The case for an economy in space

[DBowman]

re 'don't use a 1997 study because solar gen component prices are dropping'

• I cannot yet find a more recent one
  
• The study authors may well have tried to include the effect, since it's a long term project and they'd be aware of the price dynamics
  
• if only the price and not the mass of the solar gen drops then it probably has only a small down effect on the orbital solar cost estimates since launch costs are so high
  
• if they just used 1997 solar gen prices then it disadvantages 1997 proposed space vs actual built or more recently predicted terrestrial installations
  
• I think if a 1997 orbital proposal looks good today it would still look good if 'redone today', if a 1997 orbital proposal does not look good today it still might improve if redone with updated solar tech.
  

You dont need to assume nothing, in the wiki said that the average annual production expected is 1100GW, the value that you have for the 2014 is maybe because the farm was not completed, this one was finished the same year.

What is Sun disk? I found nothing in internet.. I am almost sure that this estimation is wrong, but I need to know what are you specific talking about first.

sorry I meant SolarDisk from that paper I referenced (http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/1997-Mankins-FreshLookAtSpaceSolarPower.pdf)

Ah I didn't notice that 1100GWh (giga watt hours) in the text. I'd used 1000 GWh in my calcs. Also I should have included the effect of inflation since 1997.

8760 hours per year => Topaz achieved a power generation rate of 126 MW each hour.

SolarDisk set of 6 satellites was rated at 30GW = 30,000 MW = 238 Topaz installations.

SolarDisk all up cost = 294 B USD 2015 (200 B USD 1997 adjusted by 1.47 for inflation since then)

vs

238 * Topaz 2.5 B = 595 B USD

so Topaz actual built Earth solar plant is about twice as expensive as proposed SolarDisk orbital power station?

Edited July 28, 2015 by DBowman

[Rakaydos]

Yes, and building an artificial island, or floating barges covered with solar panels is still cheaper than boosting half of those solar panels to 27000 km/h and building an artificial island covered with microwave receivers.

Which does what, exactly, on a cloudy day?

20 hours a day of predictable output is better than the same potential amount of enviromentally variable power.

[peadar1987]

Which does what, exactly, on a cloudy day?

20 hours a day of predictable output is better than the same potential amount of enviromentally variable power.

Not when it costs a stupid amount to install.

I haven't crunched the numbers, but I'm willing to bet that developing big pumped storage schemes is more economical than putting solar panels in space.

As for platinum asteroids, I would have thought that any company that could capture one would just go full De Beers, releasing platinum at just high enough of a rate to force all their competitors out of business. Then use the ensuing monopoly to ensure steady profits for centuries. If you can afford the up-front cost (probably several billion to redirect a decent-sized asteroid), the long-term payoff would be worth it.

Edit: Of course, this would only work once, and is hardly the basis for a large-scale space economy.

[Akronymus]

The one economy i expect to be one of the most likely, is debris collection. But if, then after others are already established. My reasoning is, that the more humans are colonizing/utilizing space/low earth orbit, the more debris will build up, and at a certain point the launch windows narrow down because of it.

Do you ppl think that this is plausible too?

[55delta]

And here are some more comparative figures I missed earlier

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taichung_Power_Plant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuoketuo_Power_Station

http://www.synapse-energy.com/project/coal-fired-power-plant-construction-costs

Coal

Taichung Power Plant, Construction cost: estimated over $2.5 billion, Combined output: 5.8 GW

Tuoketuo Power Station, Construction cost: unknown, Combined output: 6.6 GW

Also I ran across a seven year-old rough estimate that constructing a new coal power plant cost $3,500 a KW, although the price per GW is likely a bit higher than that.

I couldn't really run across any cost estimates for constructing natural gas power plants, so I didn't include them.

However, I think I still need to research one vital piece before I say anything else on orbital solar power. What do we know about transmitting electricity?

[DBowman]

I think we should not compare with coal, if global warming is true as 99% of climate scientists think then we have more coal stations that we should be using now and need to 10 or 20 x our power production - coal cannot get us there.

