Re: food from space

On Apr 25, 2:14 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 24, 12:14 pm, "Mike Combs"

<mikeco...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Maybe.  I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical for
sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to Earth;
given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition you have to
undersell is food rocketed up from Earth.  Space food fired off to Earth
would have to compete with Earth food.

But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era... maybe.
Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global agriculture
collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.

--

Regards,
Mike Combs

What?  You mean that $25,000 per head of lettice from space is too
spendy.  Who would have guessed that Mook LEO grown produce wouldn't
become all the rage.
. - Brad Guth

I can get a bag of spinach leaves ready for tossing into a salad for
$2.15 at Trader Joes. The farmer gets $0.15 of that. Everyone in the
supply chain gets the balance. Produce growing area on orbit for 1/2
the price the farmer now pays for land (without property taxes!) and
increase his productivity by 20x - and reduce his labor cost to 1/3 -
and he is happy to charge $0.05 per bag - ready to go. Now, figure
out how to deorbit that bag of lettuce and drop it to where its needed
on Earths surface - within a centimeter - for another $0.05 - and
you've delivered the product for $0.10 - charge those who are now
buying a bag of spinach leaves for $2.15 at trader joes (plus taxes)
$1.00 - and point out its harvested just minutes ago in the field -
nothing fresher - and take $0.50 to buy five bags of lettuce from our
farmer and deliver them to people with butkas to pay - and pocket
$0.50 for your troubles - perhaps investing in other aspects that are
growing because people aren't going ape*** over food.

.

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