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But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources a
by simion314 8y ago
But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff.
The main obstacle a colony will have is the initial buildings/bunker with all the life support and safety tech, plus extra redundancy and a backup plan if something bad happens there or on Earth .
If the colony would manage to generate enough oxygen,food, water and energy for itself that is the important first step. Next step would probably be producing the heavy parts they need for expansions like metal or similar solid materials for walls and machinery, the lighter parts could be sent from Earth.
- worldsayshi 8y agoSure, becoming 100% self sufficient wouldn't be a reasonable short term goal but I can't imagine there being any product worth trading in the long term over such distance and given such cost for logistics?
- wefarrell 8y agoTourism will probably be the first private industry.
- stubish 8y agoMaybe nothing worth shipping back to earth, but perhaps resources for shipping to orbit. Fuel, space ship components, or entire ships or satellites. If nothing else, there is real estate. Might not be worth much, but there is a lot of it.
- A2017U1 8y ago> Maybe nothing worth shipping back to earth Helium 3 is certainly worth shipping even at a premium.
- vkou 8y agoMoon-mined Helium 3 is currently a non-solution in search of a problem.
- RobLach 8y agoUnless there are widespread helium-3 fusion reactors, the demand for it is about $2000/liter for mostly scientific and imaging purposes. Even then it’s a sort of a niche driven price since when the US was willing to bother decaying tritium for it it was like $100 a liter. Making a helium-3 fusion reactor is a tougher problem than mining on the moon. And even then making helium-3 on earth is cheaper than going to the moon to mine it. Mining the moon for Helium-3 would be something someone would do once a colony is established, not a reason to establish one. Probably the most lucrative thing to mine on the moon is water.
- pfisch 8y agoI imagine people used to think that when it was France trading with China beyond things exclusively in China like silk. Prices go down over time. Also it might be worth it for gold.
- richardknop 8y agoWater possibly could be of great value in the future? Moon has plenty of drinking water. Maybe gold, not sure if there’s gold on the Moon?
- krisoft 8y agoWhat happened here on earth in your imagined scenario where it's worth importing water from the moon? (and how did we survive that long enough for a market to develop?)
- dotancohen 8y agoTo be fair, I hesitate to spend €1 on a liter of spring water today. However for a single drop of moon water I might trade my car, sex, or significant work. Refined aluminum was once scarcer than gold, and aluminum jewelry was extraordinarily expensive.
- lawlessone 8y agoDesalination is expensive but i think it might be cheaper than moon water.
- aristophenes 8y agoI was about to upvote you, then realized desalinization is not even expensive anymore. Shipping water from the moon to earth is just a really really bad idea. Ha, even burning the fuels to send the rockets into space would create more water here on earth than we could bring back. Fuel + Oxygen --> carbon dioxide + water
- pjc50 8y agoAh yes, the entirely viable project of moving water from a bone dry vacuum rock to a planet 2/3 covered by water. I'm not sure it would be viable to return gold from the moon even if the moon was made of solid gold.
- richardknop 8y ago
- gaius 8y agoHe3 would be a very profitable export for the moon if we ever develop commercial fusion power on Earth
- barry-cotter 8y agoWe put helium in children’s balloons and it’s down here with us at the bottom of the gravity well. It’s cheaper to refine the Earth’s helium than import it from the moon. And we have no use for Helium 3 now nor for the next 30 years. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshine.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshin... > Firstly, nobody's built a commercially successful fusion reactor yet. ITER plan to build a working test-bed; it's logical successor would be a working prototype first generation power reactor. There are huge obstacles to overcome, not least in developing neutron capture techniques and breeding D/T fuel. These are engineering problems (sorry, annoying paywall) and theoretically amenable to solution — but at a price of billions of euros and decades of work, and even then, it may turn out to be too costly to be a viable competitor for well-understood fourth generation fission technology and a mature waste disposal/fuel recycling chain. And that's before we look to a speculative second generation reactor, running on a different type of fuel, that — because of the higher Coulomb barrier between He nuclei — requires a far higher temperature (on the order of 500M to 1Bn degrees celsius, rather than the relatively chilly 100M degrees C required for D/T fusion). > Given the average generation time for a new reactor technology of 20-30 years, and development costs on the order of $50Bn-100Bn per generation, we won't be even thinking about prototyping an He3 reactor until 2060 at the earliest.
- gaius 8y agoLooks like we both touched a nerve there but I’ve no idea why!
- simion314 8y agoI imagine that in the beginning you will have mostly scientific facilities , like telescopes on the dark side of the moon(you will need scientist, technicians and other stuff around this big telescopes). There could also be facilities for experiments that can't be done on Earth, like things that can grow better on low gravity, there may be materials/gases that are rare on Earth and we could grab from asteroids so having space stations and bases around the solar system would be helpful.
- KMag 8y ago> the dark side of the moon BTW, this isn't a real thing
- dragonwriter 8y ago> BTW, this isn't a real thing Yes, the dark side of the Moon is a real thing. It's the side that doesn't get Earth-lit nights.