The 1997 study I cited earlier included the orbit to earth leg of power transmission. I compared their SolarDisk proposal with currently operational Topaz solar PV plant in California - SolarDisk looked to be half the cost per GW.

They don't really give you the model they used though - so it'd take some leg work to get at details.

At least 'proposed space solar' = 0.5 * 'actual built terrestrial solar' means the space option is not on the face of it ridiculous and deserves proper detailed consideration. So far it seems the only immediate contender for 'what can space sell earth'. Rare elements and LEO consumables are all 'future contenders', comms and science we are already doing, for sure there could be opportunity to 'go bigger'. Did I miss another 'immediate' possibility?

[AngelLestat]

re 'don't use a 1997 study because solar gen component prices are dropping'

• I cannot yet find a more recent one
  
• The study authors may well have tried to include the effect, since it's a long term project and they'd be aware of the price dynamics
  
• if only the price and not the mass of the solar gen drops then it probably has only a small down effect on the orbital solar cost estimates since launch costs are so high
  
• if they just used 1997 solar gen prices then it disadvantages 1997 proposed space vs actual built or more recently predicted terrestrial installations
  
• I think if a 1997 orbital proposal looks good today it would still look good if 'redone today', if a 1997 orbital proposal does not look good today it still might improve if redone with updated solar tech.
  

sorry I meant SolarDisk from that paper I referenced (http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/1997-Mankins-FreshLookAtSpaceSolarPower.pdf)

so Topaz actual built Earth solar plant is about twice as expensive as proposed SolarDisk orbital power station?

No, you can not be guide by that study, there are many things that ignores as power transmission and also make the best cost assumptions for launch (as it will were full reusable).

It does not have into account maintenance from what I read.. and many other things..

It also assume huge cost reductions by mass production..

Here you have a book from 2014 on space based solar power.

http://es.scribd.com/doc/216866353/The-Case-for-Space-Solar-power-Mankins-2014#scribd

There are many drawback that needs to be solve before even think in space solar power.

1: Transmission.. today we can only reach 30% to 40% of efficiency in the transmission, this mean that you not only lose the extra 60%, it also means that your radiators needs to be much bigger to release all that waste heat, so all the benefics in get 10 times more solar power you are wasting in transmission.

But well, they said that 60% of efficiency is achievable in the next 10 years.

2: You need some way to focus that energy to a small area in earth, that small area will be no less than 5km, in fact in the books they talk about 10 km diameter, that is a lot of anteenas.. and a huge increase of cost.

3: what happen with the sats under the beam? that is other thing that needs to be solve.

4: lifetime and survival of all components in space.. PV last 10 times less in space unless they are specially designed, which increase the cost 10 times.

There are some good ideas of how to manage some things, one is using solar sails as mirrors to concentrate the light, this will be a very light and effective way, but you need to deal with scattering which is very hard. The benefic of solar sails that you may build this thing in low orbit and then use this huge sail mirrors to reach GEO with solar pressure.

China and Japan are looking serious into this, some think that it can be launched in 2025, others in 2050.

Is something to take into account, but not just yet.

The one economy i expect to be one of the most likely, is debris collection. But if, then after others are already established. My reasoning is, that the more humans are colonizing/utilizing space/low earth orbit, the more debris will build up, and at a certain point the launch windows narrow down because of it.

Do you ppl think that this is plausible too?

I mention a system to allow this here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129677-The-case-for-an-economy-in-space?p=2103408&viewfull=1#post2103408

But I will need to make some graphics because it will not be easy to understand..

And here are some more comparative figures I missed earlier

Taichung Power Plant, Construction cost: estimated over $2.5 billion, Combined output: 5.8 GW

Tuoketuo Power Station, Construction cost: unknown, Combined output: 6.6 GW

Also I ran across a seven year-old rough estimate that constructing a new coal power plant cost $3,500 a KW, although the price per GW is likely a bit higher than that.

