the numbers and see what our target is?

The cost of an acre in Tokyo, or Manhattan, or London or Paris, or
Sydney, is such that you're paying many tens of dollars per square
foot. I think Dubai and Abu Dhabi,in places like the Palms and the
World islands,its in the hundred dollar per square foot range.

Even in outlying regions, the sub-urban regions dollars per square
foot for land is supported.,

Of course when you add improvements, values go up from there. Space
colonies and space stations.large pressure vessels, can incorporate
improvements that add value. With lots of sun and perfect weather,
with improvements like irrigation and so forth, the land is not likely
to be worth less than prime agricultural real estate in say Southern
California - which is in the ten dollars per square foot range
again.

Now, consider that acording to NASA researchers, productivity for
improved farmland in space is likely to be 10x to 20x that of the best
farms on Earth.

With telerobotics in MEO you'll be able to hire anyone anywhere to do
anything on orbit that needs done. So, there's a definite labor
advantage. You may also be contacted by anyone anywhere via satellite
communications.So there's a definite advantage in getting to market.

Improvements include unlimited power from solar sources, and unlimited
feedstocks from captured asteroidal fragments returned from deep space
which are a fixed capital cost not a rising recurring cost.

In a polar orbit, with GPS guided aeroshells launched from a low
velocity rail gun - to precisely place product anywhere on the Earth's
surface in 10 minutes or less. You therefore have direct access to
anyone on Earth within minutes. I used to work at the Ohio State
University. A friend of mine was a film professor there. They closed
down the film department. His wife was from the Phillipines. They
bought a coffee plantation and he spent his retirement building up
that plantation into an estate type specialty coffee. haha.. along
with working on some kick ass documentaries for Japanese and
Australian TV.

Anyway, since I had some experience in business, I helped him map out
a successful plan to improve production. The biggest stumbling block
for his plantation was access to markets. Nestle' used the
Phillipines as a source for low cost instant coffees. His plan
involved importing better grades of beans, and paying workers what he
considered a fair wage, and basically going around Nestle's lock on
the market. HIS success was seen as an impetus to other growers to
breakout of the Nestle' stranglehold - and since Nestle' had invested
heavily in plant and equipment that needed a certain volume of beans
at a certain price each year - to feed the largely European market -
well,things got quite interesting - haha - and became the subject of
one of my friends documentaries.

So, telling a farmer he not only has water, fertilizer, land sunlight,
good growing conditions all year round, access to labor no diseases or
pests of any sort and DIRECT access to EVERYONE EVERYWHERE ANY TIME -
with no hassles - wow... just wow... this is a REVOLUTION waiting to
happen! A freaking revolution!! Thatwill free small farm owners and
small business owners - from antedated systems of production and
distribution. Satellites will do for food and raw materials and
finished goods and consumer goods what they have done for
communications and weather.

In fact, I predict that as soon as a large number of independent
farmers are making money hand over fist on orbit delivering food
products to the top 20% of the market (pareto's principle - 80% of the
effect is caused by 20% of the market) - they'll arrange to GIVE AWAY
at reduced prices food to everyone for a variety of logistical reasons
having to do with production of food on orbit. THAT will change a
lot of things.

But I want to get back to your difficulty about price

I hope you can see that anything less than say $50 per square foot -
for a satellite based agriculture for all the reasons stated above,
will allow satellites to compete with the best farms on Earth.
Anything less than say $5 per square foot - for a satellite - with all
the advantages listed - will create a food revolution - putting nearly
all farms on Earth out of business, as everyone everwhere gets fat and
sassy on a food glut that will transform life on Earth.

Is $50 per square foot to $5 per square foot feasible?

Well, to understand that we have to look at how we're going to build
our pressure vessel how much it weighs, and where we get that material
and so forth.

The first thing to notice is that in land use some land has higher
value than others.

The second thing to notice is that when people do things for the very
first time - its more costly at first, and drops in price over time.
This is called the learning curve effect.

The third thing to notice when you do a thing, is to take note of the
fundamentals that are driving the costs - and see where they might
go. Moore did this with integrated circuits back in the 1960s - he
figured that investments into improving the fundamentals he outlined
in the range of 20% of sales - would permit a doubling of performance
in integrated circuits every 18 to 24 months - and that doubling would
continue for 80 years or so. This made computers for example from a
rarity in the 1960s to a home appliance b the 1980s. It has made the
internet possible, as well as HDTV, and soon, 3D-HDTV.

