Re: Billions For The Bankers

Mark <i@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 15 Sep 2009 18:57:55 GMT, fburton@xxxxxxx (Francis Burton) wrote:

The main point is though, that we're not limited to just one
planet any more.

They would have to be very valuable resources for it to be worthwhile
mining on other planets!

They would to be shipped back directly to Earth, yes. Current deltavee
costs for a mission from Earth mean that even were the Moon covered in a
layer of cut diamonds and all you had to do was take a bucket and spade,
you couldn't run it at a profit. Economically speaking, the only thing
that currently looks in the ballpark of qualifying is Helium 3 mined
from the Moon for fusion reactors on Earth.

I'm optimistic though that even if the Giant Government Bureaucracies
continue to launch missiles at the Moon, private industry will be forced
to build spaceplanes for tourists. Eventually that will get weight cost
to orbit down, and once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhwere in
the solar system in deltavee terms.

Nevertheless, apart from some oddities in microgee manufacturing that we
can't do on Earth (optics and materials look most likely) material
resources harvested in space or on other bodies will be used entirely to
supply and resupply bases and infrastucture in space, mainly because it
costs a hell of a lot to loft them from earth. First use will be mining
lunar regolith to cover a lnar base and at as a radiation shield. Sooner
or later robots will mine Mars to make fuel for visiting astronauts to
get around and even to get back to Earth. The only real import to Earth
for a while will be solar power beamed down from solar power satellites.

In the longer term, some of the exotic carbon materials are only an
order of magnitude short in the strength needed to put up beanstalks
(lifts to geostationary orbit and beyond). Once we get those up, space
is just a rather tedious lift journey straight up and down. No doubt the
first guys to build 'em will do about as well as the Channel Tunnel
folks, but when their initial bonds collapse and they go bankrupt, costs
to orbit will fall dramatically. After that, the solar system is our
oyster.

The galaxy will take a little longer. Space between stars really is
kinda big.

FoFP

.

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