I couldn't really run across any cost estimates for constructing natural gas power plants, so I didn't include them.

However, I think I still need to research one vital piece before I say anything else on orbital solar power. What do we know about transmitting electricity?

Those values are pointless because you are ignoring the fuel cost and many other costs.

To compare different types of energy the value that you need to look up is the levalized cost, which takes into account almost all, like investment, lifetime, capacity factor, maintainence, fuel, etc.

http://www.lazard.com/media/1777/levelized_cost_of_energy_-_version_80.pdf

[DBowman]

No, you can not be guide by that study, there are many things that ignores as power transmission and also make the best cost assumptions for launch (as it will were full reusable).

It does not have into account maintenance from what I read.. and many other things..

It explicitly covers the space-earth power transmission leg. I believe the point of the study was to encompass the full economic cost including maintenance and lifetime. They quoted USD 400 per kg launches - double SpaceX goal cost, so really now in 1015 their launch cost estimates look conservative. If you have a specific issues with their figures for transmission, maintenance etc you should specifically address them.

It also assume huge cost reductions by mass production..

right ... that's part of their proposal - modular design with in-orbit rendezvous and dock assembly reduced cost by simplifying in orbit assembly and allowing mass production rather than the usual space program artisanal approach.

Here you have a book from 2014 on space based solar power.

http://es.scribd.com/doc/216866353/The-Case-for-Space-Solar-power-Mankins-2014#scribd

There are many drawback that needs to be solve before even think in space solar power.

thanks I'll give it a read. I'm sure there are many issues to solve, one first has to decide if it's worth solving them. I think these studies are about deciding if it's worth trying to get the engineering issues solved. The Earth side solar Topaz costing double the orbital SolarDisk proposal seems to say it's worth looking deeper.

China and Japan are looking serious into this, some think that it can be launched in 2025, others in 2050.

Is something to take into account, but not just yet.

that's good - are you only considering things that can happen in under ten years? - I think we need a longer planing horizon. Can you see anything that space can sell earth that can be developed in under ten year?

I mention a system to allow this here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129677-The-case-for-an-economy-in-space?p=2103408&viewfull=1#post2103408

I'd consider that an extension of the kind of things we do now (science and sats). More of the same but bigger is okay, but we are also looking for the next new stuff.

To compare different types of energy the value that you need to look up is the levalized cost, which takes into account almost all, like investment, lifetime, capacity factor, maintainence, fuel, etc.

http://www.lazard.com/media/1777/levelized_cost_of_energy_-_version_80.pdf

I'll read the referenced doc, for sure some net present value of the total economic inputs and outputs is required. Edited July 29, 2015 by DBowman

[zxczxczbfg]

A freefall environment would allow the growth of absolutely perfect single crystal substances; this could have implications for electronics, among other industries.

[Nibb31]

A freefall environment would allow the growth of absolutely perfect single crystal substances; this could have implications for electronics, among other industries.

Yes, space manufacturing is one activity that has been mentioned.

I don't see them building huge orbital factories though. The most likely way to benefit from microgravity manufacturing would be to use something like an unmanned DragonLab, X-37B or DreamChaser loaded with automated manufacturing equipment on board. Launch, grow crystals, return, rinse and repeat.

It hasn't really been taken up by the industry though, which means that industry isn't really that interested. Would they be more interested if prices came down? Nobody really knows, but SpaceX already offers DragonLab as a commercial service and corporations aren't exactly queuing up to buy tickets yet.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Nibb31

[shynung]

I don't see them building huge orbital factories though. The most likely way to benefit from microgravity manufacturing would be to use something like an unmanned DragonLab, X-37B or DreamChaser loaded with automated manufacturing equipment on board. Launch, grow crystals, return, rinse and repeat.

Somewhat inefficient. Cargo capacity of the vehicle (say, Dragon) has to be shared between production equipment and feedstock/product. Great for limited production quantities, but not very useful if one wants mass-production capabilities, even small-scale.