Looking at the fundamentals of rockets, and space manufacturing and so
forth, we see the potential for fundamental improvements in both -
beyond the learning curve effects.

What this means is that when large pressure vessels are made on orbit,
there will be an order of battle in their use. Highest value uses
will be done first, and as both fundamental improvements are made and
learning curve effects accumulate, they will naturally move to lower
value uses.

We have already seen that taking all uses into account, and improved
pressure vessel - one with water air energy and so forth - will likely
command premium pricese in whatever market it competes in, while
giving its owners or renters valuable economic and business advantages
in serving the world's markets in whatever area they're operating.

So, while farming won't be first use, it will eventually be A use,
once we start down the development and learning curve.

So, for orbiting pressure vessels to be competitive with land on Earth
we probably won't see anything more than $200 per square foot - and at
$50 per square foot - we'll definitely see a rout as businesses flock
to orbit. Farming as pointed out above will likely become interesting
at no more than $50 per square foot - and at $5 per square foot - all
farms everywhere on Earth will feel the pinch. If prices fall below
$0.50 per square foot for improved farmland - the food situation on
Earth will be transformed, and the cities of earth will dissolve as
farmers sell off their land and people build remote homes powered,
connected, and fed from space.

Now, the process I am proposing is that we send fission free nuclear
pulse spacecraft to the asteroid belt to survey the small bodies
there, and arrange to capture rich small bodies that are well suited
for exploitation and return them to Earth.

I have shown elsewhere with references, how boron can be used in an
inertial confinement fusion bomblet to energize with prompt gamma rays
well defined regions of an asteroidal surface - creating a plasma
flash that imparts thrust to the asteroid itself, giving it a small
acceleration pulse in a well defined direction.

Average exhaust speed is around 10 km/sec - and the delta vee required
from the asteroid belt into Medium Earth Polar Orbit - is about 7 km/
sec - we're not using aerobraking or anything like that. What I'm
doing is surveying thousands of small bodies close up, selecting the
one I want to move - and moving it wholesale. While the nuclear pulse
rocket is capable of achieving 1,000s of km/sec - when hauling an
asteroid, it uses its self- propelled bomblets in a controlled way to
'shepherd' the chosen asteroid into a minimum energy orbit toward
Earth and ultimately into Earth orbit. For safety's sake, none of the
small bodies will be greater than 100 meters in diameter.

The mass of these objects will average about 1.65 tons per cubic meter
and average 70 meters in diameter. So they average 296,330 tons - when
they arrive at Earth.

The total delta vee is 7 km/sec - and the body itself is the
propellant energized by the fusion bomblets - to an average speed of
10 km/sec - which means 50.34% of the total mass is energized in this
way. So, if we end up with 296,330 tons per asteroid, we start with
596,735 tons and vaporize 300,405 tons in a way that moves the
asteroid to where we want it. This requires 15.02e+15 joules of
energy. The process I am proposing is about 30% efficient. That
means 5e+16 joules of energy must be generated by the bomblets.

A ton of boron fused with protium releases about as much energy as 20
million tons of TNT. A ton of TNT releases 4.184e+9 joules. So, a
ton of boron fused with protium releases 8.368e+16 Joules.

So, less than 2 metric tons of boron base pulse units. The Earth
today produces over 1 million metric tons per year. Pure elemental
boron in bulk costs $2,500 per kg, or $2.5 milion. So, the boron
costs would be around $5 million. Protium is about $6 per kg in
liquid form, and adds very little to the cost of this fuel mix.

Fuel costs - in an efficient fusion propulsion system as I'm
contemplating here is about 20% of all operating costs. It plays less
of a role the more primitive the system. Fuel costs in modern
boosters run around 3% of all costs for a space launch. Higher
energy, higher value propellants and fuels, especially nuclear fuels,
have a far higher percentage of the total. It is very unlikely even
early systems would have fuel costs less than 10% of the total.

So, to move 296,330 tons into MEO willl like cost between $25 million
and $50 million - using the process I just desribed. In round numbers
$30 million for 300,000 tons. - that's $100 per metric ton to harvest
asteroidal materials and bring it to earth orbit.

fusion based nuclear pulse rockets can impart 10 km/sec to payloads
from Earth as well. With gravity and air drag losses combined with
the fact that gamma ray flashing off of bulk materials are likely not
to be used - the cost will actually be higher to lift items from
Earth. But those costs are likely to be no more than 3x what the
import costs are from the asteroid belt. So, we're talking with this
rocket technology, $300 per metric ton - to lift things from Earth.