- thebluehawk 8y agoThat's an odd convoluted definition that I've never heard of before. I think the point the other poster was making is that "far side of the moon" is far more specific, accurate and useful term.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> That's an odd convoluted definition that I've never heard of before It's a “definition” in the sense that it is a description semantically equivalent to what the phrase “dark side of the moon” has always referred to; it is not, however, a description of the etymology of the term, which derives instead from the long established use of “dark” to mean mysterious, hidden from knowledge, obscure, occult, etc.
- mLuby 8y agoIn this case, silent side of the moon is more useful, since that's why it's so attractive to scientists.
- kamaal 8y agoThat's the same dilemma some one making a new car like Tesla has to face. So you first make something the rich people want. Like luxury residences in spaces, Elysium like. Like really really affluent neighborhoods for ultra rich. Tourism is another part. Make people go to space, stay for a few earth-days, have them see some spectacular astronomical phenomenon. Sky size theaters, Toy space shuttles like we have dashing cars, Disney land like attractions etc etc. The other part of course is permanent science labs, where you do high quality research and development. Something like the Large Hadron Collider takes a lot of real estate and resources on earth to build. Eventually that kind of work can be done in space. That will make a lot of smart people want to work in space. Of course since resources are plenty in space, and energy is just pointing you array of panels at sun. I'm guessing due to the economics of it, a lot of other people might want to stay and work there. Like electricity strapped countries, might want to manufacture in space. The use cases are endless that way. Eventually you extend it to everybody else.
- BurningFrog 8y ago> over such distance and given such cost The moon is just a few days away. The costs are not a given. With new better tech, then can come waay down. Also note that the freight ships need not be manned.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoThe most obvious trading I can imagine would be selling in-orbit manufacturing of spacecraft and space facilities to planet-based interests, in exchange for hi-tech electronics and food.
- standerman 8y agodigital entertainment
- richmarr 8y agoOne of the reasons to establish off-world colonies is to allow persistence of the species in the event of a catastrophy making the Earth unlivable. Given the history of extinction events found in archaeology this isn't an entirely unreasonable thing to plan for. In that frame, a colony that can't survive (or has a reduced chance of survival) is of lower utility than one that can be effectively independent.
- bayesian_horse 8y agoAs far as I know, Humans need lots of gravity to develop, so any settlement could not reproduce, at least until means to counteract the effects of microgravity are discovered.
- kamaal 8y agoYou spin your O'Neill cylinders, that's how you get gravity.
- bayesian_horse 8y agoO'Neill cylinders don't work on the moon.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago"Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on the moon with Dad?" "Now, Billy, you know your bones and brain need at least .85G to develop properly. You can go live with Dad when you turn 16."
- TeMPOraL 8y agoWould be more worried about this eventually happening the other way around. "Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on Earth with Dad?" "Now, Billy, you know your bones and muscles are used to lunar 0.16G, and won't support your body in full 1G. Your heart isn't strong enough for those conditions either." See also: Belters from The Expanse.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoYup, also Andy Weir's Artemis, and to a lesser degree Larry Niven's everyone-except-Jinxians.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoAlso the anime Planetes had touched this topic, AFAIR.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago>>But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff. Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith &c. To ALL to whom these Presents shall come, greeting:.....The Moon Trading Company : ) They need a way to get pure vitamins, fat etc and then mix them on the Moon. Live on shakes or something at least until all is solved.
- cpeterso 8y agoRobert Heinlein's novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress has a lot to say about a space colony (in this case, on the moon) depending on resources from Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress
- zokier 8y agoYou can ship a 40ft container with about 25t capacity for about $2000-$5000 between any major ports on Earth, and probably for even less for bigger volumes. SpaceX BFR has about 100t capacity to Mars. While the total cost of a Mars mission has not been publicized, I suspect it would be fair bit more than $20k. Biggest container ships these days carry about 20k TEU, or about 500000 tons of cargo. You can try putting that number to the rocket equation just for fun.
- ryanmercer 8y ago>SpaceX BFR has about 100t capacity to Mars. While the total cost of a Mars mission has not been publicized, I suspect it would be fair bit more than $20k. While we don't have SpaceX numbers, Zubrin said in 2012 that if given to NASA Mars Direct (A Mars proposal from 1990-1991, updated in 1996 in Zubrin's book The Case for Mars) would cost 30-50 billion but a private company could do it for around 5bn. That still put you at several million dollars per metric ton delivered to the Martian surface BUT that included all design and administrative costs. You can see some of the Mars Direct figures here http://www.astronautix.com/m/marsdirect.html http://www.astronautix.com/m/marsdirect.html We also know what SpaceX quotes 90 million dollars for 16.8 metric tons to Mars with Falcon heavy which puts us at 5.35 million dollars per ton which is already quite a bit cheaper than the most optimistic Mars Direct figures. https://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities https://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities BFR should be able to do way better than that if it ever becomes a viable system.
- zaroth 8y agoDoes Mars make a particularly good outpost for asteroid mining with its much lower gravity well, and the fact that if you fuck up and de-orbit an asteroid you’re not potentially destroying a large swath of populated land below? There may be refining steps which you would want to do on the surface vs in orbit, and getting the raw ore down and refined product back up would be substantially cheaper on Mars. Probably it wouldn’t be worth building a colony in the first place for just this economic benefit, but once you have the colony, you can exploit this advantage?