A more likely scenario for orbital mass production would be to launch one Dragon filled with more production equipment, but no feedstock. Instead, a second Dragon docks in carrying feedstock a bit later, and stays docked while its cargo bay is slowly depleted of feedstock, and filled with products. When the second Dragon is filled with products, it undocks and deorbits; at the same time, a third Dragon goes into RDV with the first Dragon, carrying another load of feedstock, and docks not long after the second Dragon undocks. The cycle then repeats.

Though, I agree that nobody has taken up this kind of offer yet. Most likely, we'll see manufacturing tests using Dragon with shared feedstock-equipment at first to test viability, then move on to multi-vehicle setup when it's time to scale up.

[SomeGuy12]

A freefall environment would allow the growth of absolutely perfect single crystal substances; this could have implications for electronics, among other industries.

From what I've read, with microwave vapor deposition and a good vacuum chamber on Earth, you can do the same thing. Including growing plates of diamond. Problem is high cost, and going to space won't help...

[Rune]

Hey, a thread on the use of space! Yes, this is a very interesting question. Namely, because there are a lot of misconceptions and the sheer range of the argument usually makes people mix up their timeframes.

First, let's clear the air on some things. I'm very dubious that solar power stations for ground use will ever be a serious thing. Too many issues when you look close at it besides cost, like garbage or simply available space on geosync, and it is probably not neccesary, so we'll crack the sustainable energy generation problem some other way for the foreseeable future. I'm also very dubious the most commented-about schemes of asteroid mining ever work out, like platinum mining. Like people have said, they would crash any market if they had to pay back their infrastructure costs. Just my humble opinions there, being realistic.

And yet, I think that the economical case for space is immediately obvious, and undeniably true: Earth's resource base is limited, and we are already running against some of its limits. Consider the mid to long term future. With a population of, say, 50 billion, how the hell do you give everybody a car? Or a house? How about with 500 billion? Do we all live as moles under the ground on closed ecologies to preserve some semblance of biosphere under our heads? So, I don't care what the costs of setting up in space are, or the technological challenges: either we want to keep growing our population like we have always done since the paleolithic and settle in space, or we stay stagnant on Earth until our eventual extinction.

Of course you also have to consider that we have little conscious control on our growth, and we seem to be very bad at thinking about the environmental consequences, mid to long term, of the actions we undertake to survive and thrive in the near term. If you throw that into the equation, I can come up with an economical case for space: environmental cost. The environmental cost of ground-based activities will continue to rise in the future as the energy consumption per capita and the total population grows. At some point, it will be cheaper to settle space and eventually supply Earth from off-world resources... or we will have to stop growing before that, one way or another, and that is going to be painful (as in, war and calamities, maybe extinction).

In the meantime and short term, there are markets that could keep on making technological progress happen, until the cost/benefit makes viable the ultimate goal of a space-based primary economy. Commsats are the first and already proven, but I really think tourism can work, and scientific data, even though we don't pay for it directly, also has value, otherwise we wouldn't fund university R&D, for example. And you can't buy the kind of wows Curiosity or Rosetta create any other way, so governments will continue to be a stable market. Ditto for defense spending, of course, that is only going up with the budget.

Rune. I prefer a future where we preserve Earth's biosphere and keep on expanding, any day of the week.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Rune

[AngelLestat]

It explicitly covers the space-earth power transmission leg. I believe the point of the study was to encompass the full economic cost including maintenance and lifetime. They quoted USD 400 per kg launches - double SpaceX goal cost, so really now in 1015 their launch cost estimates look conservative. If you have a specific issues with their figures for transmission, maintenance etc you should specifically address them.

But with simple math there are many things that does not match..

-PV lifetime, if you want to achieve the same lifetime than in earth, you need to pay 5 to 10 times more or find another way to solve that problem.

-transmission loses, if the main goal with geo solar power is to get 10 times more power, then is a bit pointless if you waste a 60% of that power. But by other hand, your power is more predictive so that is a bonus.