Looking at the logistics and requirements for building up a farm on
orbit inside a pressure vessel, we'll likely have no more than 15% of
the total mass arrive from Earth -with the balance processed
asteroids. That 15% includes the telerobots and tooling and factories
and so forth - to process the asteroids into pressure vessels and all
the other components needed for a space farm.

This means that each ton will be 0.85 x $100 + 0.15 x $300 = $130 per
metric ton

Now, you can get different costs with different assumptions, but here
i am assuming a specific fusion ICF propulsion unit in a certain class
of ship - a 2,000 ton payload small-size ship - that flies at 1 gee to
the asteroid belt in a few days, spends a few days surveying hundreds
of objects, and picks the best object to shepherd back to Earth after
outfitting it for inner solar system transit (putting on a reflector)
- a similar ship based on Earth, meets the asteroid, and shepherd's it
safely into the desired orbit, and deposits a 1,500 ton manufacturing
cell on its surface - with a crew of 30 - and a complement of 500
telerobots.

Now, what does a square foot weigh?

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/II-1.html

In this design about 0.3375 metric tons per square meter. They have
53 metric tons per person and 157.1 sq m per person - this is 337.5 kg
per squae meter.

There are about 4050 square meters per acre - so, we're talking about
1,365 metric tons per acre. At $130 per metric ton - we've got
$177,450 per acre. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre - so we're
at $4.07

So, this process is very interesting! We're more competitive than
downtown New York, given the 20x increase in productivity possible on
orbit, we've got the equivalent of prime California real-estate -
irrigated and supplied with fertilizer and such - for less than
$10,000 per acre - given the global access to market - these farms
ought to do quite well for a developer!!

Now, this estimate for the acreage cost is based on a 10,000 person
habitat that NASA designed to be optimized for human habitation. It
is not optimized for farming along the lines I've described. When
one takes that into account, we might see a factor of 3 - off the bat
- and with learning curve effects - a factor of 10.

So, our initial 'manhattan' style habitat will cost $4.07 per square
foot -when built in the manner described - and a 'farm' style habitat
will cost $1.40 per square foot. Fresh out of the box. More mature
systems will range from $1.00 to $0.35 per square foot - depending on
design. More mature systems made with more mature SPACE systems that
reduce the cost of a ton to MEO by building better rockets operated
more efficiently will produce habitats that range from $0.10 to $0.04
per square foot.

These last prices will promote a mass exodus from Earth - just like
free land in Oklahoma spawne the 'sooner' state! It will also
promote the development of long growing crops - like forests - to
provide fiber for humanity across the solar system.

It has been said, because it is true, that energetically, Earth orbit
is halfway to anywhere - when looking at minimum energies. This makes
it an ideal place to gather resources to be molded by human time and
attention - into useful products that are distributed on Earth, on
orbit, and beyond.

Creating a ring of habitats, in a controlled polar orbit, sun
synchronized to be constantly in sunlight, where the ring overflies
the entire Earth twice a day, provides a productive center off-world,
with easy access to low cost labor telerobotically - and easy access
to markets.by JDAM style re-entry vehicles launched by low velocity
rail guns. higher velocity cannons shoot products to the moon and
beyond.

This will transform the Earth as mines, smelters, refineries,
factories, farms and industrial forests move off-world while reducing
their costs aind increasing their output. People move far from cities
to homes that receive power from space, communications from space, and
products from space. People work telerobotically anywhere including
oribt, and the emergence of personal ballistic vehicles, powered by
hydrogen/oxygen rockets in the low atmosphere and solar pumped lasers
at higher altitudes - with the laser beams arriving from space -
anyone can travel anywhere in 42 minutes or less.

So, cities dissolve, as people occupy former farms, and the Earth
becomes one vast natural preserve. People communicate instantly
anywhere, and travel anywhere in minutes through the skies in silent
pollution free VTOL spacecraft.

As costs of on orbit 'land' decreases over time, more and more people
elect a second home on orbit, ultimately,making orbit their primary
home, and retaining a second home on Earth. Finally, fewer and fewer
people remain on Earth, and as propulsion costs drop, and savings and
investments accumulate, while robotic labor becomes more capable,
people begin moving beyond Earth orbit in their own personally owned
space colony - and population on and around Earth begins its
inevitable and final decline.
.

Regards,
Mike Combs
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