All the saves in ground transmission, sun-tracker devices, solid structures against wind or hail that you dont need in space, are also lost by all the extra components you need in space, as a huge microwave emmiter, a lot of radiators, ground antennas, etc.

But well, if we solve many of those drawbacks and we include different desgins as solar sails mirrors to eliminate the need to many PV, then for sure it will have sense.. but we are not close to that yet. It needs more research.

that's good - are you only considering things that can happen in under ten years? - I think we need a longer planing horizon. Can you see anything that space can sell earth that can be developed in under ten year?

Yeah, in theory they can, we just need to see if those drawbacks can be solved.. or how much time it will take..

From what I've read, with microwave vapor deposition and a good vacuum chamber on Earth, you can do the same thing. Including growing plates of diamond. Problem is high cost, and going to space won't help...

Yeah, but is not the same, you dont get the same quality, when you are talking of graphene or other nano structures which the quality is important in the outcome properties, the value increase much more.

I'm also very dubious the most commented-about schemes of asteroid mining ever work out, like platinum mining. Like people have said, they would crash any market if they had to pay back their infrastructure costs. Just my humble opinions there, being realistic.

That will be you and Nibb31 only, from what I can count in this topic and the other platinum topic.

I as many others, we explain already why the price will not crash.

Of course you also have to consider that we have little conscious control on our growth, and we seem to be very bad at thinking about the environmental consequences, mid to long term, of the actions we undertake to survive and thrive in the near term. If you throw that into the equation, I can come up with an economical case for space: environmental cost. The environmental cost of ground-based activities will continue to rise in the future as the energy consumption per capita and the total population grows. At some point, it will be cheaper to settle space and eventually supply Earth from off-world resources... or we will have to stop growing before that, one way or another, and that is going to be painful (as in, war and calamities, maybe extinction).

Is not just that, each time you need to remove hundreds of extra m3 of ground to get the same weight on minerals.

That is extra energy and resources spent that takes us to an inflection point where it will be more easy to get that stuff from space than from earth, more if launch cost keeps dropping.

This happen with all technologies, wind and solar reach their inflection point where now are almost more cheap than fossil fuels, because each time cost more money to extract oil and less money to make wind turbines.

But wind turbines was in use way before they had economical sense. If you dont prepare the path to the change, it will reach a point where all the world will face an economic collapse, because you need to leave fossil fuels but you dont have any alternative.

So even if something is not cost efficient right now, it will be a good investment if you know that is the path that the world will transit some day, so you can charge for patents or technology already develope by you.

Edited July 29, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Nibb31]

And yet, I think that the economical case for space is immediately obvious, and undeniably true: Earth's resource base is limited, and we are already running against some of its limits. Consider the mid to long term future. With a population of, say, 50 billion, how the hell do you give everybody a car? Or a house? How about with 500 billion? Do we all live as moles under the ground on closed ecologies to preserve some semblance of biosphere under our heads? So, I don't care what the costs of setting up in space are, or the technological challenges: either we want to keep growing our population like we have always done since the paleolithic and settle in space, or we stay stagnant on Earth until our eventual extinction.

In that eventuality, we would be better off stopping our population growth. There is no logical reason to keep on expanding to a population of 50 billion or more, and I'm not sure that expanding in space colonies does anything to improve quality of life. A far more clever way to sustain development is to reduce population levels to a couple of billion. Distributing contraceptives and educating women over several generations is much cheaper than setting up space colonies.

[Rakaydos]

In that eventuality, we would be better off stopping our population growth. There is no logical reason to keep on expanding to a population of 50 billion or more, and I'm not sure that expanding in space colonies does anything to improve quality of life. A far more clever way to sustain development is to reduce population levels to a couple of billion. Distributing contraceptives and educating women over several generations is much cheaper than setting up space colonies.

Is it? I mean, I definately agree that if you had to ship each piece of every space colony to orbit from earth, World Peace would be easier to accomplish. But after a certian point, it's better to have built infrastructure for space developent than ship everything up anyway.

A nearside lunar elevator with automated mining base feels to me like the "entry level" to sustainable space development. it's expensive to build, but cheaper than world peace would be... and once it's online, you can start bootstrapping yourself to better space infrastructure with "dirt" cheap lunar building materials.

[crazyewok]

• 
  [
  
• Biological research (without fear of dooming earth when a vicious microbe escapes) for pharmaceutical companies
  

O hell no!

I have enough trouble dealing with Cat 3 Organisms on earth with Gravity! Dealing with Cat 3 or worse cat 4's floating about in Zero G is the stuff of Microbiologist nightmares. Just keeping things aseptic would be a pain. I like my lab and workstation stationary and stable. The though of scalpels and needles floating about too gives me shivers.....

[Kinglet]

O hell no!

I have enough trouble dealing with Cat 3 Organisms on earth with Gravity! Dealing with Cat 3 or worse cat 4's floating about in Zero G is the stuff of Microbiologist nightmares. Just keeping things aseptic would be a pain. I like my lab and workstation stationary and stable. The though of scalpels and needles floating about too gives me shivers.....

Rotating habitats don't help either as they have weird Coriolis forces when rotating, so don't be suprised when you hand sways around randomly while you lift it.

[crazyewok]

Rotating habitats don't help either as they have weird Coriolis forces when rotating, so don't be suprised when you hand sways around randomly while you lift it.

Swaying hands are the last ting you need when plating.

Call be old fashioned and a kill joy but I think I prefer my Lab down here on earth

[DBowman]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/japanese-company-to-age-whisky-in-space-1.2497981

[juanml82]

No we don't. The first time we send astronauts back to the Moon we'll have a self-replicating factory for them to operate. So what if it takes 50 years to get there? It makes technical and economic sense. We absolutely can develop such technology with the raw materials already present on earth. We can send lightweight robot probes to study our solar system in the meantime, and stay in low earth orbit until it makes economic sense to go elsewhere.

A self replicating factory - note there's intermediate versions of it, basically a roomful of 3d printers and CNC machines that need a constant supply of tiny high end parts like ball bearings and microchips - also makes the rockets to do all this a lot cheaper as well.

Ok. You win ten lotteries at once and become a billionaire. You look for something that can be manufactured at the Moon. Ideally, something light and valuable. Let's say (and I don't know) that manufacturing microchips in the Moon is, from an engineering viewpoint, feasible. You take your newly found fortune, you buy AMD and you move the factories to self replicating factories in the Moon's South Pole. And you begin to manufacture microchips.

Now, here's the problem: all your customers are on Earth. A reusable vehicle would have to be able to return to the Moon from the Earth. It's cheaper to build, at the Moon, a vehicle that would go to Earth and doesn't return, specially if you also build a space elevator at the Moon. But that means you loose your freighter every time you send a shipment back to Earth.

In the meantime your competition, Intel, continues to manufacture their products from their factory in Costa Rica, aka, the country next to Panama and its canal. From there, they ship worldwide with ships, which are several orders of magnitude cheaper than a disposable Moon-to-Earth spaceship and are, well, reusable.

How does Space AMD competes with Ground Based Intel under such conditions?

And yet, I think that the economical case for space is immediately obvious, and undeniably true: Earth's resource base is limited, and we are already running against some of its limits. Consider the mid to long term future. With a population of, say, 50 billion, how the hell do you give everybody a car? Or a house? How about with 500 billion? Do we all live as moles under the ground on closed ecologies to preserve some semblance of biosphere under our heads? So, I don't care what the costs of setting up in space are, or the technological challenges: either we want to keep growing our population like we have always done since the paleolithic and settle in space, or we stay stagnant on Earth until our eventual extinction.

The world's population will stabilize by the 2050s or so. It will not reach 50 billion, let alone 500 billion.

The one economic activity that can take place in space is tourism for billionaires. Maybe, if the sabre engine works, launch costs will drop for light payloads. But that's about it. Real life isn't Firefly - space is a terribly hostile environment, extremely expensive to reach and which isn't commercially viable. Even if someone could make the point of (somehow) manufacturing spaceships in space so they don't need to get out of the Earth's gravity well, that still begs the question of who's buying those ships.

And sorry, no, no NASA. Space agencies work as a way for the State to directly invest in strategic, highly valuable manufacturing which produces a lot of jobs and boosts the countries economies (as well as providing a front for military research and procurement - it's easier to tell the world that your country is developing a civilian, peaceful, rocket to put satellites in LEO than to announce an ICBM program). Take away the economy boosting effect of space programs by moving manufacturing to places where the country nationals won't be working, and that space agency has just lost a huge reason to invest that money.

[prophet_01]

Be carefull about those population asumptions. There is no way to predict how much genetic engineering and vertical agriculture might extend earth's capacities. Not to mention technologies like fusion energy that might or might not be a thing in 50 years.

I doubt that technological advancement will stop anytime soon. So a definite qnd static maximum population doesn't sound too realistic to me if it's not enforced by goverments.

Back on topic. With current launch costs it's not likely to get a micro gravity production to break even or generate a profit. The logistical costs are too high for now. But if you go back a couple of centuries, that was also true for the global supply chains and trade that is common today. It's mostly a question of infrastructure.

My best guess is that the next big business after space tourism for a rather small group of people will be in providing orbital infrastructure.

Providing fuel in orbit looks like the first step here. If you can mine fuel on the moon or asteroids and bring it to LEO, odds are good that someone is going to buy it as long as you can beat the costs of launching it directly from earths. This might be possible with mostly reusable and unmaned vessels. It's a much simpler business compared to actually constructing stations or vessels in space.

Edited August 2, 2015 by prophet_01

[juanml82]

Back on topic. With current launch costs it's not likely to get a micro gravity production to break even or generate a profit. The logistical costs are too high for now. But if you go back a couple of centuries, that was also true for the global supply chains and trade that is common today. It's mostly a question of infrastructure.

My best guess is that the next big business after space tourism for a rather small group of people will be in providing orbital infrastructure.

This happened because of the invention of the internal combustion engine. And while medieval peasants couldn't imagine it, well educated men could have read about the theory of a steam machine, which is a first step towards the internal combustion engine, but wasn't feasible because of the poor metallurgy of the period (ie, boilers made with medieval steel would have exploded).

There doesn't seem to be a similar, and safe, breakthrough technology for putting stuff in LEO like the internal combustion engine did for land and sea transportation

Providing fuel in orbit looks like the first step here. If you can mine fuel on the moon or asteroids and bring it to LEO, odds are good that someone is going to buy it as long as you can beat the costs of launching it directly from earths. This might be possible with mostly reusable and unmaned vessels. It's a much simpler business compared to actually constructing stations or vessels in space.

And who is going to buy it? There are no commercial endeavours beyond GEO and if you made it to LEO, getting to GEO isn't that far away, so RV with a tanker in LEO to refuel to get to GEO might simply not be worth the hassle and cost.

[Rakaydos]

And who is going to buy it? There are no commercial endeavours beyond GEO and if you made it to LEO, getting to GEO isn't that far away, so RV with a tanker in LEO to refuel to get to GEO might simply not be worth the hassle and cost.

If a company is setting up a lunar fuel extraction base, they will be in the market for lunar transfer ships- being able to pay for their own fuel brings the cost down. Since "Expand or die" is a general corprate thing, expanding to other kinds of lunar manufacturing seems inevitable. Want a jupiter probe? We can build it for you on the moon for a fraction of the launch price!

[juanml82]

If a company is setting up a lunar fuel extraction base, they will be in the market for lunar transfer ships- being able to pay for their own fuel brings the cost down. Since "Expand or die" is a general corprate thing, expanding to other kinds of lunar manufacturing seems inevitable. Want a jupiter probe? We can build it for you on the moon for a fraction of the launch price!

And why would they set a lunar fuel extraction base? Who are they going to be selling that fuel to?